Over the course of two years, Lasi Erewati's was to become the island's de facto surfing headquarters, and the birthplace of the organization that went on to pioneer most of Indonesia's professional contests. In 1976, a meeting was held there to restructure the Surfing Club of Bali, formalize the tasks of the position holders, and set out an organizational work plan that would furnish the island's surfers with something of a competition circuit. As well as the usual mish-mash of surfers who made Lasi Erewati's their hangout, present also at the meeting was a non-surfer, ex-parliamentarian called Rizani. In 1976, his attendance at a meeting of unruly, straw-haired surfers was primarily in his capacity as the spouse of Lasi Erewati's manager, Ibu Kempu, but over the next two decades his credentials in the surf scene were to extend well beyond that.

THE BALI SURF CLUB: RISE AND DEMISE

As well as precipitating a name change from the Surfing Club of Bali to the less cumbersome Bali Surf Club (BSC), the 1976 installed the well-connected ex-parliamentarian as its Chair. This move set Rizani on his career as Bali's most renowned surf administrator and suggested that the Club regarded cultivating good relations with strategically-positioned officials as an utmost priority. Indeed, this was to greatly assist the Club in getting permits to run international contests.

That there is little documentation of the activities of the BSC during its twenty years tends to support the criticisms "poor management", "lack of accountability" and "lack of transparency" aimed at the Club by those members who eventually ousted Rizani's regime in 1995. But as well as enemies, Rizani's 20-year term as and should I have wished to pump my sources for all its juicy details, I could, no doubt, have collected some prime material Whil st Bobby Radiasa, second in charge to Rizani on the BSC, was a delightfully forthcoming source, his memory of the BSC's activities, nevertheless, remains rather hazy, and understandably so. Consultation with Rizani would surely have filled in the missing details, but for reasons that remain unclear, he refused to be interviewed, and failed to grant my request for some kind of document, or even a list of the BSC's activities over the years - anything that would enable fair representation in this piece of the work of the BSC. In the circumstances, doing justice to the BSC is a tricky task. The apparent lack of documentation of the Club's activities lends supported criticsthe BSC's head honco earned him many admirers. One of them, Indo Surf and Lingo author PeterRISE AND DEMISE OF THE h - among Neely. "Pak Riz organized most of the international surfing contests in Indonesia for almost 20 years since the very first Om Bali Pro in 1980, up until the Quicksilver G-Land (Quicksilver Pro at G-Land, ed.) contests and Sumbawa contests." Quicksilver Bali's Tony Wales recalls working with Rizani in the lead up to the first Quicksilver Pro in 1994. "Rizani is a unique individual," says Wales. "He has great patience with bureaucrats, a virtue from which the surfing community here has greatly benefited. When we proposed the Quicksilver Pro at G-Land to the Indonesian government, their response was 'But there's no five-star hotels at Grajagan! There's no roads, no air-conditioning!' Rizani was responsible for bringing about an understanding within official circles of the concept of eco-tourism being applied at the G-Land camp, the environmental concerns of the surf industry, and why Quicksilver were eager for the contest to be free of hordes of spectators, in the interests of leaving the reef and jungle undisturbed. In many ways, it's thanks to Rizani that the Quicksilver Pro happened at all." As well as the Quicksilver Pro, Indonesia's only World Championship Tour (WCT) event, Wales also credits Rizani with the pioneering of Quicksilver's International Grommet Contest, which has been held each June at Kuta Beach's Half Way since 1989. Familiarly referred to as 'The Grommet', the contest is the only one in Bali to afford local grommets the opportunity to compete in an international contest on their home break (although it will be moved to Fiji this year in order to quell the concerns of parents anxious that their young charges avoid Indonesia in the election month).

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