Tassy Swallow is a professional surfer and the founder of a surf school in St Ives.
In 2018, she is working with the New Economics Foundation to turn her school into a ‘marine dream hub’, one of three UK hubs bringing together coastal communities to make the most of their marine environment and boost their local economy.
Who are you?
I’m a professional surfer and the director of Surf St Ives, which is a surf education enterprise for your children that also runs community events.
What is the point of the project?
The point is to act as a clubhouse for Tassy’s Surf Ratz, a group for girls age 6-16 which aims to improve their self confidence as well as teaching them surfing. It will also be an events hub in St Ives for the marine scene.
The Surf Ratz is the social enterprise and the events are the commercial side that can help fund the surf club, which allows me to keep prices low and work with target groups of kids who perhaps wouldn’t be able to afford a surf school.
Tassy’s Surf Ratz got involved with @LucyJoyceStudio ‘s Live Art Installation today for @tatestives 💥💗 #ibecomesyoubecomeswebecomesus #tate #StIves #tassyssurfratz pic.twitter.com/A6r7XfZV2Z
— Tassy Swallow Surfer (@Swallowface) January 27, 2018
It’s an arty town, it’s positive but the whole marine side of the town goes underlooked. My hope is to run workshops to teach people about the sea, especially kids who don’t know much about the marine environment.
When was the moment you decided to do this?
I set up my first club for girls back in June 2012 to help fund my junior surfing career. I was under 18 at the time and the surf industry has cut a lot of the budgets. My sponsors weren’t giving me enough to compete at an international level and I was struggling to find a job in my hometown, so I set up the club to fund the competitive side of my work.
As soon as I started running the sessions I knew that was what I wanted to do. It was a really nice realisation for me that I didn’t have to always be doing what my sponsor wanted me to do to earn money. It was a big game changer.
Because of the challenges we have in this town it can be difficult to see eye to eye, but we do have a strong sense of community.
What’s been your proudest moment so far?
The highlight was when we found this incredible building right in the heart of our community and I thought wow, this is a dream come true, but how will I ever afford the renovations, because it gets a battering from the elements. So we put it on crowdfunder and that filled me with confidence, the amount of people who thought I wasn’t crazy and it was a good idea. That’s got to be the highlight.
How the Surf Ratz took back their town https://t.co/LSYHwgEKDS
— HUCK (@HUCKmagazine) June 10, 2018
What’s been hardest?
The money side of it is never great. There are periods when I physically can’t run sessions, because it’s been snowing, or there are storms in winter. But now I have the surf house it allows me to think bigger than the surf. I get to teach all the other things that come with it.
What drives you when it gets hard?
I carry on doing it because I don’t think I could go back to working for someone else. I’m very passionate about it. There can’t be many jobs where you get to work with a child our a group for most of their life. Some of the older kids I took on when they were eight or nine years old, and it’s really amazing to be a part of their lives like that.
With surfing, because of the type of sport it is, a lot of parents are not too quick to be supportive of it. Because of that I see some kids who I can see so much talent in but you can tell that as soon as they go home, they’re not getting that support, so it’s nice to be the person who is saying: “Yes stay at school, but when you’ve finished, if you don’t want to work for Tesco, go and follow your own dream.”
What’s the next step?
Last year was our first year of being operational for a season and we were just trying things out. This year I want to start a series of inspirational talks from women in sports, like TED talks, plus film screenings. We’re working with the RNLI to do swim safety courses so members of the public can safely use the coastal areas around here and so if people get in trouble they know what to do before the emergency services are involved.
Down in St Ives with the amazing @swallowface as she hatches plans for the freshly painted Surf House and her all-girls surf gang the Surf Ratz pic.twitter.com/Z6EkpJ80Re
— Far Nearer (@far_nearer) March 27, 2018
How did you vote in the EU referendum and why?
I voted to stay because I thought the whole referendum was ridiculous, that we weren’t even given a choice. I can’t see anything good that comes from isolating ourselves like that, and having to make our own links when those things were working fine before. It’s come up the way it has because people haven’t been informed properly.
How will the outcome affect what you do?
In terms of applying for funding, those massive funding streams that were available from the EU might not be available to us. There are always other options but it’s frustrating that it’s a massive chunk of funding has been wiped out.
Even things as simple as an exchange I did with the Surf Ratz to Camaret-sur-Mer in France. I took seven or eight Surf Ratz over there and we stayed with families and went to their surf club. That’s something that the kids will have to jump through hoops to do from now on. It’s going to be a lot harder.
You start off thinking it’s a brilliant idea and then it becomes, “What the hell have I done?”
What would you say to someone looking to do something similar?
You start off thinking it’s a brilliant idea and then it becomes, “What the hell have I done?” Then you panic and think you’ve done all the wrong things. You just have to persevere and know that it’s all worth it in the end.
My business is still far from profitable but I know looking back I will be so pleased I put in this effort in and that I have hopefully inspired other people.
What does community mean to you?
Community means to me all people of different ages, from different parts of the community, working for the same thing. I put on an event last year in celebration of opening this place called the community day festival.
For me it summarised what that means – people of all ages dancing in the sun all day and appreciating the place that we live. Everyone was so stoked because we were surrounding by this beautiful setting. Because of the challenges we have in this town it can be difficult to see eye to eye, but we do have a strong sense of community.
