Maranui SLSC exists primarily for service – voluntary surf life saving services to the community. Since 1911 the Maranui Surf Life Saving Club has been actively training surf life savers and providing surf life saving patrols at Oriental Bay and other Wellington City beaches.

The word Maranui was used by Maori when they found sea and sand in abundance. Its Maori meaning is “long sands”. At the turn of the 20th century the whole of the sandy isthmus between Evans Bay and Lyall Bay was known as Maranui. The name Maranui still exists today on maps to denote the hilly area on the west side of Lyall Bay.

There are older clubs (by a few months) than Maranui, but all that can be said of them is that, with Maranui, they were present at the birth of the surf life saving movement in New Zealand.

The past is interesting, and it provides a reference and a guarantee of experience – but you can’t live on it. Maranui moves with the times. The club has stayed in the present because it has always planned for the future.

Over the last few years the club has been struggling to increase its membership and has developed a strategic plan leading up to the club’s centenary in 2011. One of the key initiatives is to get the clubhouse being utilised by members and play an active role in the community. This involved turning the upstairs area of the clubhouse into the Maranui Cafe for members and upgrading the street level and beach level areas of the clubhouse.

The objective of the Maranui Cafe is to get the community involved in the club as community members who will provide a source of active members for life saving services, administrators, coaches, team managers, sponsors and supporters for the club.