Lily Clark (Kingston Beach SLSC) has been chosen to represent the state in the 2025/26 Surf Life Saving Australia’s Young Leaders Working Group alongside Ollie Richardson (Bicheno SLSC).

The purpose of the Young Leaders Working Group (YLWG) is to represent youth members' views, needs, concerns, values and ideas by engaging youth members to shape the future of the organisation for the next generation.

Clark said it is an honour to be selected for the YLWG. “I am so excited to represent my club and my state at a national level.”

“I applied for this program because I was privileged enough to be able to get my SRC a season early and I saw so many different sides of surf life saving while I was on patrol,” she said. 

With what Clark has learnt since being on patrol, she’s looking forward to sharing these insights with her age group and age groups younger than her. 

“I’m excited to meet people from other clubs and see what they do to create opportunities for younger people and share what our club does to help with that,” she said.

The 2025/26 season is shaping up to be a big year for Clark, who has also been selected as Junior Club Captain of Kingston Beach SLSC. 

Clark and Richardson will be working with 12 other state and territory representatives including both the previous and current SLSA Youth Lifesaver of the Year in the roles of Chair and Deputy Chair. 

Richardson will be in his second term of the YLWG following his selection in 2024. Over the last 12 months, the YLWG have contributed to the SLSA Wellbeing Framework, SRC/BM Review and the SLSA Awards of Excellence.