Bondi Local | Brenda Miley
Bondi Local | Brenda Miley
Brenda is the director and founder of Let’s Go Surfing, an iconic surf school that started at Bondi Beach, but which now also operates at Maroubra Beach and in Byron Bay. She started the company out of the back of her van, and has helped put women’s surfing on the map.
Melanie spoke to Brenda at her HQ at the north end of Bondi Beach.
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Hi Brenda, would you please give us a little bit of your background.
I grew up in Coogee, not very far away. I was always a water baby – always in the ocean. I started on a boogie board at about 10 and surfing on a soft board at Tamarama at around 14 years old. And then graduated on to a fibreglass board that a boy made for me when I was 17. So I’ve been surfing Bondi and Tamarama for most of my life.
I’ve been living here [North Bondi] forever now.
I started Let’s Go Surfing 20 years ago out of the back of a van with the idea of promoting women in surfing.
Which you seem to be very successful at doing! You’ve now expanded beyond Bondi …
Yes, we are now at Maroubra and Byron Bay as well.
How’s the Byron Bay one going? That’s the newest one I believe.
Byron Bay is an amazing place to teach surfing and to surf. It’s a different kettle of fish to Bondi, but it’s going well.
How long has the Maroubra one been going for?
That’s been going for 10 years now.
So, well established. Would you say Bondi is the heart and soul of the business?
Yes definitely.
You’re just off the back of your busiest period I take it.
Yes. We are busy until April but December, January are definitely the busiest.
We do see the Let’s Go Surfing all year round.
Yeah, we go all year round coz surfing is something you can do all year.
Do you see more girls out there? You would have the numbers.
Oh definitely. When I grew up surfing there was me and one or 2 others I’d see sometimes. A few others. There was no such thing as womens’ wetsuits, board shorts, rashies, any of that. It was all for men so you had to wear boys stuff all the time. Now, today womens’ surfing has probably been one of the largest growth areas in the sport of surfing over the last 10 years and womens’ surf fashion has really taken it to the next level. Now we have sexy wetsuits! And now there’s all sorts of stuff for surfing just for women.
Do you think there is, as there should be, acceptance for women out there in the surf?
Oh sure. It’s changed a lot. To tell you the truth, in the surf, most people are pretty nice to each other. It’s more a personality thing of being respectful and doing the right thing in the surf, and then everything is going to be ok.
What would you consider to be your Bondi beat? Where do you spend most of your time?
Well, obviously I spend most of my time at North Bondi. I don’t get out of North Bondi very often. I live in North Bondi so I ride my bike to work. I get my coffees and breakfast everywhere depending on what’s going on.
We’re lucky aren’t we that we’re never very far from a good coffee!
There’s great food, great coffee and that’s the beauty of living in Bondi, you can say “Ha! I might have sushi tonight, Middle Eastern, Asian … whatever you feel like.”
What are your favourites?
I always like Bondi Tratt coz that’s always good food. The RSL club is great bistro food and a great view. Then there’s all those little restaurants in The Adina complex. So we go there sometimes. Bills is great brunch or lunch. I pretty much go everywhere and anywhere!
Are you reading or watching anything in particular at the moment?
I usually read something that’s going to inspire me. I don’t read fiction. I read magazines when I want to zone out. But at the moment I’m reading something about leadership. It’s written by a woman called Corrinne Armour who I’ve taken on as my mentor. It’s about how to deal with staff and get everyone on the same page and doing things the way we need to be doing them. And putting responsibility on to those people instead of taking it all on myself. I tend to look after everyone and take on all the responsibility. I’m trying to stop and say no, that’s your job.
I think it’s difficult to change your management or leadership style and to change old habits.
The thing is the business has grown. When I started I ran all the lessons out of the back of a van all by myself. And then my husband and I went into a shop and he did the retail and marketing and I did the lessons. And then we had a small team but now we’ve got different locations so I’m actually turning into a real business woman as opposed to a surf instructor. My skill set is customer service, teaching and anything to do with people but when I have to put processes in place and grow the business it’s a bit harder for me!
The journey of business is an interesting one because you never stop learning.
Did you have any business experience?
No, I never had any business experience and I’ve never been interested in money, so that’s an interesting thing! I was a PE teacher at Dover Heights High School when it was called that so I did that for about 5 years and then I taught casually at different schools so that’s why I started teaching surfing because I had the PE background and I had the surfing background and there was no-one doing that sort of thing so I started something new. But I’ve always had a very strong community focus as well because I grew up in a working class family. My dad never sold anything in his life. He always gave everything away. He’d say whenever we’d finished with anything we had to pass it on to someone who could use it. So I’ve always had that community spirit where you had to give to the community so learning to be better at business is tricky! But I’ve learned that unless you have a thriving profitable business you can’t give anything to anyone. You need to have both to be sustainable.
Like all the good businesses that have had a certain level of longevity around Bondi we’re finding that there’s a lot of love from the people who are doing it. It’s not just about opening a franchise and crossing your fingers you’ve got to incorporate yourself into the community and the community responds to that.
We are all part of this community. I live here and I’ve got a child who went to Bondi Beach Public School. I surf everyday, I’m part of the surfing community. I know what it’s like to be here. We all need to look after each other and to help each other out.
Do you have a motto for life? It sounds like you do!
I have a few probably. Basically our motto is: “Do what you love and love what you do”. So we try to live our life like that. But I also like to say “we’re changing lives one wave at a time”. Surfing has given me so much. When anything is wrong you get in the ocean and you feel amazing and you think, OK, everything is actually alright. I feel better and the more people who can feel that the better off we’re all going to be. It’s a great pastime that we can all share.
I should mention that Let’s Go Surfing taught my son to surf about 8 or 9 years ago and it’s given him an extraordinary aspect to my life. Which filters through the rest of his life.
That’s what we love to hear. I used to teach all the lessons years ago and now I have these big men coming up to me reminding me that I taught them as a kid and I look up at them and I think, yeah, I do remember that face! For some people surfing gives them confidence. What’s nice about surfing in this world that’s so competitive, and we all have to be to survive, it’s the one thing that you can just do yourself, and it’s about feeling good.
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Full interview on SoundCloud below or HERE
