The SHAC — From an Idea in the Woods to a Major Outdoor Operation

The SHAC's origins weren't really about outdoor sport.

They were about what being outdoors can do for people.

After building businesses in property and tourism, Skip realised that a professional life increasingly spent behind a desk wasn't where he wanted to be. He retrained in areas including mountain-bike coaching and outdoor first aid and became increasingly involved in outdoor education and activity.

At the same time, his experience as a Scout leader reinforced something he was also observing as a parent: technology was becoming an increasingly powerful part of young people's lives.

The answer wasn't to reject technology. It was to create balance.

Time outside. Adventure. Appropriate risk. Communication. Independence. Getting muddy. Building something. Lighting a fire. Helping somebody else.

Skip believed some of the experiences that worked so powerfully in outdoor youth organisations could be made accessible to a much wider audience.

An unexpected conversation helped turn the idea into something more permanent.

As Skip stepped away from his previous business, he explained his plans for The Surrey Hills Adventure Company to the head of Belmont School. She asked to see the business plan.

Belmont subsequently provided The SHAC with its first permanent Base Camp on Leith Hill. From there, SHAC delivered mountain biking, children's camps, after-school clubs, woodland activity, team building and corporate experiences.

Children built dens, used rope swings, made fires, explored the woods, solved problems and learned to look out for one another. The company also began taking groups of young people away on adventure trips.

The reputation grew organically.

Julie Willard became increasingly involved as the organisation developed, initially supporting areas of delivery and administration before later taking on a much larger role within the business.

Negotiations around a new opportunity at Buckland Park began in 2017.

The SHAC already had an established reputation, but had never operated a permanent open-water activity venue. Skip developed the proposition and business plan and made the case for what The SHAC could create there. The SHAC began operating at Buckland Park in 2017, with the first full operational summer following in 2018.

What existed was essentially a former sand quarry filled with water. There was an old quarry boathouse, but almost none of the visitor infrastructure associated with Buckland Park today.

The customer-facing SHAC operation began from a tent on the beach. Equipment stored in the old boathouse had to be moved across the water to set up the activity area.

The tent eventually became a container. A scaffold structure was then built from the container to create a simple covered working area.

It was basic. It was exposed. And it created freedom to experiment.

Woodland activity continued alongside the water. Paddleboarding developed. Open-water swimming grew. New activities and ideas were tested, adapted, expanded or abandoned.

The SHAC didn't grow simply by shouting louder. Much of its growth came through reputation. People came, felt looked after, enjoyed the environment and returned or told somebody else.

That experience reinforced one of the most important lessons from the entire SHAC journey.

In outdoor activity, safety and customer experience should not be opposing forces. Good safety enables the experience.

The objective is not to remove adventure or make the customer feel surrounded by rules. It is to develop the knowledge, people and systems behind the experience so participants can engage with it responsibly.

As The SHAC grew, that required increasingly sophisticated operating procedures, emergency planning, risk assessments, staff systems, activity structures and water-safety arrangements.

The systems became more complex. The principle remained simple:

Create the conditions in which people can enjoy the outdoors with confidence.

COVID presented an existential challenge.

An organisation built around bringing people together suddenly faced closure, uncertainty and the possibility that years of work could disappear. There was no established playbook for operating an outdoor swimming and activity venue through a pandemic.

The team returned to first principles.

Understand the risk. Understand the environment. Be cautious. Make practical decisions. Communicate clearly. Only do what can be done responsibly.

The scale and outdoor nature of Buckland Park eventually provided opportunities for people to access water and nature while maintaining the separation required at the time. As circumstances evolved, The SHAC developed careful ways of operating within them. The River Wey operation was consolidated back to Buckland.

At the same time, public interest in outdoor activity, open-water swimming, cold water and paddleboarding accelerated dramatically. The market moved towards activities The SHAC had already spent years understanding.

Buckland grew significantly.

As the team's experience developed, The SHAC's water-safety capability began supporting activity beyond its own everyday sessions.

The SHAC provides water-safety support for the Reigate Tri Series, combining practical delivery with advice around how water-based elements should operate. The same capability has supported swim operations and course design for the Box Hill Tri, and consultancy and practical delivery support for SUP BIKE RUN — including mountain-bike route planning, safety input and training weekends.

When television, film or other production activity uses the lake, The SHAC's knowledge of the water and environment has also supported safe delivery. For Inside No. 9, The SHAC provided the location and water-safety support for filming involving the lake.

Skip has also worked in water-safety and advisory roles on a major Bollywood action production involving boats and complex activity around water.

The principle behind this work is straightforward:

Growth is often presented as an uncomplicated measure of success. The reality can be more nuanced.

The SHAC had grown far beyond the organisation Skip originally imagined creating. Eventually, the scale and demands of the business came at a significant personal cost. For his physical and mental wellbeing, Skip needed to step away from running it day to day.

He had also reached an important realisation.

The part of the journey he had originally set out to do was complete. The skills and energy required to imagine, create and develop something from almost nothing are not necessarily the same as those required to manage an increasingly large and complex mature organisation.

Julie Willard now leads The SHAC, supported by its operational team, continuing the business and community developed over many years.

For Skip, stepping back created space to return to the parts of the work that had always mattered most: people, places, ideas, nature, teaching and coaching, creative problem-solving, connecting specialists — and helping outdoor places and projects develop in ways that work for the people using them and the environments they depend upon.