Helford River Children’s Sailing Trust

The Helford River Children’s Sailing Trust is a charity that uses watersports as a tool to help children reach their full potential in life. Developing confidence, competence and resilience is at the heart of what they do.

HRCST have been members of CMN for many years, and were recently supported by the Network to realise their ambition of fundraising £1.7M to develop a specialist training center in a flooded quarry. In early 2019 CMN supported the Trust to employ its first CEO, Simon Osborne, who has taken charge of overseeing the project as it develops.

“The Trust received a lot of a financial support and time support from CMN in the period leading up to my appointment as CEO. There was a lot of consultation and advice to get us to the point where we could cope with a multi-million-pound project and a large staff payroll.”

The new Centre has been designed with disabled access and accommodation on site, with adopted lodges with hoists integrated into the ceilings. The Trust are purchasing equipment set up for disabled users and anticipate a truly ground breaking facility.

“We are now at the point where we’re increasing our employee numbers and getting ready for a launch in 2121. We had 2 employees a year ago, and we will be growing to 17, so there is a lot of change still to come. CMN have helped us to hire new staff, develop apprenticeships and identify our training requirements.”

Simon and the team have drawn on CMN’s expertise for anything that they don’t have in-house capabilities for, and have had all sorts of support, from developing their CRM database, to designing training plans for their seasonal staff.

“Being part of a network of organisations who can work together for a better outcome is invaluable. As soon as you have all those people working together, you have a better outcome than you could get working on your own.”

Simon and the team at HRCST continue to grow and develop, and anticipate plenty of support from Cornwall Marine Network in the future.