My arrival at Kirra Surfriders Club came about when I traveled on my first trip to Queensland.
I arrived late one night and camped on top of a headland at Greenmount and when I woke up I saw perfect waves wrapping around the point.
That was in '68 and after seeing the beautiful waves at Greenmount, Snapper and the World famous Kirra tubes I knew I would be coming here to live. I get irate when I hear the waves called Kirra Kegs - they have always been Kirra tubes to me, that's what I rode.
I was always sitting furthest inside and had lots of deep tubes.
I loved it............... after a few years travelling overseas I returned and befriended a local named Billy Grant and asked him if there was a chance I could join Snapper Rocks Surfriders.
The Snapper committee of the day said no, I wasn't a local.
I'd moved up from Newcastle and was a Merewether member which was a strong club but that didn't count back then- localism was alive and well in Snapper.
I also met a really keen ten year old grommet named Kerry Gill, who was in Kirra Surfriders who later went on to become Queensland Junior Champion.
It was 1976 and I was back to settle and I had a look at Kirra.
There weren't too many guys left, probably because of the heavy scenes, which were going down at the time.
The Marshall Brothers, Scott and Greg, were on the club committee and doing a really good job of holding Kirra together. They were dedicated Kirra members. Zorro (Steve Goddard) of Aragon surfboards was a member and I became friendly with these guys through the years I had visited and surfed Kirra.
Through them I was nominated into the club and after three months probation I became a member.
After a few months Les Aberdeen, the President of the time, just sort of disappeared and the club seemed to be disappearing with him.
I think I must have showed some leadership at the time because after being in the club for only four or five months I was voted in as the new President. It happened because I felt so passionate about Kirra, the beach, the waves, and the magic.
The club had links to the past and champion members such as Peter Townend, 'Rabbit' and Michael Peterson. I didn't want to see that disappear.
They all reckon that I was a bit of a dictator and I used to spit the dummy a lot, but it worked.
We held our meetings at the beloved" Patch" every second Monday, never missed a beat even over Christmas and New Year and the club grew.
It held the club together and there was always a cold one not too far away. "The Patch" held many a Kirra preso night which became quite famous, eventually we ran out of places to hold the presos but it was always outsiders who caused the trouble and mess the Kirra guys were cool, a crew to look up to.
A few Merewether guys had moved up from Newcastle and I recruited them into the club and they helped make a strong team. Kirra was paid out for it at the time but it kept the club alive.
My wife Lynn also wanted to join the club but Kirra didn't have any women members at the time, so she was told she couldn't become a member
Anyway, I thank those guys, too numerous to mention, but they know who they are.
Some are still active members, some social, but they are all now part of the Kirra history book. The club was started in the early sixties; Johnny Charlton allowed the meetings to be held in the ladies toilet block. He had the board hire business and kiosk. His two daughters Robyn and Carol, were amongst the first members along with Curly Pinniger and Graham Black.
In my period of 'elpresidente" there were a lot of grommets. I saw the likes of Ray Manicciros come through. He could rip Kirra apart and tubes like no one had ever done before, it Probably goes for all the grommets of the time who were blooded in Kirra Surfriders, surfers like Tony Ray, Ross Clark-Jones, Sam Watts, Craig Scat Pitchers, Richard Marsh, Stuart Darcy and Jason Buttenshaw.
I remember one day having a club round at Hastings and it must have been a solid six feet and the grommies wouldn't go out.
We made them go out and some of them came in crying but they did it and they could handle big surf.
Jason could be seen surfing six to eight foot Kirra when he was 10 or 11 years old although later we found out that he couldn't swim.
I saw Sean Reg Riley get a 10 second barrel, coming in and out of it twice. It was epic Kirra.
Kirra has had a few other Presidents over the years-Paul Cross, Scott Oakes and Jeff Hellisma to name a few- but somehow I always found myself back in the job.
Overall I think it must have been 10 years.
Eventually girls were allowed to join the club.
Colleen Deane became Aussie Champion and we probably had the first female Vice President, Debbie Long.
The club runs the Kirra Teams Challenge and through the work of people like Darren Handley it's been going for 17 years and is now the biggest and most prestigious club event in the country.
In the '90s the club entered a new era.
These days Kirra is a full-on family club with two generations of surfers and we started the millennium in a big way, winning the Clean Water Teams Challenge, the first of the year. I still have a bigger picture for Kirra Surfriders, maybe one day
Graeme Scammell