What is Yonder?
We have been doing some internalising recently as the new season for surf schools approaches and we prepare to launch a new collection which is bigger and more ambitious that we have previously dreamt up.
Pre-covid, I think the focus was more on Yonder being a progressive, female only surf school based in the North East of England, who made a few T-shirts and other bits we wanted to see in the world. As Covid hit we, like so many other business, had to pull back, take stock and assess who we are and where we were headed.
We are a tiny family business. Yonder started as just me (Sally) and I would call on my husband Tom’s help when I needed it. Covid hit Tom’s career hard; he was a travelling lifestyle photographer mainly working in the motorcycle world. As Covid hit and we went into lockdown; we got our heads together and decided to use our platform to team up with some friends and people we admired to create our ‘We Rise by Lifting Others’ collection. It was so cool to work with friends to create a range of apparel and accessories that we loved. The support that came from our community was incredible.
The uncertainty of the year ahead of us was scary. Teaching wasn't an option, the last few invoices from Tom’s work were dripping in so we weren't able to access Universal Credit. Childcare was cancelled, I couldn’t access the SEISS grants due to not being established long enough. We were staring down a pretty bleak future.
We assessed what we had; where are skills and passions lie and looked at what we had created through Yonder. We had built, or perhaps just connected a community of people who were passionate about surfing. Our passion for non-competitive surfing and alternative surf craft is an identity within surfing that we have always been proud to communicate. We felt that people resonated with a more laid-back style of surfing than the aggressive ‘hacking’ and ‘attacking’ of the mainstream surf world; both male and female.
We started to develop our range of products and curate some brands and products on our store that we love - like the Slowtide Blankets and Towels and fins from Captain and True Ames etc. It’s feels like a noble cause to connect people with equipment and products that we are passionate about. Offering advice on equipment and becoming a centralised and reliable source of this information is important to us.
The one question we have struggled with since Covid changed the world has been
Who are we and what do we do?
Are we a brand? Do people see us as a brand? Do we want to be a brand? We held a really successful and fun pop-up shop over Christmas. Are we a shop? Do we want a shop? We haven’t taught surf lessons for ages, all our camps have been cancelled, we can’t plan any more camps due to uncertainty. These have been a few of the questions that have got us thinking about Yonder, what we do and how people see what we do.
Then it hit us; the core ‘elevator pitch’ for Yonder. The motivation, manifesto, motto, whatever you want to call it that represents our existence and keeps us doing what we do.
Represents a Community
Celebrates a culture
What does this mean? What are the key things we can do to ensure that this manifesto remains central?
It leads us to a few central threads of Yonder.
Getting people into surfing properly.
We keep our numbers low; we keep the quality high. We have a completely different approach to teaching surfing. It’s holistic, all encompassing, supportive and fun whilst remembering that learning to surf is a marathon, not a sprint.
Encouraging the next Generation.
We are pleased to be offering sold out kids clubs to our community. We want to inspire girls to surf from a young age. We are proud to have Jem on board with this to help out. We also have a CIC, a separate Charity that has some really exciting projects running with local schools and community groups this year.
Celebrating our Culture.
We have been forever bored and frustrated of the image of female surfing in the UK in the most part, of course there are exceptions. We were stood on a beach in Cornwall at sunset last Autumn and seeing two girls coming out of the water and walking up the beach. As they walked past us, I asked them how there surf was, they replied “cold but pretty good, thanks”. They walked towards the car park with lovely single fin logs under their arms, shivering in the purple light of the British sunset and straight past a surf shop window with a huge window display of bikini-clad shortboard girls in some far off tropical place. Something wasn’t right about the whole scene. Two friends sharing a magical sunset session together at home, in the majesty of the British coastline that just is so rarely celebrated or represented how we see it.
We have a surf culture of our own. Of wetsuits, hoods, boots and gloves. Of flasks of tea, hearty meals and chips, frozen feet, brown waters, good friends, green coastlines and the absolute beauty and struggle of being cold water female surfers.
We want to celebrate this; through our representation of surfing, through our designs and key messages. Through our ambassadors, our community events and through the other brands that we stock or align ourselves with that we feel are a part of, or have a place in our culture too.
So we want to thank each and every one of you who have been a part of this journey; to all those who have supported us is any way. Whether that’s buying a T-shirt, coming on a lesson, sharing a post, if you have tagged us in a photo of your session, stuck a sticker on your van, trusted the advice we have given - stuck with us through this year. Thank you!
If you are new to Yonder, I hope that we are representing the lifestyle that motivates you.
Also I wanted to take the chance to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported us since we started out in 2018. A big thanks to Finisterre for supporting me as a surfer and giving me a platform, thanks to Stance for their support, Slowtide for supporting us, Karma Surf Shop and Real Surf Magazine for the good vibes, Aron at Fried Cactus, Glenn at Visionary, Ollie and Mark at OPEN, Russel at Green Stuff, Millican, Simon at CBK, Helen at Memo, Karma Coast, Arvin Goods, True Ames, Captain, Deathpack and our crew and anyone we have forgotten.
And last but not least our rabble of girls - Emma Tweddle, Jen Wood and all the other women that inspire us.
From the bottom of our hearts, the most genuine thank you.
Sally, Tom and Billy.