Pauline Menczer, a former world surfing champion, had a difficult career without sponsors and only received a broken trophy for winning the 1993 world title. A GoFundMe campaign was started to raise money for her and exceeded its $25,000 goal, bringing in over $36,000. Menczer was overwhelmed with emotion from the outpouring of support. She plans to donate excess funds raised to charitable causes while using some of the money to help with medical expenses for a rare autoimmune disease. A documentary filmmaker hopes to get Menczer a statue in her honor for being the only world champion from Bondi Beach.

1. ‘I just feel the love’: forgotten
surfing champion Pauline
Menczer in tears after
fundraising success
Pauline Menczer says her eyes have been puffy from all the crying.
The forgotten world surfing champion, who drives a school bus for a living north
of Byron Bay, has been overwhelmed by the success of a campaign to raise the
prizemoney she never received for winning the title in 1993.
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By Garry Maddox
March 1, 2021 — 3.32pm
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In tears: Pauline Menczer says she has been happy crying. DANIELLE SMITH

2. A Herald and Age story on Saturday about Menczer’s tough time on the early
women’s professional surfing tour – never able to attract sponsors, receiving only
a broken trophy when she became world champion, a long struggle with
rheumatoid arthritis then a rare autoimmune disease in the past two years –
mentioned that two surfing fans had started a GoFundMe campaign to raise
$25,000 to donate to her.
It reached the target around lunchtime on Saturday and has gone on to pass
$36,000.
Menczer, who lives at Brunswick Heads in the NSW northern rivers, says she was
“happy crying” watching the total rise by a thousand dollars an hour throughout
the morning.
“I just feel the love,” she says. “The money is a bonus but it’s the love and the
feeling of connection again. And the thing that makes me really happy as well is
that I’m able to donate to other people.”
Menczer, 50, has decided to donate anything more than the $25,000 target to
deserving causes including a man with the same illness in the Philippines who she
has previously supported when she could, a disabled surfing association and an
autoimmune disease charity.
The money she keeps will take the stress away from her medical expenses to treat
an illness that causes painful blisters and burns on her skin.
Her life might not be easy but “I’m just so content,” Menczer says.
Filmmaker Chris Nelius, who tells her story among all the women trailblazers on
the formative professional tour in the new documentary Girls Can’t Surf, says he
was “blown away” by the fundraising.
“She was so unsung for so long,” he says. “For something like this to happen for
her later in life, particularly at a time when she’s been struck down with a rare
disease, it’s just a feel-good moment.”

3. Nelius is lobbying Waverley Council for a statue of Menczer on Bondi Beach.
He believes she deserves the tribute as the only world surfing champion from the
iconic break, especially given less than 5 per cent of the country’s statues are of
reportedly of women ... and most of them are British royalty.
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Garry Maddox
Garry Maddox is a Senior Writer for The Sydney Morning Herald.
Pauline Menczer surfs at Bells Beach in 1996. JASON CHILDS