Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: Surfrider Foundation (Page 1 of 2)

I’m Stoked! ‘Coldwater Surf Fest’ Is June 6th, Park Point, Duluth

May 23, 2009 / / 9 Comments

(UPDATE 6/8/09:  Here's my Flickr set from Friday night and Saturday, June 5-6.  Alas, no waves on Saturday — but we had fun, anyway! … and a very successful Surfrider Foundation beach clean-up. Several surfers stayed on for waves forecast at 4-7 ft Sunday and Monday.)

It's that time again, surf fans!  For the annual celebration of Lake Superior surf culture: Coldwater Surf Fest, brought to us by the Superior Surf Club. Time to gather for food, laughs, maybe a brew or two, and your chance to take a dip in the Big Lake They Call Gitchigumi. CWSF-09-logo350w But, regarding the latter (unless you're just wading), do bring your 6-mil or 5-mil wetsuit, hood, booties & gloves, as one never knows what the water temp may be, even in June (let alone the air temps and wind). The surfers in the group, of course, will be hoping for big winds blowing out of the Northeast to produce rideable waves!  Readers of this blog may recall I wrote about the 2007 Coldwater Surf Fest. And, for those of you who don't think surfing on Lake Superior is for real, here's a shot of our own Bob Tema surfing Stoney Point, north of Duluth: SurfSuperior-Tema-StoneyPt2

Event Details:

FRIDAY NIGHT 6/5/09:  Gather at Fitger's in Duluth for brews and grub, starting about 5:00 pm. (Map and directions.)

SAT MORNING 6/6/09 10:00 am:  Beach clean-up at Park Point "First Turns" Beach, sponsored by the MN-Superior Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. (Map and directions.  Street parking available.)

SAT 6/6/09 NOON:  Party!  Pavillion at Park Point. BBQ, drinks, stories, trade/sell equipment, memorabilia. Raffle to benefit the Tom Blake Memorial: tickets $5. (More info on the Tom Blake Memorial.)  Map and directions.  Lots of parking available.

SAT EVENING 6/6/09:  After-party at somebody's place.

SUN MORNING 6/7/09:  Brunch at Pizza Luce's.

Come for part or all of the event — stay as long as you can!  I'm driving up Friday afternoon and staying over through Saturday.  All are welcome: surfers, friends, relatives, spouses and kids, participants or spectators, and anyone who thinks they may someday want to take the plunge into surfing the Big Lake… whether that be regular surfing or stand up paddleboarding (SUP), as shown in these two pics from last year's event — when, unfortunately, surf conditions were totally flat. (All photos of last year's event courteous Bob Tema. The guy in this shot actually teaches surfing at the U of MN-Duluth!) CWSF08-SUP1

Whatever the conditions, though, you will be guaranteed to have fun at CWSF!  Bring a board and wet suit if you have one, or maybe you can borrow someone else's and paddle out! You'll meet great people, including many of the top surfers on Lake Superior, eat some good grilled grub and partake in some cold(!) libations, all the while enjoying the wonderful outdoors in our great State of Minnesota! 

The Park Point peninsula is really a natural treasure, if you haven't experienced it yet: wide, sandy beaches, stretching out from the Canal Park bridge, which is the heart of Duluth's tourist center. CWSF08-SUP2 Park Point is a thin strip of sand with beach houses and lake-front condos, reaching all the way out to a small airport at the end of the peninsula, adjacent to a great park that has a picnic pavilion, barbeque grills, even a beach concession building — with birch and pine forest lining the wide stretches of pristine sand.

Well, it's pristine when people keep it that way!  But we're out to do our part in that regard at this year's Coldwater Surf Fest — because our new MN-Superior Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation is sponsoring a Beach Clean-Up the morning of the main event (Saturday, June 6). SurfriderMN-logo225w We'll take an hour or so to each don plastic gloves and grab a garbage bag to pick up trash and debris to ensure our favorite Duluth Beach is left better than when we got there!  It's all part of giving back to our environment.

