Ten of the best from the last decade
Everyone else is doing a retrospective so here's our one – email or text
anything we've missed
Scuba Santa. Hilarious, just hilarious, actually add in Blood Night. it was
never intended to be anything more than a once off, the people in need All
Night Swim, Sthoee Surf, BBQs, Eating Jellyfish, there's hundreds of these
Our Beach Hut, sure it changed the way we visited beaches but it allowed
for the increase in open water gear that was restricted by our ability to
carry kit on the roofs of cars. Its hard to think of a day before we had a
permanent base. Awesome.
DCU, the loss of St Paul's changed the face of Sthoee for the better. Good
job.
AEDs – In the early years of the decade we knew we wanted to do something
with AED. It was extraordinarily difficult to get access to the equipment
donated for use in Ireland, it transpired that this was deliberate but it
actually forced us into thinking bigger. Much bigger. The AED programme now
boasts the largest voluntary kit in Ireland with live AED, programmable
manikins, loads of trainers. Thousands have been trained both with Sthoee
AED and in support of Apache Pizza's programme.
The 2004 Tsunami. Seriously? After the horrific events of the 2004 tsunami
the team discussed the overwhelming devastation caused by the natural
disaster. Traditionally Sthoee has its "last Sunday" fundraiser every year
but we thought this needed something more. The massive donation made by the
club stretched us to the very edge of being broke but is considered by many
to be exactly what sthoee is all about. This also had a very unexpected and
positive side result that saved us a shedload of money and continues to do
so to this day. Speaking of …..
Levies: During this period we were pushed to the pin of our collar and
needed to reduce expenditure (cash flow issue for the accountants amongst
you) - during our work we discovered we were paying charges on our Pool
Lifeguard Qualifications to an irish business over an above the IQL UK
rate. It transpired that this was a BMC member charging us per candidate
qualification. We never discovered what it was for nor did we get a refund,
discussion on the issue and requests for refund were blocked at local,
national and International level. Needless to say we do not pay levies to
irish businesses for any of our voluntary activities any more.
We hope that one day no Irish member will have to pay charges on society
qualifications.
sthoee.com / blog: we've had a website for a very long time, the early
nineties to be exact , with over 100,000 visitors sthoee.com is when we
came of age online
Birthdays: All of them, favourite comment was at the 18th (Sthoee 18
celebrating 20 years of bad statistics!)
Protection: did you know we have issued over 500 face masks in the last
1000 days. staggering
The People: Thousands of people have been though Sthoee some for a short
time, some for a very long time as swimmers, lifesavers, lifeguards,
supporters and as we have said year on year for nearly (over) 2 decades –
you know who you are, you know we appreciate it - go raibh maith agaibh.
What's next? Check out the website in the new year - we are going to be
busy
And with new years resolutions remember that the only thing you really need
to change is your socks. Often.
Happy new year to you and yours, the thousands of sthoee alumni and all our
friends everywhere, take care
