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World champion surfers and the business community joined forces to raise $260,000 for humanitarian organisation SurfAid at the inaugural BlackBerry SurfAid Ball in Sydney on Friday night.
Top Australian band The Beautiful Girls and legendary New Zealand singer Tim Finn headlined the music bill with support from DJ Goodwill and DJ Eddy.
Champion surfers who attended included the ASP women’s world champion Carissa Moore (Hawaii), four-time world champion Mark Richards, dual world champions Tom Carroll and Mick Fanning, 1999 world champion Mark ‘Occy’ Occhilupo, plus current ratings leader Taj Burrow, top women’s surfer Laura Enever and big wave rider Mark Mathews [pictured above].
SurfAid Australia board member Charlie Lanchester, who is deputy head of Australian Equities at Perpetual, said the event sold out quickly with 530 supporters.
“I am blown away by how much money we raised at our first BlackBerry SurfAid Ball,” Lanchester said. “This will make a real difference to the people who need it most in the remote Mentawai Islands of Indonesia. A big thank you to all involved, particularly Tim Finn, The Beautiful Girls, Mark Mathews and all the pro surfers who so generously gave their time and effort on the night.”
Current world champion Carissa Moore said it was important for surfers and people in general to give to SurfAid. “We get to travel and surf some of the most amazing places and it’s the least we can do to give back to those communities that share with us those amazing waves and their culture,” Moore said.
Mark Mathews delivered an inspiring speech on facing fear, which was a highlight of the night.
Companies supporting the BlackBerry SurfAid Ball included CBA, BT Financial, RBS, Lloyds Bank, Perpetual, Plenary, KPMG, Allen Arthur Robinson, Watpac, Richard Crookes, Davis Langdon, Billabong, Quiksilver and ksubi.
Guests included the new CEO of Perpetual, Geoff Lloyd, Head of Equities at RBS, Justin Gallagher, Head of Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch, Kevin Skelton, Head of Dealer Groups at BT Financial, Matt Englund, the CEO of Football Australia, Ben Buckley, and Billabong CEO Derek O’Neill.
The BlackBerry SurfAid Ball was held at Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf, Sydney and will become an annual fundraiser for SurfAid.
ABOUT SURFAID
The mission of SurfAid, a non-profit humanitarian organisation, is to improve the health, wellbeing and self-reliance of people living in isolated regions connected to us through surfing.
SurfAid’s health programs involve education in nutrition, hygiene, healthy environments and disease prevention – including mosquito net distribution.
SurfAid has built an award-winning capacity in emergency preparedness and has delivered five emergency response programs following major disasters, including the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami and the October 2010 Mentawai tsunami. surfaid.org
