Athletes and coaches are undoubtedly under enormous pressure and over many years these respite facilities have been utilised extensively.
It was a vision from the Lord in 1982 that set athlete respite model in train. It was my privilege to attend an international sports-mission conference in Hong Kong that year and it was there that I met Austrian super 'winter' sports star and coach Gernot Kunzelmann (now deceased) who had established a lodge in the Austrian Alps for this purpose.
I realised that Australia could provide the same facility, yet recognising that it was the beach and not the mountain would be the ideal location. Seven years later in 1989 the first sod was turned and Basil Sellers House was opened in 1982 by Nick Farr-Jones (Rugby) and Jeanine Treharne (Yachting).
Eighteen years later we can truly say, that the Lord has honoured this vision. In December 2005 my wife Delma and I relocated to Tweed Heads where we replicated the respite facility with Basil Sellers Tweed located at the Surfing Australia High Performance Centre which is part of the Domain Resort on the beach.
Over the years we have entertained numbers of international sports ministry delegates (Southern and middle Africa, Europe and England, USA and Canada, South Pacific) who have visited these respite facilities so as to attain a vision for their own nation, as each situation is entirely different.
Easter 2011 is our next international delegate with the Reverend Roly Scott from Dunedin New Zealand visiting both facilities on a study tour. In 2008 I visited the New Zealand Academy of Sport in Dunedin and introduced the idea of athlete respite who openly welcomed further discussion.
Basil Sellers House in Moruya is currently undergoing a make over with fresh colourbond cladding replacing the koppers logs to reduce the fire risk. Further work is being undertaken in 2011 including an upper deck landing.