Summer Update!

At some point before the summer, we were contacted by Thea and Ella from Pembrokeshire Women’s Surf Society, who asked us if we would be interested in travelling to Pembrokeshire in Wales and running a Log Labs Longboarding clinic. We looked at the calendar and thought about how we could make it possible as it sounded like a really fun and exciting thing for us to do. We had to wait for the summer so that we could bring our son Billy with us and fortunately we were able to make it happen.

A little later, we had an email from Fi from Girls Who Grind Coffee asking if we would like to join them at the amazing Camp VC, also Wales. We managed to figure out some dates and align the two events together, planning a little tour from North Wales, then onto Pembrokeshire where we could take our whole family on a little Welsh adventure. Summertime is usually pretty busy for us and winter is the time we get to travel and work away but so as long as we could cover some travel costs, we were more than happy to have a bit of a working holiday. It was a great opportunity to connect with local people, learn some local knowledge regarding surf spots and just embed ourselves in a surf community outside of our own.

If you haven’t heard of Camp VC, please do look it up! It’s a women’s outdoor adventure festival run by our old friend Gemma Harrison in Wales. There is a big focus around motorcycling as a catalyst for bringing people together to experience new things in a safe space. There were E-bikes for mountain biking, a skate ramp (and excellent coaches), motorcycle trials workshops, beginner and more experienced motorcycle riding workshops, loads of art, craft, inspiring talks and two nights of partying in the Welsh hills.

Yonder and Camp VC are really closely linked, VC was a huge inspiration when starting Yonder, and in fact, our first ever surf camp was in North Devon with Gemma and the crew with Billy, and her son Stan as tiny babies in tow.

Talking ‘Out of Step’ with GWGC

Billy was wild and free all weekend riding dirt bikes around site.

We decided to tie all the above in with a mini film tour; having also just finished making two films this year; the first one entitled ‘A Practice of Freedom’ telling the story of mothers in our community and their relationship with surfing. The second film, entitled ‘Out Of Step’ which documents our families approach to travel, adventure and raising our son. The title ‘Out of Step,’ felt fitting because sometimes we feel that our approach is perhaps not quite in line with the norms in society, also any old HXC fans will know the reference! There is a rich history and culture of travel and adventure in surfing, and we hoped to be able to contribute to that culture with the film, screening it in person as oppose to simply putting it on youtube and into the internet abyss.

We had two amazing days at camp VC with Girls Who Grind Coffee where we got to show Out Of Step for the very first time and on the Saturday evening we shared the stage with the inspirational Ashmore Ellis from Babes Ride Out in the USA and two amazing ladies from Fern GP who are breaking down gender barriers in motorsport. The Saturday night Team talks is a great way to discuss and share stories with the VC community, an honour to have had the opportunity to do this twice now.

With a few spare days before starting the Log Lab sessions, we arranged with Laura from Daughters of the Sea Magazine to show our films in Swansea. We wanted to make the night a bit more of an event so asked 21 time national champ Emily Currie (fresh from a European Longboard Title Win) if we could share her film ‘Longest’ and Bella Bunce and Beth Leighfield to share their recent film ‘Unplugged’. We were absolutely overwhelmed by the response, we packed out a huge venue with 160 people and got to watch all the films on the big screen. A ‘pinch ourselves’ moment for sure looking at the current state and reception to women’s surfing in the U.K. and grassroots surfing in general. A very proud moment indeed. After the films, the lovely Laura hosted a panel discussion with Beth, Emily and myself. For us the best part of the whole night was being able to bring people with a shared passion together in a room where we could celebrate and discuss the things we love.

After a bit more hanging out, surfing and skating we headed west to Pembrokeshire for another film night. This time it was village hall vibes, Pembrokeshire Women’s Surf Society hosted the same line up of films, they cooked a lovely chilli, got some beers in and together we made the event into a fundraiser for the club. Over 70 people showed up, ate, chatted, drank and watched the films raising £461, money that will be put back into something cool for the club. We were stoked to see another rad community of surfers, male and female, younger and older come out to the night. The best thing was all the conversations that we we’re having and hearing. Fuel for the soul. We would also like to thank every single one of the community that bought a t-shirt or a hat from us, helping fund the little trip down!

The Log Lab itself was an amazing opportunity to really throw everything that we have learnt as Yonder in the last five years about coaching and teaching surfing at five amazing women. Each person that joined us proved an absolute pleasure to spend time with and share the stoke. As usual Tom and I geeked out about all things logging related, delving into the fine details or sliding sideways.

I don’t think we often talk too much about our actual approach to surf coaching on our social media but its the foundation of what we do here at Yonder, it’s something we take really seriously and we have put a lot of thought into. It was great to use all the tools at our disposal as both surfers and coaches to work on specifics with the group. We used video video analysis, we used concept and theory work both through discussion, showing physical resources, whiteboard work, demonstrations with equipment. The ladies killed it. It was so cool and hopefully they continue to use some of the work we did for months and years to come.

In an amongst the film nights, the Log Lab and the hanging out, we scored some pretty good waves, we skated some pretty good skateparks and we got to spend some time in the van, sitting around fires and hanging out as a family exploring new places with friends.

We are back in the North East running sessions until we go back on a mini tour to Cornwall where we will show our films at Finisterre in St Agnes on the 31st August and then at Roma in Falmouth on the 1st September. Come and join us!

North East screening is in the works, stick with us!