2011_SLSNZ_SurfRescueMag

18
PROFILE:
Andrew Lancaster
No slim-pickings
for new board
SETTING
SAIL: NEW SLSNZ BOARD MEMBER ANDREW
LANCASTER, RIGHT, WITH MURIWAI CLUBMATE ASH
MATUSCHKA AT THE START OF THEIR EPIC VOYAGE AROUND
NEW ZEALAND. PHOTO: PAUL ESTCOURT/NZ HERALD
Lifeguard, adventurer, leader and athlete - now Andrew Lancaster
has become Surf Life Saving New Zealand’s youngest-ever board
member. Jamie Troughton profiles the remarkable 26-year-old.
ANDREW LANCASTER IS LIVING proof that
you get out of surf lifesaving what you put in. In
the 12 short years since he sat his surf award as a
14-year-old, Lancaster has accumulated virtually
every qualification possible and attended nearly every
course.
He’s competed a national level, jumped out of
helicopters and helped circumnavigate New Zealand
in an IRB.
Now he’s about to contribute at the highest level
of the movement, having been elected onto Surf
Life Saving New Zealand’s board. At 26, he’s the
youngest ever, but having youth on his side certainly
doesn’t faze the Muriwai clubbie.
“I’ve crammed a lot in since I got stuck into surf and I
don’t have a lot to go but this is the biggest challenge
of them all and I felt it was the next step,” Lancaster
said. “It wasn’t until about a week before applications
closed that a few of my peers convinced me to have
a go and put my name down – now I’m looking
forward to helping at a national level and growing the
organisation and improving some of these challenges
we’re facing.”
Lancaster has joined a new-look board, which will
be chaired by Hawke’s Bay’s Mike Bassett-Foss.
Former Highlanders rugby chairman Colin Weatherall
and Mount Maunganui identity Brent Warner are the
other new faces, joining incumbents Warwick Bell
and Nicki Nicol.
Lancaster is adamant his youth will be an asset to
the new group. “My youth and the representation
I bring from a younger group of the membership is
very valuable but also I’ll bring a fresh way of looking
at things and a new set of eyes.”
It was entirely appropriate Lancaster was on hand
in Auckland recently when Prime Minister John Key
handed over a government cheque for $250,000 to
SLSNZ, which will be used to run young leadership
programmes within the movement.
“This special grant will allow us to develop effective
leaders and grow our own talent,” SLSNZ President
Bob Harvey said. “We are an organisation passionate
about preventing injury and drowning and we are
lucky to have so many outstanding, charismatic and
talented people who make up our membership.”
Harvey could well have been talking specifically
about Lancaster, who was a member of a leadership
development group from 2006-08.
“The skills have been handed to me through surf – it’s
an organization that once you’re in, you don’t want
to leave and you just follow a pathway that’s been
stepped out by others in previous years,” Lancaster
explained. “You learn along the way and there’s such
a superb support network in clubs and at national
level that allow for that learning and development.”
And it’s not like Lancaster has limited his
achievements to surf lifesaving either. He’s a qualified
chartered accountant with a Bachelor of Commerce
from Auckland University, now working as an
investigator for the Inland Revenue Department.
He’s also been an Auckland agegroup rugby
representative, while the loosehead prop has helped
Ponsonby win eight consecutive Auckland club titles.
And to top it off, Lancaster was one of the driving
forces behind the Six Surf Lifeguard campaign,
circumnavigating New Zealand in IRBs earlier this
year.
That outrageous ambition came after reading a book
by British adventurer Bear Grylls, who completed a
crossing of the North Atlantic in an open-hulled rigid
inflatable.
Lancaster and Muriwai teammate Ash Matuschka
were joint leaders of the team of six drivers, which
included Auckland-based Jason Harvey, Blake
Ingram and Matt Buswell and Antony Morgan of
Papamoa.
In two IRBs, the group traveled 5200km around the
coastline, taking 34 days. As project leader and
manager, Lancaster
“It really was an eye-opener and we just wanted to
do something here for our organisation that we know
and love so much. Looking back now, it seems like a
long time ago but we were phenomenally lucky in the
weather we got, especially down the West Coast. In
saying that, we’d done a huge amount of planning
to ensure we got the best possible run and we’d
studied the maps over the last 10-15 years to get
that window that we chose. We rested at the right
times and a lot of our planning came off – it ran a lot
smoother than any of us predicted.”