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SLSA Fact Sheet No. 1October 2005What is Surf Life Saving Australia?Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) is Australia’s major water safety and rescue authority and isone of the largest volunteer organisations in the country. Our mission is “to provide a safebeach and aquatic environment throughout Australia.”SLSA and its state centres provide patrol services on around 300 of the 11,011 1 beachesaround Australia’s 36,735 2 km of coastline.In addition to this core service and responsibility, SLSA also contributes to the community by:• Training volunteer surf lifesavers and lifeguards to undertake rescues, administer firstaid and take preventative actions to keep our beaches safe;• Developing and implementing community and school education programs, including toregional and rural communities.• Providing helicopter, jet and offshore rescue boat services;• Collecting and maintaining a database of geographical conditions, wave action andhazard ratings on all beaches in Australia;• Developing an understanding of beach safety by maintaining a database of all coastaldrownings, major incidents and first aid treatments attended by SLSA lifesavers orlifeguards;• Managing and delivering surf sports events, including the Australian Surf Life SavingChampionships.SLSA is a volunteer organisation and our services are provided by surf lifesavers whocomplete surf patrols in their own time – usually a half-day patrol every 2 to 3 weeks. Our totalmembership of more than 113,000 is spread across 304 affiliated surf lifesaving clubs in everyAustralian state and the Northern Territory. Of these, around 34,000 actively patrol ourbeaches.In the 2004/05 season, our volunteer members were involved in 12,232 rescues, taking tomore than 500,000 the total number of lives saved since the formation of the original surflifesaving association in 1907. Surf lifesavers also provided 28,621 first aid services andundertook 252,864 preventative actions during the season.SLSA provides around 70 per cent of professional lifeguard services contracted to local councilor resort operators. In 2004/05, Australian Lifeguard Service (ALS) lifeguards were involved in2,369 rescues, 9,028 first aid treatments and 291,925 preventative actions.Surf Life Saving Australia is a charity and relies on the generous support of the public and oursponsors – DHL, Telstra, Insurance Australia Group (through its various brands – NRMAInsurance, SGIC & SGIO), Kellogg Australia, Yamaha, Westpac (through the Life SaverRescue Helicopters), Willow Ware, Nivea - and the Australian Government.In 2007, SLSA will celebrate one hundred years since the formation of the Surf BathingAssociation of NSW. The Federal Government has declared that 2007 will be officially knownas The Year of the Surf Lifesaver, in commemoration of this milestone.www.slsa.asn.au1Surf Life Saving Australia, Australian Beach Safety and Management Program. Includes 721 ocean beaches in NSW, 692 ocean and PtPhillip Bay beaches in Vic and 1600 mainland beaches in Qld.2Department of the Environment, Sports and Territories, The State of the Marine Environment Report for Australia: Technical Summary,Canberra, 1996, p.22650