Ancasta Supports Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust

Ancasta Group and the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust are working together to inspire more young people living through and beyond cancer to believe in a brighter future after treatment.

To help achieve this, Ancasta will donate the cost for one young person to go on a four-day sailing adventure with the Trust for the first time for every new boat sold. Ancasta will also support the charity through team fundraising, volunteering, and awareness-raising activities.

Last year, 519 young people enjoyed a Trust sailing or outdoor adventure. By the end of 2025, the Trust aims to double the number of young people it supports in one year, to work with almost 17% of all young people it could.

“Having witnessed the wonderful work the Trust does and met a number of the young people they support, we are delighted to assist in giving more young people access to this wonderful and immensely productive programme. All the team at Ancasta, along with our clients and suppliers, are very proud to be involved with the Trust. Hopefully Ancasta’s involvement will encourage others to get involved in helping the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust achieve its admirable target of doubling the number of young people they can get on the water in the next three years..”

Nick Griffith, Ancasta Group Managing Director

Inspiring Young People After Cancer

Cancer can have a big impact on a young person’s mental wellbeing and for many, picking up where they left off before their diagnosis just isn’t possible. So, when treatment ends, the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust’s work begins to help young people aged 8-24 re-establish their purpose and place in the world through sailing and outdoor adventures. More than 2,830 young people from across the UK have sailed with the Trust since its launch by the history-making yachtswoman in 2003. But currently the charity can only support 1 in every 10 young people it could each year.

Because of the Trust, young people have fun, gain a new sense of purpose and self-worth, rediscover independence, and feel optimism for the future. They realise what they are capable of again, feel accepted and no longer like ‘the only one’.

Bigger Impact, Brighter Futures

Being even more accessible and inclusive to all young people who have a cancer diagnosis in the UK and ensuring every young person experiences belonging and improved mental wellbeing with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust is what sits at the heart of ‘Bigger Impact, Brighter Futures – Our Ambitions 2023-25’ campaign, launched by Dame Ellen MacArthur at the British Medical Association, London on 8 March.

Every day around 12 children, teenagers, and young adults under 24 hear the words ‘You have cancer’. Happily, survival rates are increasing. But, of the 3,000 new young people the Trust could work with every year, it can currently support just 9% of those on first-time sailing trips - less than 1 in 10.

The Trust’s exciting new partnership with Ancasta Group will help make a big difference in this.

“Our Ambitions 2023-25 were launched with the aim for the Trust to be accessible to all young people who have a cancer diagnosis in the UK and have the biggest impact possible on every one of them. Knowing we have Ancasta’s support towards achieving these ambitions is really significant. On behalf of all the young people we support I want to thank Nick and the team for their commitment and passion to inspiring even more young people believe in a brighter future living through and beyond cancer.”

Frank Fletcher, Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust CEO

Changing Lives

When she was seven, Libby was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Now 17, she returned to the Trust for the sixth time last year having first sailed with the Trust aged 10.

Libby said before her first trip she felt so unhappy and alienated and didn’t know who she was. She describes how, when on treatment, you have one end goal for so long, that when it’s over you’re lost, and you don’t know what to do or how to live.

That is where the Trust comes in.

“I don’t know where I would be without the Trust. After treatment, you feel like you’re dropped; like ‘You’re cancer-free now, off you go’, and you should snap back to normality. But it’s not that simple. My first sailing trip was amazing. I came home a completely different person, I had so much more confidence. My mum was amazed. Then with each trip you get something different, you feel much more independent. On trips you’re given so much opportunity to push your boundaries and remind yourself you’re still capable of doing stuff. No one mollycoddles you; you’re encouraged to do as much as you can. But if you don’t feel well, or need a sleep, there’s no judgement because everyone is in the same boat, literally.”

Libby

Ambitious Direction

‘Bigger Impact, Brighter Futures’ encompasses nine Ambitions – for young people, the team, fundraising, and communications.

The aims are to Build Belonging, so every young person feels ‘at home’ with the Trust and Go Further to provide the mental health and year-round support many young people need beyond their summer trip.

It will Drive Impact, using validated wellbeing questionnaires to prove and improve what it does, and Keep the Magic, by investing in staff, volunteers and skippers to make the biggest possible difference to each young person.

It will Ask Questions, challenging itself to be more representative of, and relatable to, all young people the charity supports, and Think Planet, to reduce the negative environmental impact of its activities.

And it will Grow Loyalty, Diversify Income and Talk Difference, to raise the awareness and income needed to achieve these Ambitions.

2023 marks the Trust’s 20th anniversary, and this summer, around 750 young people are set to be supported by the charity, with 33 sailing and outdoor adventure trips taking place across the UK from May to September.

A Longterm Partnership

Ancasta and the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust have a history of transforming young lives together. Following the advice and support of Ancasta in 2016 and 2017, EMCT launched two specially adapted Beneteau Oceanis 45s – Caledonian Hero and Solent Hero – to make sailing more accessible for young people, especially those who live with mobility and sensory challenges from their treatment and/or surgery. The work to adapt the boats was undertaken by Ancasta Yacht Services in Hamble.

For more information, visit ellenmacarthurcancertrust.org or follow the Trust across social media @EMCTrust

“If anyone had told me in 2003, when five young people from Great Ormond Street sailed with us for the first time, that 20 years later, 2,836 young people would have sailed with us, I’m not sure I’d have believed it.

Our understanding of the life-changing difference we make to young people living through and beyond cancer is greater than ever. We’re learning how to have a ‘Bigger Impact’, and with that comes ‘Brighter Futures’ for more young people who experience the transformational magic of the Trust, whether that transformation happens after one trip or through coming back every year.

Over 20 years we have evolved as a charity, and we will keep evolving as we strive to be a truly diverse and inclusive youth organisation that is relevant in the world we live in today. What we achieve in the next three years will lay the foundations for the next 20, but we will need help and support to get there.”

Dame Ellen MacArthur