For more info on this year's Coldwater Surf Fest, just ask in the comments section of this post.  Or visit the Superior Surf Club site — where you can even order the limited-edition event T-shirt (long or short sleeve). Here are some more pix (again, courteous Bob Tema) from last year's event…

CWSF08-4

CWSF08-1

CWSF08-2CWSF08-5 CWSF08-3 

Surfing in Minnesota? Yes. In Winter? Hell, Yes.

January 28, 2009 / / 8 Comments

You've heard me say before that I've always been a warm-water surfer, born in Australia and growing up in places like Hawaii and Southern California. But I just have to tip my hat again to my surfing buddies here in Minnesota. They've been getting some nice attention lately.  Turns out the New York Times showed up recently at one of their favorite breaks up on the North Shore, and produced this story: Hanging 10 (Degrees) on Icy Lake Superior.

SurfSuperior-NYTimes

(Photo by T. C. Worley for The New York Times.)

My buddy Bob Tema is quoted in the story. Here's one of my favorite shots of him surfing that same break, Stoney Point, at an earlier time. 

(Photo by Brain Stabinger.)
SurfSuperior-Tema-StoneyPt2

And here's a great winter shot he took of fellow surfer Quinn Carmichael.

SurfSuperior-Carmichael

The New York Times story was soon noticed by my buddy Jim Moriarty, Executive Director of the Surfrider Foundation, which resulted in him writing a great post called Are You Core? on his "Oceans Waves Beaches" blog, read by a worldwide community of surfers. (Thanks, Jim!)

Speaking of Surfrider, our local chapter is building a lot of steam lately (so to speak!), and we got some further play this past week — actually on two Surfrider Foundation blogs, with this great piece: Shaping Boards at 13 Below Zero. It features photos of my good friend and fellow MN-Superior Chapter organizer, Stefan Ronchetti, in his board shaping room/garage in Richfield, Minnesota. (Photos by Jim Perry, our amazing fellow organizer, who's a cardiologist. Like me, he's not a native Minnesotan, but a lifelong surfer all over the world. Stefan's from the Iron Range and is a financial analyst at US Bank, and also a worldwide traveler — now surfing on Oahu's North Shore.)  And this post also made it onto Surfrider's Save Trestles blog. (That's one of Surfrider's major initiatives, to save a world-class surfing break in Orange County, not far from my second home in San Clemente. Stop the Toll Road!) 

Pretty damn cool, all this attention for us Surfrider members and lovers of surfing back here in freezing-cold Minnesota!  It's been one of the coldest Januarys in a long, long time, actually.  Bob Tema told me a few days ago that the big lake is pretty well frozen over, so "no surfing for a while." (Surprisingly, that doesn't happen all that much on Lake Superior.)

One last piece of news. Speaking of our budding MN-Superior Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, I recently entered us in a local competition for nonprofits, to try to win a free web site. (We're so new, we don't yet have one.) SurfriderMN-logo225w The competition is called the Overnight Website Challenge, and ten Minnesota nonprofits will be selected (from about 50 entries) to have some amazingly talented volunteer teams of web developers and designers build them a web site in a marathon session held all day and night on February 28, complete with massive amounts of Red Bull and other goodies. In the linked post above, I describe it as "24 hours of pure nerd energy"… 🙂

All lovers of surfing are attracted to the environmental mission of the Surfrider Foundation.  If you love oceans, waves, and beaches…and Minnesota's wonderful, lakes, rivers, and shorelines…and believe these resources are worth protecting and preserving, please add a testimonial to our entry page and help our chapter win a free web site!  Together, we can have fun and make a difference, too.

Surfrider Minnesota Chapter Starts to Take Shape

September 2, 2008 / / 6 Comments

As a followup to my blog post of earlier this month on the first, formative meeting of our Minnesota chapter of the Surfrider Foundaton, I wanted to post again about our second meeting, which was held August 26th and drew more than twice as many people! Big thanks to Stefan Rochetti, who again hosted the meeting, and everyone who came out, all pictured below. (Since I drove my woodie, we got that into the pic, too!) We had a great variety of people, some who came directly from work or school, and several other Lake Superior surfers were able to make it this time, too. Thanks also to everyone who brought the grub and the beer!

