How Parents Can Get Involved
As a voluntary organisation we need help from you, the kids' parents and guardians, to be able to make Minnows an enjoyable experience for all our 1000+ Nippers.

We are continually working to make the Coogee Minnows a club where all children feel proud to be a member, where they learn individual and team skills on the beach and in the surf, and above all where they have a great time each weekend. We are always looking for volunteers to help in the surf education activities.

Only parents that have been trained by attending one of our Age Assistants courses and registered with the Surf Club are allowed to assist with Nipper activities on the beach.

Any parent who would like to help out on the beach, lets face it, you’re there anyway so you may as well get involved, should speak to their Age Manager about how to get involved.

Training courses have finished for this season but please consider how you can help out next year.

Bronze Medallion Dads and Mums Army
Bronze Medallion qualified Parents are essential to the success of Coogee Minnows, as we need these specific skills in the water, and for training lifesaving skills to the Nippers

Gaining your SLSA Bronze Medallion means that you can also join a Patrol at Coogee SLSC, and other Clubs, and keep our beaches safe in the Red and Yellow.

Want to do Water Safety with the kids during Minnows? Want your kids and family to be really awesomely proud of you? Then join us to complete the Bronze Medallion!

Water Safety

Parents that hold a Bronze certificate (all our Water Safety) need to have their proficiency tested every year.
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PROFICIENCY:
Don’t forget that if you were not proficient for any reason last season, you MUST do the first proficiency or you won’t be able to patrol or assist with Minnows water safety until you do.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
We are not a babysitting service. Minnows can take three hours or more on some days so it is imperative that parents NEVER leave their child unattended at Minnows. Although the aim of Minnows is to educate your children about the fundamentals of surf awareness and surf safety, Minnows is also not a ‘learn to swim’ program. Children are expected to be able to confidently swim the required distance for their age group (as stated earlier on this website) BEFORE they are able to participate in any water events.

Working With our Children Checks
A NSW Working With Children Check (WWCC) is required for all of our adult volunteers, including water safety.

​We acknowledge that the implementation will put some additional work load on all our volunteers who will need to go to a NSW Service Centre  (aka motor registry) to prove their identity, but it will help us ensure the safest environment possible for all our children.
There are 4 main steps to the WWCC process:
  1. Register for a volunteers (it’s free) WWCC number on the NSW Government WWCC website. This will give you a registration number.
  2. Take this registration number with your ID to a NSW Service Centre to validate your identification.
  3. You will then be sent your WWCC number. It can take up to 4 weeks so please get started now.
  4. Bring your WWCC number and your ID to one of our two Volunteer Info sessions where we can validate and register you as a volunteer at Minnows. We know that this process will be a challenge as we need to register 300+ volunteers, but we want to make this as easy and simple as possible and ask for your support to bring in this change.
The WWCC process is a major change that will allow us to register and vet the adults who are working with all of our children each Sunday.