In 2009, Surf Life Saving Australia received a $4.4 million technology grant from the Federal Department of Health and Ageing to help us implement a range of new technology enhancements that will improve the way we work, and most importantly, free up our time to enable us to do what we do best - save lives.
 

Why do we need an IT Change?

The IT Change Project will benefit everyone - we’re improving our processes so that we become faster, more effective and more efficient. By improving our IT infrastructure, we will be able to achieve the following benefits:

 • Save our Volunteer Officers time by making processes more automated.
 • Save our members time by using ‘Self Service’ systems and tools.
 • Improve our service provision through the use of technology.
 • Save the organisation money by introducing cost effective processes.
 • Allow for commercial expansion of our organisation by utilising systems to aid and enable this activity.
 

How will this benefit members?

Every member will be able to access the Member's Portal - a ‘one stop shop’ where all members and officers will access the following systems and applications:

 • A document library that will provide a single location for housing documents and files.
 • A content management system that allows the creation and publishing of content to the document library.
 • A document management facility that will allow users to provide comments and feedback on all documents across SLS while maintaining version control.
 • A question and answer forum that allows members to post and respond to questions.
 • Management of all forms of communications between SLSA , clubs and members.
 • A centrally managed subscription service to make sure all members can subscribe to the communications they like.
 • An event management system that manages the end to end process for all events – from event creation to completion, including sporting events A voice portal will also be introduced, reducing the amount of paper based forms used.
 

Inside the Member's Portal

Over the next few weeks, we'll be taking you inside the Member's Portal to show you its features and how it will benefit each member.

Member's Home Page

Each active Surf Life Saving member will have a unique login to the Member's Portal, taking them to their own customised home page. Below is a screenshot of what each member will see upon entering the Member's Portal. (Click on image for larger version.)

The News, Events, Announcements and Jobs featured on a member's page will be specific to the state, region and club of that particular member, and will be updated dynamically. Each category will have highly specific search parameters, allowing members to further customise the information displayed on their page.

Over the coming weeks we will provide further details and images of how the information on each member's page is populated, how it will look, and how it can be manipulated.