Mnsurfridermtg082608

We discussed topics ranging from what to call the chapter (Minnesota-Superior or Minnesota Headwaters were two great ideas), to one or more issues we will focus on as we build the chapter, such as beach and shoreline clean-ups and doing something about plastics polluting our waters, to education programs, to doing cooperative activities with other local clean-water environmental organizations. We talked again about how many of the group met each other at the Jack Johnson concert earlier this summer, where Surfrider Foundation had a presence. [Elizabeth Willes of the San Diego Chapter manned that booth and was the spark plug for us to form our chapter here! She was touring with Jack Johnson to raise awareness about the Rise Above Plastics campaign, which is a major new initiative of the Surfrider Foundation — one we discussed in our meeting as something we really want to support here in Minnesota. Here’s a cool post about that, on the Save Trestles blog. That’s another initiative all us California beach lovers support, too, and I’ll have to wear my Save Trestles t-shirt to the next meeting… 🙂 Elizabeth is featured as well in this Sept 1 post on the Surfrider on Tour blog. ]

Here’s another photo I shot the evening of August 26th, showing Stefan Ronchetti (left), chairman-elect of our chapter, explaining what’s going on in his "shaping room" (aka his roommate’s garage), where the two of them are getting ready to start glassing several boards.

Stefanshapingroom

I also want to give a shout-out to Ben Moren, who made the cover of our local Eden Prairie magazine’s August issue.  Ben (pictured at far right of front row in group photo above) surfs Lake Superior
and is a student at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He’s agreed to serve our new chapter as webmaster of our soon-to-be-launched chapter web site.  How did the magazine cover come about?  Ben says it all started with this video he shot during the winter: Ice Cube Surfers. Check it out. Hey, what some people will do for the love of surfing…  🙂

Epmagcoverbenmoren

Interested in being invited to our next Surfrider chapter meeting?  Please email me at graeme (at) tech-surf-blog (dot) com, and we’ll get you on the list!

Or drop us a note by clicking on "Comments" below.

UPDATE (9/2/08): Just caught a great blog post by my friend Jim Moriatry, executive director of the Surfrider Foundation, dated Sept 1, called Jack and Surfrider.

Surfrider MN Chapter Holds First Official Formative Meeting

August 6, 2008 / / 2 Comments

I’m delighted to report that, last evening in Minneapolis, I was lucky enough to be part of a group of charged-up volunteers that held our first formal get-together to plan a local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. Surfridermasthead

This is a wonderful, worldwide volunteer organization, with more than 50,000 members — here’s the home page, www.surfrider.org, and here’s what it’s all about. As a lifelong member since it all started in 1984, I’m really, really stoked that we now have so many interested potential volunteers here in the Twin Cities and Duluth, especially — considering there’s a growing clan of surfers now active on Lake Superior! A new crop of volunteers, along with many existing Surfrider members already living in our state who have not previously had a local chapter affiliation, are now coming together to form a great nucleus that will become what we hope will be called the "Minnesota Chapter" (once we get officially set up with the headquarters folk in Southern California).

In addition to the increased local interest in surfing on the Big Lake (and, of course, the already strong communities we have in our state in windsurfing and wakeboarding), you might wonder, so what was the spark that ignited the recent coming together of Minnesotans interested in forming a local chapter?  Well, it was none other than…the recent Jack Johnson concert! That’s right — where the Surfrider Foundation had a strong presence as one of the sponsors of Jack’s current tour.  Many people signed up to show interest and support of the Surfrider’s cause at a booth they set up at the concert. And every single person at last night’s formative session had attended the concert…but me! 🙁  I did blog about it, though, just after the fact (see Jack Johnson Made Me Do a Post About Surfing).

