Finance & Administration - Fi Blackmore & Grant Edmunds

Finance and Admin are in good shape for next season

Fi Blackmore stepped into the Finance & Administration role on an acting basis from late December 2024 and, with a steep learning curve, undertook many and varied finance & administration tasks ranging from bill paying, reimbursements, and investments on the $$ side, to grants submissions & acquittals, technology, compliance and AGM prep & annual reporting.  Thank you to Mark Bain and Mike Whittaker, who enabled systems transitions at short notice.  Welcome back to Grant Edmunds on his return to the club after a long break, who has moved into Finance activities over the past few months.   

Finance 

The club’s financial position remains strong, with revenues of almost $500,000 and net profit of $127,447.  The Smiths Beach Rescue Tower appeal for funds was met strongly by a combination of government and community grants and donations.  While there were fewer grant opportunities as funding tightened generally, the club continued to be successful with many applications.   

The Development Fund Board was established to create an independent club authority focussed on investing for the long-term financial health of the club.  During the year, the Fund has grown its investments to hold $570,459 as at 30 April; this despite considerable macroeconomic instability and some volatility across global equity markets.   The Fund remains well placed to continue to grow its investments while managing risk. 

Admin 

With a significant range of activities and financial matters, managing finance and administration for our club is a substantial load!  Fortunately there’s an array of skilled and enthusiastic help, both volunteer and paid, to ensure we meet these activities and requirements. 

Gratias  

Thanks to Carole Irving (Secretary) and Melina van der Weerd-Arceo (Facilities) for their dedicated, thorough support this season.  There’s many hours of work involved in their roles, from being the first point of contact for the club, triaging, memberships, Surfguard and problem solving, and looking after our facilities, bookings, cleaning & security, just to name some fo their activities.  We really appreciate your commitment and great teamwork. 

James Lester’s return to the bookkeeping role from early 2025 has been a very welcome addition to our finance resourcing.  James’ calm and thorough administration of the club’s payments, receipts, BAS, sponsorships, transactional tracking, audit preparation & P&L has been very helpful and I thank him for his hard work and careful, pragmatic approach. 

Grant funding is a significant source of revenue for the club.  Thank you to Brendan Smart, Campbell Smart and the SLSA Grant Seeking Unit (GSU) for their enthusiastic and diligent sourcing of grant opportunities this year.  Thank you too to Rachel Vanketwich and Aaron Grace for their contributions and effectiveness with our grants activities early in the season; we hope you can rejoin our grants team at a future time. 

The club is appreciative of the Finance & Administration and other board contributions from Christian Born from July – December. 

Fi Blackmore & Grant Edmunds - Finance & Administration