Our thanks go to so many people/companies who helped us in 2008!

The journey only lasted about 7 months, but during that time we received so much help and asked for many favours! Although we tried to thank people at the time we felt it was important to make sure everyone knew that their help was appreciated by making sure we gave them credit on our webpage.

The following list is in alphabetical order to make it as fair as we could;

Boardseeker made some excellent video footage available for the launch at the London boat-show. This provided an excellent, uplifting backdrop for our walk onto stage. We were also given (retrospective) permission to use the footage on our website as a very professional introduction to the sport. Special thanks go to Adrian Jones

Boards Magazine supported the initiative from the outset and as the concept was born on their forums they are due a lot of credit. On top of this the team provided help, contacts and advice throughout the campaign and helped significantly with the arrangements for the Cinema Screening of the Windsurfing Movie”. Special thanks go to Bill, Duncan and Fred.

Bryony Shaw stepped up to the mark (literally) at the London Boat show with a live on stage interview giving the National Windsurfing Week initiative gravitas, credibility and good looks at the same time! Giving her time free of charge gave us the boost we needed to prove that it was possible to create a national campaign out of goodwill alone

Cadburys supplied a large box of prizes including tee-shirts, towels and (of course) lots of chocolate. For those of us with a sweet tooth this proved a temporary, but fantastic, distraction. Special Thanks to Andrew Trow for creating this opportunity.

Club Vass posted an online comment about a Windsurfing Calendar they were producing and our request for an entry for National Windsurfing Week was met with an enthusiastic “Of course, what else can we do to help?” The calendar was subsequently printed and the May 2008 page caused quite a stir. Admittedly it was not all because of the National Windsurfing Week entry, but any publicity is good publicity. Special thanks go to Rob Sheward for his patience in trying to arrange a meeting

DaKine distributors Surf Sales Ltd supplied us with two top of the range camera bags as competition prizes. This allowed us to create a photographic competition designed to migrate our message into the photographic forums and press. Obviously once we had their attention we were also able to tell them where and when they could take photos of windsurfing and also give the photographers a nudge to give windsurfing a try themselves. Special thanks to Graeme Fuller for this and other support

FC Watersports in Poole provided a sounding board for early ideas as well as contact info, industry knowledge, encouragement and some discounted prizes. On top of that they took our large banners to the London Boatshow and put them in prominent positions on their pool/stand. Special thanks to Gary Wilmington and Dave Hartwell for their ongoing support.

Guy Cribb supplied some Intuition DVD’s as prizes as well as encouragement and one of the most impassioned quotes for our website, it was just a shame that most of the passion came out in words that we could not really use when trying to encourage families to take up the sport. Once edited it looked great though!

Jem Hall sent us some DVD’s to use as competition prizes, ran some intermediate courses for free during the week and helped us to promote the London Cinema screening of the “Windsurfing Movie”. We were also typical guru words of encouragement “focus, believe and enjoy”

John Carter tried so hard to help us with the difficult demands of the BBC Country File Magazine. When the lack of a high quality professional photo threatened our chances of securing the lead article, John sent us a number of fantastic high resolution images free of charge. Sadly for John the BBC went with their own moody shot of a lone sailor on Bala Lake in North Wales, but his instant and practical help helped to calm our nerves at quite a stressful time

Nick Field risked the wrath of his credit card company when he booked a 240 seat central London cinema for the first ever wide screen screening of the classic “Windsurfing Movie” before a single person had booked a seat and before he had the rights to screen the film. Fortunately word got round very quickly and the whole evening was a huge success and culminated in a profit which was donated to the RNLI. As an aside Nicks Company Legend Exhibitions shows a similar professionalism and passion if you are looking for some help with organising an exhibition.

OMWC (Ocean Motion Windsurfing Club) supported us from the outset and put a link on their website to help build knowledge of the initiative within their membership

Peter Hart agreed to us using some footage from his DVD’s when we were trying to create the video backdrop for the London Boatshow Stage show and also supplied some signed DVD’s to use as prizes along with his support of the whole concept

The RYA (Royal Yachting Association) entertained the ideas of what was essentially a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs in a very professional manner and helped us to contact all of the RYA windsurfing schools via a RYA funded mail-shot as well as including an article on National Windsurfing Week in their members magazine which is send out to literally thousands of people. Special thanks go to Amanda, Helen and Emma for their patience.