In the photo below, here’s the crew that gathered last night at Stefan Ronchetti’s residence in Richfield. From left to right, it’s me, Amanda Jansen, Nate Clark, Keely Gerhold, Stefan Ronchetti, and Ryan Buus. Not pictured are Ryan Schroeder, who had to leave just before this, and a whole bunch of others who I know were there in spririt. Surfridermnchaptermtg

(A particular hat tip to Dr. Jim Perry, a fellow Surfrider member who had previously helped form the Connecticut chapter before moving here, and who met with Stefan and myself last year in what was really our first meeting to discuss…what if? Jim charged us up and convinced us it could be done. I know Jim was also at the Jack Johnson concert and would have enjoyed being with us last night if he could have. Thanks, bro! And another hat tip to all our brothers who surf the Big Lake, including Greg Isaacson, Bob Tema, Brian Stabinger, and, well, you know who you are….we salute you all!)

The group you see pictured here is just the beginning — the core or nucleus — of what I’m convinced will become a strong local, grassroots organization that will work toward monitoring and taking action on local issues relating to the quality of our water resources, shorelines, and beaches. And, here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes — and home to the largest freshwater lake in the world — everyone will benefit.

Rock on, Surfrider — here’s to a great future in Minnesota! 

And to all of you out there: to indicate your interest in becoming an early "charter" member of our local chapter, please say so in the comments section below, or email Keely at gerh0039@umn.edu.  You don’t have to be a surfer, windsurfer, or wakeboarder, you just have to like us 🙂 …no, seriously, you just have to believe in the causes of Surfrider, and that individuals taking action together can make a real difference in this world!  Everyone is welcome.  Cheers!

Jack Johnson Made Me Do a Post About Surfing

July 1, 2008 / / 8 Comments

Well, not Jack directly, but my local buddy (and San Diego transplant) Jim Perry, a fellow Surfrider Foundation member. He was lucky enough to catch Jack’s concert on June 22 at River’s Edge over in Wisconsin, and said it was awesome. Sigh, I was too busy. But his email inspired me to post something…at least surf-related. The photo here is from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s review of the event, Surf-Rocker Riding the Green Wave. Jackjohnsonconcert
And, no we’re not talkin’ about "spending some time in the green room" here (surf lingo for locked in a tube) — we’re talking eco stuff. Jack is huge into it, and is working closely with The Surfrider Foundation to promote its cause, and they in turn attend and help promote his latest tour events. [They even traveled from CA to set up a booth at the River’s Edge. And we didn’t even have any waves for ’em, just a river and water slides… 🙂 ]

Okay, maybe this post is more about music than surfing, but I’m throwin’ in a shot of Jack surfing at one his favorite spots in Hawaii (where he’s from), just for the hell of it.  Call it a gratuitous attempt to assuage some of my guilt in not posting about surfing in a while. Jackjohnsonsurfing
Haven’t been to my place in California for way too long, and (darn) I missed a return to the Cold Water Surf Fest up in Duluth this year, too, back in early June. But, for that matter, I really haven’t been posting here at all much lately, I’m sorry to say.

I’ve been a little busy here, and posting elsewhere, here and there …when I can grab a little time on evenings and weekends. And, of course, Twittering. Micro-blogging is just so much easier and faster — seconds or a minute per tweet, versus an hour or more to research and write a good blog post (often much more). There’s a reason I’ve done more than a thousand tweets in maybe seven months, versus maybe 400 blog posts in three years.

But you know my heart will always be with surfing and surfers everywhere, and anything I can do to protect our oceans, waves, and beaches.  And hat tip to my buddy Jim Moriarty out in San Clemente for a his great blog of that name. I read it religiously; he does great work. Aloha, bro, and to all in the global tribe of surfing…. And, oh, say hi and thanks to your buddy Jack, too… 😉

UPDATE 7/2/08: As long as we’re on the topic, let me get all the surf outta me that I can. Another thing I learned this week (actually from my surfer/skateboarder son) is a cool new site that sells surf clothing & gear cheap, one item at a time until it’s sold out — similar to woot.com, except for surf stuff, not electronics. It’s WhiskeyMilitia.com — a hilarious site, funny just to read the copy. One day earlier this week, it was a full Ripcurl wetsuit for $125, another day board shorts for $15, the day before t-shirts for $7. Hey, I’m all over it, already gettin’ daily alerts… 🙂

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