New surf club opens after 15 years of hard work
Ellis Beach
The new $5m Ellis Beach Surf Life Saving Club has opened after a more than 10-year fight to build the new centre.
The club has relocated across the busy Captain Cook Highway following a grassroots campaign to protect members from the dangers of the constant traffic.
According to club officials, nine-year-old Ellis Beach nipper Sophie Alcorn wrote to her local federal MP Warren Entsch in 2011 after her friend Asha was hit by a car while the girls were crossing the Highway.
Entsch took her letter to the Federal Parliament, which helped start a more than decade-long campaign to move the surf club to the beach side of the highway so kids no longer had to cross it to get to the water.
“Club members kept pushing, planning, fundraising and making the case,” a spokesperson said.
The Federal Government committed $3.5m, while the State Government paid another $1.5m, with the new club finally opening on Sunday.
“It was so wonderful to see the clubhouse filled with so many smiling faces,” they said.
“After so many years of planning, hard work and fundraising, it was incredibly special to finally open the doors and celebrate together.”
Ellis Beach Surf Life Saving Club was first established in 1957.