Sennen Surf Club is a true community surf club – run entirely by volunteers – with a rich history spanning the years, from 1965 (when Sennen surfers Johns Adams, Tony Hole & Mike Carr, amongst others, formed the club after a conversation in the car park at Sennen Cove!), through to today’s thriving groms & seniors clubs with clubhouse in prime position on the front at Sennen!
The club was initially solely a seniors surf club, run by Keith Prowse, Chris Tyler, Colin Wilson, Harvey Hoare, Barry White and Pete Urquhart. It wasn’t until 1994 that the first groms club appeared in Sennen – with surfers such as Sam & Lew Smart and John Buchorski as members until it dwindled out briefly in the early 2000s.
The club was then resurrected in its current form by Steve Jamieson in 2007, with Bilbo as club mascot and some great local young surfers taking part – such as Seb Smart, Mike Lay, Christian Jackson, Bert Wright and Lowenna Murley.
Current club activities
Today we have thriving groms club which meets every Sunday morning from May – September and a seniors club held on Wednesday evenings. Our groms club sessions instil not only surf skills and ocean awareness into our groms but also essential lifesaving techniques, which are further built on when they participate in the rookie lifeguard programme which is run through the winter, with an aim to build their skills to prepare them to take the RLSS beach lifeguard qualification.
This winter 4 adult volunteer members achieved the full beach lifeguard award and 4 junior members the assistant beach lifeguard award! Groms club head coach for 2015 is Matt Szlichta who surfed with the groms club himself. He also takes up a post as RNLI lifeguard on Sennen beach this summer following achieving his beach lifeguard award in winter 2014 with the club!
With social activities like fun days, BBQs, an elite surf training programme run by Smart Surf School and friendly interclub surf comps with Gwithian Academy of Surf alongside the surf and lifesaving sessions, we are a true community club for adults and children alike.
We have a number of events running through the year this year to mark the 50th anniversary of the surf club – the first of which is an over 18s night at the Ritz in Penzance (Sennen Surf Stock) and then we have a family day (Gromstock) to be held in Sennen, further details to follow!