When the club hosted its inaugural Women Get Wet surf clinic through Surfschool Bargara, 60 women took to the water. Another 60 women who wanted to participate had to be turned away because of a limit on numbers.

For Pacifique Surfriders Club President Peter O'Donnell, it was an indication that the club had tapped into a previously hidden market.

'We were conscious of the increasing interest in women's surfing through surf movies and the resurrection of the long board which makes surfing more fun, and we recognised that we needed to involve more mature-aged women in the club if we were to keep the club growing,' he said.

'We wanted to involve older women rather than girls because we felt that women, particularly those with partners and families, would be better placed to bring their children and husbands into the club.'

Pacifique Surfriders currently has a membership of 180, less than 30 per cent of which are women. 'We are a family club, but the culture has been more about women coming along and sitting in the background while their husbands are out surfing,' O'Donnell said. 'We wanted them to feel more involved.'

The club turned to two women members, Jo Charteris and Michelle Moller, for advice on bringing in more women.

' Jo and Michelle were really the people who pulled all of this together,' O'Donnell said. 'We talked it over with them and they felt that the club's competition days really didn't interest women because they would prefer a more social, fun program to a competitive program.

'There was already a group of women [non-members] around who regularly got together for casual surf sessions and Jo and Michelle felt it would be better to tap into that group by getting them involved in a surf clinic and having them draw others in. Then we could work on making them members of the club.'

The club's insurance covers only members, so the club outsourced the running of the clinics to the nearby licensed surf school at Bargara using training money provided by the Queensland Department of Sport and Recreation.

The surf school contracted some of Surfing Queensland's leading female coaches to travel from the Sunshine Coast for the two-day clinic. Meanwhile, Charteris and Muller arranged for surf band, Alf, to come from the Gold Coast to offer a social function on the last night of the clinic for 200 people at the local surf club.

'Since our organisation mainly consists of males around 40+ years old, we didn't want to control the program, so we stayed in the background and arranged the barbecue and shade gear,' O'Donnell said.

'It was terrific to see what happened over the two days. We had women between 20 and 60. Some women had never been on a surfboard and had never intended to get on a surfboard, so they got to experience even a little bit of the exhilaration that surfing brings and could anticipate what it is like to be out there. They could see it gives an adrenalin rush like no other sport.'

The club gave membership forms to each participant at the clinic, but there was no obligation to join.

And while only 15 participants at the clinic have joined the club, O'Donnell sees it as a huge success. 'That translates to 15 families of four that are potentially going to be influenced by those women.'

Such was the success of the clinic, that the club plans another one this year involving a younger age group.

'The attraction of these clinics is that they tap into a fellowship and camaraderie between the women and not only teach the skills needed to surf, but they teach the women respect for surfing and respect for the environment,' O'Donnell said.

And the secret to getting women's programs off the ground? 'Your front people should always be women, the ideas should come from women and the club should give them all the support it can for them to run with the idea.'

Did you know?

Australia is one of only two nations to have competed in every modern Summer Olympic Games.

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