All Films Ski Surf Bike Climb
Portfolio Summer Winter Hometown
Outdoor adventure is my passion, storytelling is my purpose

What is the Goat Surf Club?

We Share Positive ENvironmental Stories through the lens of Surf Adventure…

 

About the G.S.C.

As passionate environmentalists, we hope to bring a deeper appreciation for the world around us through these surf adventures. In collaboration with Outside Magazine, we share a video episodes series after each surf trip we take. But it’s not just about chasing great waves, while we’re in the water on our surf trips we get to see a lot of these issues up close - we touch the beach plastics, we see the pollution and we smell the water quality issues.

In an attempt to learn more about what is being done to help alleviate some of the problems that face the environment we meet up with individuals helping make a positive impact in their community. We believe there’s a lot of doom and gloom in the media coverage about the climate story and we hope to change that - we want to lift up those doing great work in the world.

We are the Goat Surf Club and this is what we do…

 

Our Past Work

Goat Surf Club -

Conservation in Ireland

The Goat Surf Club is back! Following up from our Trapped in Morocco series, we've planned a trip to Ireland to try to find waves along the windy coastline, sing songs to the trees and meet with an Old Irish Goat herder... Join Roo, Ben and Thomas in what they does best - sharing positive environmental stories through the lens of surf adventure.

Goat Surf Club -

Trapped in Morocco

What started out as a pretty standard, beautiful, and culturally enriching surf trip soon turned into an incredibly wild adventure. Four days before we were set to fly out of the country, the borders closed and Morocco banned all incoming and outgoing flights because of the new COVID variant. We were stuck. But it wasn't all bad...

 

Meet the Goat Surf Club Members

 
 

Roo Smith - Filmmaker

If you’re on this website, you may know Roo already. Roo is the documentarian of the Goat Surf Club and the primary storyteller of the adventures. As the happy go lucky American of the group, he brings an optimistic look to every expedition the G.S.C. has ever taken. Roo is rarely seen without a smile on his face.

Surfboard of choice: Longboard

Favorite type of wave: 3ft and glassy with friends

Biggest Quirk: Still can’t eat chocolate without getting it all over his face. Especially ice cream, it’s the cutest thing.

Regional Surf Expertise: Central America and the Pacific Northwest coast of the U.S.

Thomas Joutsikoski - Environmentalist

Thomas is one of the most fun people you will ever meet. With an uncanny ability to connect with any type of person from all walks of life, he’s able to build community wherever we go. However, he’s more than just a charismatic personality, he’s also an accomplished environmentalist and social justice worker.

Surfboard of choice: Groveler Shortboard

Favorite type of wave: Shoulder high and playful

Biggest Quirk: Has a shoulder susceptible to dislocation but surfs in blissful acceptance just waiting for the day it happens to come back.

Regional Surf Expertise: Cold Water Destinations

Ben Davies - Scientist

Ben is a total sweetheart. Nobody on this earth can say anything bad about Ben, mostly because of his big heart and joyful personality. His professional accomplishments are nearly as great as his personal ones as he spends most days of the week conducting research for the UK government on coastal erosion mitigation.

Surfboard of choice: Fish

Favorite type of wave: 6ft left handed point break peelers

Biggest Quirk: A major fan of fringe soccer (“football”) player Moussa Sissoko despite his often underwhelming performance.

Regional Surf Expertise: Wales and Scotland but claims to be excellent at Google Earth

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 
 

Where did the name Goat Surf Club come from? does it stand for greatest of all time?

We came up with the name “Goat Surf Club” after an experience in Morocco where we saw dozens of goats hanging out in trees on the side of the road. It was one of our highlights of our Morocco trip and when we were thinking through a name for the group we kept coming back to how amazing those goats were.

To answer the second question - we definitely do not think we are the greatest of all time, we are incredibly average surfers but we do love surfing. We’re improving our abilities every trip and are able to have fun in all conditions but no, we are not (nor trying to be) the G.O.A.T.

How did you All meet?

We all met attending an international school in Wales. The whole mission of the school is to create a community of international students focused on creating a culture where “education is a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.” There were roughly 200 students from over 90 different countries so we learned a lot about different cultures and how to make the world a better place. Although many years have passed since we were at that school, we believe it has really shaped the mission of the G.S.C. all these years later.

After that educational experience, Roo returned to the US and Thomas and Ben stayed in the UK. Five years after not seeing each other, we decided it was time to reunite the old surf club and the gang reunited in Morocco… The rest is documented for you to see!

Roo and Thomas circa 2015 on one of our first surf trips together

What do you all do when you’re not traveling with the Goat Surf Club? Do you have day jobs?

As much as we love doing the Goat Surf Club series, we do have lives and communities outside of this project because the trips only happen every few months. Roo has developed a career as a documentary filmmaker based in Colorado, Ben works as a scientist in Scotland and Thomas works on environmental consulting projects for various nonprofits all around the world.

We wanted these surf trips to to go beyond ourselves and when we realized what we were all doing independently in our own professions we realized it would be an amazing collaboration between three old best friends that now coincidentally ended up in a similar career field. Thankfully, our resumés and past experiences all have prepared us to create a video series about uplifting environmental stories through the lens of surf adventure.

I love the series and want to get involved, how do I help?

We’re so grateful that the outdoor industry seems to be resonating with what we’re doing and we would love your help! Putting on these trips requires a lot of financial support as well as substantial research to discover individuals or nonprofits working on uplifting environmental projects in coastal areas.

Brands - We would love to partner with you and help market some of your products if our lifestyles and missions align!

Individuals - If you have anybody and your network that you believe has an interesting story that deserves to be highlighted click the button below to contact us at in touch about potential story ideas.

Surfers - If you want to take us to your favorite waves hit us up! We always love surfing with locals when we can.

Filmmakers- You may notice that there may not be as many videos or photos of Roo surfing from the trip and that’s because he’s always the one behind the camera. We’re looking to change that so if you’d like to work with us and help create this series please reach out to us by hitting the button below or using the form at the bottom of the page…

Contact the Goat Surf Club!

These projects can’t be done just the three of us. We love building community around what we’re doing so please reach out. If you have a story idea for us, a product you’d like us to feature, a wave for us to surf or just want to say hey, hit us up :)

Brands We’ve Worked With

As Featured On