Inclusive Line Ups

Surfing England is a small, unfunded and not-for-profit organisation so we don’t have the resources and reach of larger sports, but perhaps more importantly we have a team that care deeply about how our work is delivered and ensuring we are positively contributing and leading in surfing’s development as a more inclusive sport and lifestyle.

Here are some of the things we’re doing now, and initiatives we have planned with a focus on inclusion, diversity and equality:

Inclusive Line Ups committee. This group brings together people with specific expertise and lived experience to support us with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion across the organisation.   The committee work with the operations team and report into our board, providing support as we tackle some of the complex and challenging issues for inclusion in sport.  You can check out the committee team here: Inclusive Line Ups 

Getting funding direct to surfers from under-represented backgrounds within surfing. In partnership with SportsAid we have provided over £250,000 of grants directly to talented surfers facing financial hardship, and in our commitment to EDI each year we target half our annual grants toward surfers from under represented backgrounds within surfing

Growing the Para Surfing movement. At grassroots this means volunteer and coach training and working with partners and surf schools to open up more opportunities for people with a disability to surf.  At the elite end, our Team England Adaptive Surfers are regular medalists at European and World Para Surfing Championships, with the team ranked no.3 in Europe and no.7 globally.

Making coaching more inclusive.   Surfing England have our coaching awards, from basic surf instructor to high performance coaches and we have weaved EDI throughout the content, as well as having modules tackling specific issues like unconscious bias in coaching.  The courses can also be taken flexibly, with a mix of online and in-person options.  Check out our new Coaching Hub for all the details.

Embedding EDI into all we do.   We’ve got a broad remit and we cover a lot of ground.  We try to always consider the impact of our actions, for example you will see every event poster and edit we produce is hugely thought through to ensure good representation, or if you have a delve into our Talent Plans you’ll see diversity and inclusion embedded into our strategy and delivery.

Increasing the number of women in surfing. Over 50% of the organisation are women (including in leadership roles) and we’ve done lots to recruit and train more female coaches, judges, beach marshals and other roles to increase the number of women in senior roles on the competition and talent pathway.  We’re also targeting our Junior Surf Series to bring more girls into competitive surfing.

We’re proud of the work we have underway and it’s been great to engage and collaborate with lots of different group as we continue to unpack what equality and diversity means for surfing and our role within that as a National Governing Body.

We have an open door for individuals and organisations that share our ethos and would like to help build and expand our work in these areas.  We know we’re not going to get everything right first time and that we definitely won’t please everyone, but we’re committed to doing what we can and to leading from the front with the programme of activities we have underway.