Surfing England Events Manager Job Vacancy

Surfing England is the sport’s National Governing Body (NGB), looking after all forms of wave riding from grassroots to Team England. We run the UK’s largest programme of surf events, accredit and affiliate almost 100 surf schools and clubs, deliver coaching qualifications and training, look after the talent pathway across multiple disciplines and much more. 

Surfing England deliver four headline events on an annual basis: the English National Surfing Championships (run over 2 event weekends), the English Para Surfing Open, and the English Interclub Surfing Championships, as well as being a delivery partner for brands such as the Rip Curl Grom Search.  

We constantly strive to develop our events to meet European and International levels – this year we have delivered a priority training program for our judges and ran an event with priority rules in place. We also launched SUP surf championships and introduced bodyboard divisions. Our events program has an exciting future of growth and development.  

As our Events Manager you will lead on every aspect of the events; the planning, delivery, and evaluation. You will be responsible for coordinating all aspects from budgets to social media marketing to recruiting and managing contractors.  

The events are core to our sponsorship contracts and as part of the role, you will support on relationship building and activations for commercial partnerships. The ideal candidate will also have a good understanding of social media as creating and driving campaigns around corporate partners and events will be required. 

The right person will be a forward thinking, motivated, hardworking individual, who enjoys early starts and late finishes when in the events environment. These are long days on the beach in the elements but are hugely rewarding for the right person. You must be a dynamic worker, and exceptionally organised, have great personal skills and show the ability to be able to lead a team creating a great work environment for our volunteers and contractors. 

Key Responsibilities 

To manage the Events Program, support our Commercial Partnerships, and contribute to our social media. This will include: 

EVENT MANAGEMENT 

Responsible for every aspect of event delivery from preparation to delivery to evaluation. Included within this are tasks such as: 

• Using systems such as GANTT or RAG to maintain oversight of tasks 
• Responsible for all event documents – writing and updating risk assessments, emergency action plans, event formats and competitor information, and many more.  
• Setting budgets for events, and ensuring revenue and expenditure are on track 
• Recruiting staff (e.g., judges, volunteers, media teams) and managing the team in advance of the event and when on-site 
• Leading on all logistics – food and drink, travel, accommodation, etc. 
• Stakeholder engagement – keeping relevant parties informed as plans evolve, and with evaluation reports after events. 

• PR and Marketing – advertising the event on social media, newsletters, blog posts, managing the media team on-site at the event. 
• Media – overseeing creation of all content, e.g., posters, photography, reels. 
• Competition structure – having sound knowledge of surfing formats, seeding of athletes. 
• Infrastructure – maintaining the trailer and events kit. 
• Evaluation – reporting on the event, crunching data, preparing presentations for stakeholders.

COMMERCIAL PARTNERSHIPS 

• Building relationships with existing partners and coming up with creative ideas to provide exciting opportunities for sponsorship. 
• Delivering on activations through the events program, ensuring sponsor obligations are met for each event. 
• Demonstrating value to partners in ways such as impact reports from the events which share statistics and stories, and bring the event to life even if the sponsor was not in attendance. 

SOCIAL MEDIA 

• Working with the media team on the delivery of an engaging social media feed. 
• Utilising the Sked social media scheduling tool for optimum posting and planning content, maximising marketing of the events. 
• Inputting creative new ideas to diversify the feed, use of reels, polls, etc. 

As the Events Manager you will be part of a small, dynamic team in a fast-moving environment. This requires an individual that is adaptable and open to new challenges. Outside of the core events season, you may be brought in to support other areas such as looking for new sponsors, surf school visits, Team England activations, etc.  

The role is predominantly office based, working from our HQ in Braunton, North Devon. There will be requirements to travel and work outside of office hours, in particular for weekend events, where a typical day can be 12+ hours. 

Successful applicants will have the following Essential Skills: 

• Proven experience in events. 

• Skilled in project management. 
• Ability to manage complex workloads, events, and people. 
• Exceptionally organised and self-motivated. 
• Resilience under pressure. 
• Problem-solving.  
• IT literacy – Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.  
• High level of literacy, spelling and grammar.  
• A good level of physical fitness is required due to the manual work required to build the event site. 
• Full UK driving license, and willingness to gain a trailer license preferred. 
• A passion for surfing and good knowledge surfing industry is preferred. 

We encourage and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.  We believe a more diverse line up makes for a happier surfing experience, and a more diverse team enables more informed and better decision making.

Package 

Salary: £28-30k pro rata (experience dependent) 

Location: Office based in Braunton, North Devon. Probation period is fully office based, beyond that team members work flexibly around the needs of the business. Typically, all team members work Tuesdays and Thursdays in the office and other days are a mix of working from home and office based in agreement with your line manager. 

Hours: Part/Full time (Minimum of 4 days/week), weekends required for contests 

Employment type: Initial contract 12 months, with intent to move to permanent  

Start date: As soon as possible 

Benefits: 

• 23 days holiday per year, plus 8 bank holidays.  
• Directly impact the growth and development of English surfing. 
• 30-minute wellbeing yoga class once/week. 
• Flexibility to surf when the waves are on. 
• Two team days/year. 

How to apply 

Please send a cover letter and curriculum vitae CV to lineup@surfingengland.org, detailing why you believe you are the right person to join the team at Surfing England and details of two references. Please mark the subject box ‘Events Manager’. 

Closing date: 10.00am on Wednesday 3rd January 2024.

Invite dates: Invites to interview will be sent by 7pm on Thursday 4th January 2024. 

Interview dates for shortlisted candidates: Tuesday 9th or Wednesday 10th January 2024, to take place at our offices in Braunton, North Devon.  

 

If you have any questions about the role, please contact lineup@surfingengland.org