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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.

The scheme is proceeding well and SLSA will be deploying the first new systems created under the ICT Project later this year. The document below gives an overview of this first-stage deployment.

Member Portal - An Overview for Club, Branch and State

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

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.

Members of Surf Life Saving organisations with access to the Member's Portal can create news stories of interest to their club, branch, state or the national organisation. To create a story, simply click the 'Create News Item' button on the portal homepage. You will then be able to write the story, add relevant keywords to ensure it can be found easily in searches and any supporting graphics or attachments that accompany the story.

Once the story has been submitted it will need to be approved by the relevant support organisation, such as the local branch office. The same process applies to Events, Announcements and Jobs.