The Presbytery surfboard was painted by Biripi man, Uncle Dave Donovan. It was commissioned by the Mid North Coast Presbytery in 2015 and purchased for the Presbytery by a member of the Presbytery Standing Committee at that time. The painted surfboard represents the reconciliation that First Peoples and the Uniting Church together are seeking. 

Dave Donovan attended the Presbytery meeting at Port Macquarie Uniting Church on 13 February 2016 and spoke about the creation of the artwork and the significance of the symbols included. Sadly Dave Donovan died a few years after completing this artwork. He was an Uncle to a number of the young people who attended the Youth Group that was held at the Wauchope Uniting Church each Friday night for a number of years from 2014 onwards. Uncle Dave Donovan painted on a variety of surfaces, including surfboards, as the canvas for his artwork, which always used traditional Biripi images in creative ways.

In this surfboard painting, Uncle Dave combined Biripi images and Christian symbols to symbolise reconciliation. A large cross dominates the surfboard, painted in dot painting style with circles to represent yarning circles at gathering places, linked by lines marking the track between them. 

The dominant colours in the lower half of the artwork pick up the threefold focus of the Mid North Coast Presbytery—the water, the sand, and the land of the Presbytery, as the Presbytery mission statement said at that time. The yellow of the cross spills out from the base, representing the sands of the beaches along the coastline. The sand is surrounded by blue, representing the ocean, which is so important for the Biripi people. There are fish swimming in the ocean. The deep red-brown section represents the land.

In the two quarters below the bar of the cross, there are two hands—one white, on a blue background, the sky; the other brown, on a red-brown background, the earth. The hands were formed by Dave drawing around his own hand, on the right, and the hand of John Squires, who was then one of the Presbytery Ministers, on the left. In each hand, there is a yarning circle—the place where First Peoples have traditionally met to talk and work through issues. The hands and the circles in them also point to the reconciliation theme of the work.

In the two quarters above the bar of the cross, there are large figures rising up from the ground, rising towards a bright star in the top of the sky. These figures represent the ancestors, as they ascend into heaven. Joining those larger figures are much smaller figures, the spirits of the land, who are escorting the ancestors on their journey through the starry night sky. Their journey takes them past a large red-brown bird figure, which resonates with the red dove on the Uniting Church logo.

At the base of the surfboard, under the cross, there is a wren, which was a personal totem which Dave included in many of his artistic works. The surfboard is present at each Presbytery meeting as a visible reminder of the commitment that the Uniting Church has made, to seek “a destiny together” with the First Peoples of this continent and its surrounding islands.

Information provided on 8 July 2023 by the Revs. Elizabeth Raine and John Squires, Presbytery Resource Ministers 2011—2016.