Scottish Surfing: New Logo, new strategy, new era

Rebranding an organisation can be fraught with difficulties – just ask the folks at Abrdn, formerly Standard Life Aberdeen, if they regret their famous “disemvowelment” of 2021. Still, after taking over as CEO of the Scottish Surfing Federation last May, Paul Stark felt a new brand identity was important as a means of signalling the start of a new era, so he decided to grasp the nettle. Post-rebrand, the national governing body for all forms of surfing in Scotland, which turns 50 later this year, is now simply to be known as Scottish Surfing, and its elaborate former logo, which featured a breaking wave inside a circular leather belt replete with ornate buckle, has been replaced with two simple, stylised white surfboards crossed on a blue background – a surfboard Saltire, if you will.

“I’ve had a lot of conversations about this,” Stark grins, indicating the logo on his sweatshirt, “specifically about the shape of the board. ‘Does it look like a performance surfboard?’ ‘Does it look like a paddleboard?’ It had to be something generic because we’ve got so many different disciplines.”

What’s the feedback been like?

“Non-surfing people think it’s fantastic,” he says, “so we’ve had a lot of positive feedback there. In terms of the surfing community, I’ve had everything from “that’s absolutely brilliant” to “I’m no’ wearing that” – which is fine – we just needed something that most people could get behind.”

Paul Stark, CEO of Scottish Surfing

The point of the rebrand, of course, was not to somehow encapsulate the aesthetic preferences of Scotland’s entire surf community – an impossible task anyway – but to reflect the new, dynamic, sponsorship-ready reality of the governing body. Stark’s brief is to grow the sport of surfing in Scotland. In order to do that, he will need to attract funding, and in order to attract funding he will need to demonstrate to potential backers that he and his team are professional and well-organised.

The rebrand, then, is just a small part of a much bigger package: the main thing Stark has been working on in recent months, and has now released into the world, is the all-new Scottish Surfing strategy document, detailing the organisation’s plans for the next two years.

“We’ve now got something that we can take out to people and say ‘this is what we are, this is what we do’,” says Stark. “People might have a perception that, ‘Oh, you're just a performance organisation’ – well, we do a lot more than that, but when have we ever told that story?”

Surfing Scotland have worked in partnership with Inclusive Surfing Scotland, SurfABLE and The Wave Project to deliver adaptive and para come and try surf sessions. | Scottish Surfing

Certainly, for the last half-a-century or-so, the most high-profile work undertaken by Scottish Surfing has involved organising competitions: the annual Scottish National Surfing Championships have been running since 1973, the Gathering of the Clans club competition started in 2005, and more recently there has been a highly successful Junior Series. In addition, since Scotland gained recognition as an independent surfing nation from the International Surfing Association (ISA) in 2014, Scottish Surfing has also overseen the running of the national team. However, as the new strategy document shows, there’s a lot more going on than the awarding of points and prizes.

Indeed, the first couple of items on the first page of the document, following introductions by Stark and William Watson, chair of Scottish Surfing’s board, have nothing to do with competition at all. At the very top is an overarching statement of intent, “Purpose: To positively impact lives through the sport of surfing.” From here an arrow leads to “Vision: Surfing for life” and then another arrow leads to “Mission: Strengthen the Scottish surfing community and support Scots to excel on the world stage.” Subtext: yes, it would be nice if Scots were to win an international contest or two, but that’s only one part of a much bigger picture.

Elsewhere, the document talks about aiming to “Raise awareness of our charitable status and our charitable activities”, and also the importance of broadening access. Among the various “key actions” listed are “deliver[ing] programmes in areas of deprivation to reduce barriers and opportunities to take part in surfing” and “ensur[ing] activities are welcoming and inclusive where individuals can progress and succeed irrespective of background.”

There’s an emphasis, too, on promoting the health benefits of surfing (“we want to play our part in providing opportunities to positively impact mental health and overall wellbeing”) and on environmental stewardship – another key action is “to act as an advocate on behalf of our exceptional natural environments across Scotland.”

Brendon Ferrier of Edinburgh Napier University leads a session as part of the Scottish Surfing Junior Performance Programme | Scottish Surfing

That said, performance still very much has a place in Scottish Surfing’s plans, and in particular securing funding for Scotland’s next generation of surfing champions. “We’ve got 21 kids now in our performance programmes, aged between 12 and 18,” Stark tells me. “At the moment, though, we don't get any performance money [from SportScotland]. We’ve got a £60m national facility [Lost Shore] but we don’t get any performance funding – it doesn’t make any sense, but I’m on it.”

For more on Scottish Surfing, and to read the new strategy document, visit www.scottishsurfing.scot