Upon receiving a membership application or renewal request through the SLSA Join or SLS Members Area, the following steps will be taken:
- Receive Order Summary and Payment Receipt from SLSA
- Working With Children Check (WWCC) Verification
- Process Pending Membership/s
1. Receive Order Summary and Payment Receipt from SLSA.
1.1. Order Summary
When a membership application or renewal request has been submitted via the SLSA Join or SLS Members Area, an Order Summary will automatically be sent from noreply@sls.com.au to the email address listed in your clubs ‘Organisational Details’ in Surfguard. Additionally, it will be sent to the following Club Officers:
- Administration (Secretary)
- Paid Administration 1
- Finance (Treasurer)
The applicant will also receive a copy of the Order Summary, which provides an itemised summary of the application for membership or renewal request. This summary includes any additional fees such as gym fees or access fobs, which may have been selected from your club’s add ons ‘Price List’. The Order Summary email will specify that the club’s approval is required before the membership is accepted/processed. It will also include a link to ‘Make Payment’ for applicants who haven’t already made their payment during the application/renewal process. Note that the Order Summary is not a payment receipt.
It is essential to check whether a corresponding Payment Receipt has been received along with the Order Summary. If there is no Payment Receipt, it means the person has not completed the payment process. In such cases, you should contact the applicant to guide them through the payment process and any other remaining steps to complete their membership.
To ensure accuracy, club administrators should cross-check the payment receipt and summary against pending memberships in Surfguard to confirm that the correct membership categories have been paid for.
Note: payment is not enforced at the time of application or renewal because some clubs may have membership caps; may wish to check eligibility before accepting payment; or may use a separate payment system.
1.2. Payment Receipt
A Payment Receipt will be issued to notify that a payment has been made successfully.
It is good practice to check the payment receipt and order summary against pending memberships in Surfguard to ensure correct membership categories have been paid for.
1.3. Reconciliation (this may be a step completed by your Treasurer)
To ensure accurate financial records, it is recommended to perform payment reconciliation. This involves cross-checking payment receipts with the Westpac iLink spreadsheets and the daily bulk deposit into your club’s bank account. By doing this, you can verify that all payments have been correctly accounted for.
Here’s how to conduct the payment reconciliation:
- Gather Payment Receipts: Collect all payment receipts received from membership applications and renewals. These receipts serve as evidence of the payments made by applicants.
- Access Westpac iLink Spreadsheets: Obtain the Westpac iLink spreadsheets, which contain detailed transaction information related to the payments received.
- Check Daily Deposits: Verify the total bulk amount deposited from SLSA into your club’s bank account on a daily basis.
- Cross-Reference Payments: Compare the payment receipts with the transactions recorded in the Westpac iLink spreadsheets. Ensure that each payment receipt corresponds to a transaction in the spreadsheet.
- Address Discrepancies: If any discrepancies are found during the reconciliation process, promptly investigate the reasons behind them.
2. Working With Children Check (WWCC) Verification
Merely sighting a WWCC card or number is not sufficient for verification. It is important to verify that the WWCC includes your club and Life Saving Victoria on its list of associated organisations. This makes sure all records are kept up to date and allows the Department of Justice (DoJ) to contact your club should any details change or a Check is refused or cancelled.
- If a member already holds a WWCC with another organisation, they must add your club and Life Saving Victoria to their list of organisations on their card. The DoJ will then send your club a letter of confirmation by mail containing the member’s WWCC number and expiry date. You can proceed to enter these details into Surfguard and process the pending membership.
To add organisations to an existing WWCC the member should update their details on the Working With Children website to include your club and Life Saving Victoria.
- If a member does not hold a WWCC, they are required to apply for one. Once they obtain it, the DoJ will send your club a letter of confirmation by mail, including the member’s WWCC number and expiry date. You can then enter these details into Surfguard and process the pending membership.
You may like to provide members with this Working With Children Check Guide for Club Members
Teachers and Police Officers are not exempt from WWCC
Teachers and early childhood teachers registered with the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) MUST notify Working With Children Check Victoria (WWCCV) of any child-related work they do outside of their teaching in a school or early childhood service, regardless of whether it is paid or voluntary work. If a teacher’s VIT registration is suspended or cancelled, WWCCV will notify the relevant organisations that the teacher exemption no longer applies.
Teachers registered with the VIT must:
- inform Working With Children Check Victoria (WWCCV) of any other child-related work.
- nominate both the club (including club officer, email address and phone number) and Life Saving Victoria (LSV Human Resources, hr@lsv.com.au, 03 9676 6944)
- notify WWCCV within 21 days of starting any new child-related work.
The club will be informed.
A guide for teachers linking their VIT with WWCC – Working With Children Check Guide for Club Members.
The Working With Children Act 2005 allows exemptions for Police Officers; however, Life Saving Victoria requires these members to hold a WWCC despite their exemption under the Act. Why? Without undergoing a WWCC referenced to Life Saving Victoria and your club, there is no connection between the profession as a Department of Justice employee and any volunteer organization in which the individual participates. If any member, in their substantive capacity as a teacher or Police Officer, were to be charged with a breach of any laws relevant to this check (e.g., sexual misconduct), Life Saving Victoria and your club would not otherwise be informed of such charges. This ensures that Life Saving Victoria maintains a higher level of risk minimization for our junior members.
3. Process Pending Membership/s
Once all the club’s membership requirements have been met, and the membership payment has been received, you can proceed to process the pending membership/s.