Who are we?
We are a group of people who live around St.Ives Bay in Cornwall.
We swim, surf, walk, bird watch, kayak, look at the sea, pier jump, volunteer, work, play … we live here.
In March 2023 we came together to form the community group Keep Our Sea Chemical Free.
St. Ives Bay stretches from
Godrevy Lighthouse to the Island
in the town of St.Ives
It is a place renowned for its beauty
We’re a small town – St.Ives and the villages around it have about 11,000 residents – there’s always a connection when you meet someone.
So, many of our group knew one another or at least knew of one another. Some of us surfed together or played music together or had organised protests around other local issues. We’d worked together, walked together or volunteered at The Community Orchard , The Skatepark Project or The Food Share.
It wasn’t anything complicated – just an informal coming together of local people. We were worried about the chemical testing that we’d just found out was happening in The Bay. We were all shocked and felt powerless in the face of the next experiment we were informed was happening in a matter of weeks.
We knew it was important that we support each other and try to gather information and inform our community about the experiment.
We met in the upstairs room of the St.Ives Art Club to try to understand what was happening and to decide what we should do.
We voted on what to call ourselves – local artist Camilla Dixon came up with the winning name. Keep Our Sea Chemical Free. Simple and to the point it has stood us in good stead.
We communicated via WhatsApp and face to face meetings, sometimes the whole group and sometimes smaller gatherings, to organise specifics (like graphic design for posters, sorting out social media pages, stewarding protests and keeping everyone safe).
…and we also had some good conversations in the surf between sets.
KEEP OUR SEA CHEMICAL FREE 