Meet the team

A ‘cohort’ is a gang of people having a shared experience and our team is a gang of people sharing an experience so…

Meet Cohort’s cohort

Dan & Lee Strickland

Co-Founders

Constantly smiling, occasionally at loggerheads, meet Lee & Dan Strickland, husband and wife and founders of Cohort St Ives.

That’s Lee – almost continually on the phone, she deals with groups, schools, marketing and finance. Dan is the manager of Cohort, running ops, renovations and almost entirely focused on building stuff and reducing our environmental impact.

Favourite destination: India (Dan); Argentina (Lee)

David Baker

Assistant Manager

Dave is our go-to surf guru. Almost always in the water whether it’s January or July he is the person to ask about the wind, the waves, the surf and the most remote beach.

Dave has travelled the world (you’d be hard pushed to find a country he hasn’t visited) and St Ives has been his adopted base / home since 2017. He loves vinyl, his van and looonnnng books (with really small writing); he dislikes no-swell days and modern life.

Favourite destination: Japan

Adriana Newton

Reception Wizard

Originally from Krupina in Slovakia Adriana is our receptionist extraordinaire. Adriana actually started her life in St Ives at Cohort, her and her husband lived here for a few weeks while they looked for a permanent residence – that was over 7 years ago.

She wants you to know that she can’t live without chocolate and cocktails (hint hint) and is haunted by horror films for weeks so no watching them on TV when she’s here please!

Favourite destination: Peru

Sarah Bairstow

Educational Trips Account Manager

Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Sarah has been in Cornwall for the past three years and previously to that was in Italy for 18 years.

A woman of many talents, she speaks fluent Italian (obvs), is a yoga instructor, paints in mixed media and grows her own veg. A lover of pizza, black cats and footpaths; she is not a fan of cars, cities and ‘Keep Out’ signs. Oh.. and don’t you dare spoil the day’s Wordle for her, she’ll never forgive you for it!

Favourite destination: Any footpath she hasn’t discovered yet

Anthony Power

Cleaning Superstar

Anthony is an awesome musician and all round dude! Along with all things music he loves good food, drink and books. Things he is not a fan of include the Conservative Party and drivers not using their indicators (understandably!).

Originally from West Sussex he loves the Cornish mining heritage and being close to the sea. Check out his band DuGlas who we love and can be seen playing all over Cornwall and occasionallly at Cohort.

Favourite destination: Yorkshire Dales

Working at Cohort

During the season, February – 31st October, we have a great team of work-for-accommodation staff from all over the world. In exchange for 15 hours/week we offer free accommodation, use of all facilities at Cohort, surf lessons with St Ives Surf School and regular pizza & beer nights.

We ask for a minimum committment of 3 months and specific details of roles can be found on this website and HelpEx.

We are always on the lookout for great people to join our cohort so if you’re keen have a read of our Work Exchange Page to see if it’s right for you.