Into the shaping bay with Gillian Grove, the lady shaper. 
A bad experience buying a longboard from a surfshop, led shortboard surfer, artist, art teacher, traveller and life motivator, Gillian Grove into the shaping bay.

Gillian has been a practicing artist for over 20 years and is the founder of “Artable” bringing art classes, workshops & travel experiences in Australia to those wishing to improve their artistic skills. In 2019 she made the decision to ditch her shortboard and go long in the surf. She purchased a longboard after a shop assistant told her that a longboard would make it easier for her to surf. In reality she found the 9ft board harder to paddle than her shortboard and skittish on a wave. Frustrated and disappointed with her longboard, Gillian started to research what was wrong with her new board eventually coming to the realisation she had been sold a HP longboard, more suited for powerful surfing and not the 3ft peelers she prefers. Gillian was drawn to approach fellow artist and well known shaper Richard Harvey who offered to help her understand board design and to start her journey as a shaper.

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Noosa Festival of Surfing 
From humble beginnings in 1992, the Noosa Malibu Club’s annual ‘Noosa Malibu Classic’ longboarding event had become a fixture on the international longboard contest calendar 

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This week on Oz Longboarding Tuesday 13th April @ 7pm EST Episode 2021-6,

The elite band of women who became pioneering international surfing champions in the 1980s is refreshingly candid in their character assessments of one another. In Christopher Nelius’ documentary about their careers in the sport, they ruefully share memories of the hard-driving Wendy Botha, who spared no one’s feelings in her urge to win and they recall with affection the young and eager Layne Beachley, harrying the older members of the group with questions about the workings of the sport.

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From crafting surf reports for radio to reporting on surfing for television, to becoming Tweed Daily News' surf columnist for the past 25 years, McKinnon's love for surfing has seen him endure in a career he was told had no future. 

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Andrew Carruthers ‘The Panda” Longboarder, family man, traveller, photographer and Longboard Chaplain. 

The Panda was born in Qld, raised in Byron Bay and on the Gold Coast and now calls Coolum Beach home.

After finishing school he joined the RAAF as an Aircraft metal worker / composite fibre tech before leaving the RAAF for medical reasons. Since then the Panda has followed a variety of careers, including working in surf shops, and teaching before following a religious calling that has seen him become a Minister Pastor in the SALT church and the director of the Christian Surfers. For 8 years he has taken on the largely voluntary role as the Chaplain at the Australian Longboard Titles and for 11 years as the WSL Longboard Chaplain, travelling to Hawaii, Sri Lanka, Japan, Spain, USA, Taiwan and China. 

As well as being the Longboard Chaplain, the Panda is a renowned surf photographer with his photos featuring in Pacific Longboarder, Australian Longboarding, Slide, Nalu Blue and coffee table books.

He was the director, and producer of cinematography for Flux, (surf movie}.

His calling is to assist Longboarders with life’s journey, where he will marry you, and when you die bury you. He has a listening ear and an impartial voice to help guide you through good times and bad.

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Born in Coffs Harbour 1955. Bill’s father dredged harbours and built breakwaters along the east coast be they moved to WA when he was about 10. He grew up in Scarborough in Perth before moving to Margaret River in 1974. There he started a family and built his house. 

He has been involved in surfing clubs all his life, being awarded life membership for his tireless work of Margaret River Board Riders and the Indian Ocean Longboard Clubs. Competitively, Bill has represented WA in many Nationals in various age groups and on all sorts of boards. 

These days his passion is preserving WA surfing history. He own a lot of boards, restoring them and riding them then try to work out the story a board will tell.  “I figure that will get you started and the fun will flow.”

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23 yr old Ben Considine, hails from Victoria. There he enjoys riding all sorts of craft, especially he has a passion for logging. He lives in Barwon Heads where there is a great variety of fun points and beachies to pick from. When he’s not looking for waves he spends a lot of his time completing placements and studying Physiotherapy in his final year at uni. He makes time to mess around with some music and running a longboard coaching business that he started with his old man, Lee. He has also been enjoying working on a project called ‘The Sunday Glide’ with his Dad, which is a fun little edit/series they started and throw together each week. 

In the past, he has won an Australian Open logger title and a Junior logger title earl. He has been noticed by his peers overseas, getting invites to a lot of incredible competitions such as the Duct Tape Invitational in Portugal, Mexilog Fest, Deus 9ft and single, Surf Relik, and the Ferro Log. He was traveling around with the WSL world tour competitions in 2018-2020 before things came to a stop.

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Who is Dick Smith?
No not the vegemite salesman, rather the man behind the Dick Smith Surf Designs, Rainbow Bay Longboards and Catalyst Surfboards.

Richard “Wig” Smith has lived and worked over the last 35 years shaping and glassing boards in Newcastle, the Gold Coast, the Tweed Coast and now he calls Evans Head his home.

Proud of the fact that he is still ‘old skool’ hand shaping, glassing and sanding everything himself.

He is also not averse to a drop of the amber fluid, or a bit of traveling where he can mix beer tasting and surfing together.

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What the panel did last summer.

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Well that’s ok, you more then likely have similar interests as he loves surfing, beer, music, his local footy team Cronulla Sharks where is  touted as their #1 supporter, (Scomo only thinks he is #1) and spending time with his mates.

Born in the Sutherland Shire on the southern outskirts of Sydney. From an early age he was surfing and competing in his local boardriders club Sandshoes. In his late teens after a long trip home from schoolies week he discovered the right hand points of the far north coast and moved to Ballina.

Cookie left the shire with very little in an old kingswood with a few boards and a tent making Ballina central caravan park his home.

There he was lucky enough to be accepted into Lismore Universities Indigenous studies course and moved from the tent into a unit on Cherry St.

Cookie met some amazing girls from all over the world at Lismore Uni who were living on campus with other International students. He used his good looks and smooth tongue to persuade them to live on the coast with him in a big beach house....

Finishing uni with an associate degree Cook moved to Byron and spent a few years taking people surfing during the day and showing them what Byron had to offer at night spinning cd’s at C-Moogs nightclub under the name DJ Cookielove.

It was around this time Cook enjoyed going along to a few longboard events and meeting the lovely people involved in it.

Matt moved from Byron back to Sydney picking up full time work as a youth worker and residential career.

Cookie now resides in Cronulla with his beautiful family wife Bec and their 8 week old baby boy Angus. Cookie also hosts surf/party events that run from time to time, you can find all the details at _pinkshelltrimmers_ on his Instagram page.

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