Simon Bornhoft managed to break our final (self set) obstacle by arranging a video shoot and TV coverage at very short notice. During filming he managed to get the phrase “National Windsurfing Week” included at least three times in a three minute piece; impressive stuff! On top of this, Simon supplied some great “how to” words and pictures free of charge for us to use on our website

Sunsail were the first company to contact us with the offer of a competition prize and stunned us all when the prize turned out to be a holiday for two! Sunsail also made our life much easier by running the competition on their website. Sunsail adverts in the windsurfing press incorporated the National Windsurfing Week logo in the crucial months and Sunsail centres ran a special windsurfing day in support of the initiative giving us our first international events. Special thanks go to Fiona Rigby for contacting us and understanding what we were wanted to do before we did!

Surf Center’s Callum Edge contacted us early in the initiative full of enthusiasm and offers of help. By putting us in touch with Bryony Shaw to arrange the on stage interview at the London Boatshow and lending us props to dress the stage (including some North Sails and Mistral Boards) Callum helped make our launch look professional. After the stage launch Callum provided some space on his stand and a National Windsurfing Week branded windsurfing simulator which was perfect when the press photographer turned up after the stage show to take some shots of Bryony and the team.

SWA founder James Potten also stepped up to the mark on the stage at the London Boatshow and provided the essential ‘cool calm and collected’ interviewer to string the proceedings together. James’ style and extrovert nature really molded the on stage show together and helped to give us a truly professional presence

Timo Mullen jumped to our aid when we were looking for pictures for the BBC CountryFile Magazine article. His magazine article on windsurfing round Old Harry Rocks near Poole seemed to provide the style of photo the BBC required, namely a shot that would not be too extreme and would be clearly identifiable as being in part of the UK. Although the BBC eventually sourced a photo from elsewhere Timos’ immediate response (despite being thousands of miles away) gave us hope as the magazine lead article seemingly slipped through our fingers

Topaz Digital Media is the brainchild of Adam Leah who threw himself into the National Windsurfing Week project at an early stage. Sadly the demands of business then dragged him away from us, but not before he prepared a great logo and produced a truly inspiring and very professional video backdrop for the London Boatshow which we went on to use as the intro on our webpage.

Turfdogs’ Adam Cropper also contacted us full of enthusiasm for the initiative and desperately keen to help however he could. We finally settled on a great scheme where windsurfing schools could ‘borrow’ a Turfdog board for the duration of the event and Adam also provided a Brand new Turfdog Board as a prize for the person who we decided had truly entered the spirit of National Windsurfing Week. This prize went to Andy Trow who organised the Beginners’ club meeting during the week. Andy is now a land-boarding convert!

Tushingham were the first equipment manufacturer to contact us and we were delighted to meet Dave Hackford on a very windy weekend in Portland. Despite the distraction of the wind outside, Dave was full of praise and enthusiasm for the initiative and offered us lots of help with mail-shots, databases, ideas and a prize of a brand new Tushingham Sail to be awarded to a windsurfing instructor who took part in the week. The prize was eventually won by a delighted Graham Willey who gave his services for free and ran a number of free sessions during the bank holiday weekend (and almost got divorced because of his devotion to National Windsurfing Weekend, sorry Graham!). Thanks also go to John Hibbard who bought the first National Windsurfing Week Tee-shirt, feed us countless free pictures and generally gave us all the support he could

The UKWA (United Kingdom Windsurfing Association) arrange much of the national level windsurfing racing in the UK and certainly raced to help us as we tried to start the initiative. An invite to a committee meeting on a windy Sunday at Poole (why were so many National Windsurfing Weekends meetings so windy?) allowed us to start championing our idea and the cause and was met with unilateral support. The UKWA ran National competitions in England and Wales at the start and end of the week and really got into the spirit of the initiative by including our logo on their adverts as well as promoting the week during radio interviews. Special thanks go to our mentor Allan Cross, Ian Kraft as well as the Chairman Ian Jones and Ceri Williams who managed to get repeated mentions of National Windsurfing Week on local radio stations

Ultrasport distribute BIC and Tiga in the UK and were another company that contacted us offering help at an early stage. In a huge act of trust they gave us access to their full portfolio of photographic images so that we could choose images that would suit our needs without imposing any restrictions on their use. Special thanks go to Gordon and Tamzin for their support

Windsurf Magazine ran a truly inspiring and original series of articles based on the concept of National Windsurfing Week and even went out interviewing ‘normal’ people on the streets of Oxford to find out what the word “Windsurfing” made them think of. On top of this they provided encouragement and support as well as the all important guidance. Most importantly of all they were the delivery service for a very important “Congratulations on your wedding” card. Special thanks go to Sarah Cotton


We hope we have not missed anyone from the list. If we have, contact us and tell us off! A big thanks for everything that everyone did for us in 2008, can we count on your support for 2009? ;-)