Introducing TYF - doing good things in Pembrokeshire

A sustainable business investing in outdoor leaders of the future (Part 1)

Victoria Ash

and

Adventure Collective

Aug 12, 2023

Business name: TYF

Location: St David’s, Pembrokeshire

Key takeaways:

Commitment to sustainability generates long-term business success
Training instructors of the future is part of that commitment
Coasteering is huge fun!

A slightly different blog this week - one that began with Adventure Collective’s personal experience of a fantastic coasteering trip on a recent family holiday in Pembrokeshire. We’d booked with a company in St David’s called TYF for our intro to this watery sport. In the capable hands of their Adventure Manager Matt Bray, we found ourselves growing in confidence to jump off what felt like scarily-high cliffs, coast the eddies around the rocks, and explore awesome caves.

It was clear from a first visit to TYF’s website as a potential punter that this was an adventure business with some clear differentiators. First, they’ve been going for more than 30 years and are still managed by founders Andy and Sarah Middleton, now with support from their family, and a growing team of instructors.

Second, they pioneered the sport of coasteering, and have now expanded their offer to an exciting range of outdoor activities. And third, they clearly have a strong commitment to sustainability and the environment, signalled by becoming the first B Corp in Wales in 2015 - a pioneering and growing global movement of businesses doing things differently and using business as a force for good. We loved this mission statement on their website:

“TYF are committed to using the power of play and learning in wild places to reconnect people to each other, our environment, and the shift needed to rebalance wellbeing. We are pioneers, we are fighters and we are hard workers. We use the power of business to make a positive impact for our employees, community and nature. We laugh, we cry and we play, and most of all, we love the privilege of sharing our magical land with others.”

Training instructors of the future

We’ll return to their business story in more detail in a future blog but we wanted to pick up on one aspect of their sustainable business ideals: a commitment to training the outdoor instructors of the future. They say:

“If you love nature, adventure, learning and teaching, and want to make a difference to the world through the work you do, TYF’s Instructor Training Course will light up your life.”

The 16 week, comprehensive programme is split into several modules: Surfing, Paddlesports, Climbing, Mountaineering, Centre Based Activities and Additional Skills. Each module has a clear, progressional pathway to competence with plenty of room to develop both personally and professionally.

TYF also provides opportunities to shadow and observe sessions with qualified instructors and, as they progress through the programme, students can take a more active role in leading groups to ensure they get hands-on experience that will aid them in fulfilling the prerequisites for your qualification assessments.

Plus every student has a dedicated mentor and gets the opportunity to take advantage of lots of different adventure activities in Pembrokeshire and beyond.

TYF are holding an open day at their St David’s base on 26 August for anyone interested in finding out more (see the link below for more details).

We’ll end with a photo of the author, friends and family enjoying their coasteering trip (the cliff jumps did get higher!). We can only imagine how rewarding it must be to be an instructor introducing people to this much fun.

The Business of Adventure

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