CORNWALL PLACE

The Cornwall Place Board doesn’t want to be Cornwall’s best kept secret any more… the small team of volunteer trustees who have been diligently building the resources to help Cornwall take the world by storm have just reached another major milestone in that journey – their 1,000th ambassador. Formed as a Community Interest Company at the end of 2017 and chaired by James Staughton OBE DL, the four trustees and advisory board have succeeded in creating a real buzz around promoting the capabilities, prospects and ambitions of the county. The main vehicle for this is the cornwall.uk website, a resource for the whole of the Duchy. Set up by The Place Board as part of the G7 legacy, it signposts and complements, rather than competes with, existing mainly sector-based resources such as Visit Cornwall, Cornwall Food and Drink, Cornwall Chamber of Commerce, Business Cornwall and indeed Cornwall Council’s own website. With page views doubling every few months and with up to 5,000 impressions a day, it is fast becoming a go-to portal for all things Cornish. Great stories about the Duchy’s heritage, environment, business and community

are all showcased on the site, with new contributions always welcome. But it is the authentic voice of real people which really has an impact, and so, with this in mind, the Place Board started an ambassador programme. Launched only A Trelawny’s last year, the scheme is intended to mobilise a ‘Trelawny’s Army’ of people passionate

Army of about Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. With cornwall.uk behind them to provide context Ambassadors! and support, ambassadors are encouraged to spread the word about Cornwall each in their own individual way. Feedback from the growing cohort of ambassadors is also used to shape the tone and much of the content of the website. Drawn from the widest cross-section of society, and with many outside the Duchy

(and indeed the country), ambassadors are able to add a digital badge to their social media, as well as wear a pin-badge denoting the Cornish Bezants, with pride.

The 1,000th ambassador to sign up was Mark Mitchell, chairman of Cornwall Glass, which spans glass manufacturing and retail across over a dozen sites in the south west.

“Having seen someone with an ambassador badge the other day, my daughter and I jumped on the website to find out more. As a manufacturer, retailer and employer of 300 colleagues in the south west, we are always flying the flag for Cornwall across the UK and this scheme feels like a great way for more people to get involved. Getting the call that I was the 1,000th ambassador put a real smile on my face!” But it isn’t just business folk signing up – students, fishermen, nurses, surfers and councillors are all out there proudly sporting their badges and having a real influence on how the Duchy is being seen by the rest of the world. The goals are of course to improve the long-term economic outlook of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and changing perceptions, attracting inward investment and promoting the business opportunities the Duchy has to offer are all part of the plan.

But this is a long game, and mobilising real people to share their stories is giving the Duchy a wider audience, building the image of Cornwall as a great place to work, create and live, and not just the perfect holiday destination!

Robert Salvoni, a director on The Place Board and a local business mentor, says: “Now that we have hit 1,000, let’s go for 20,000 – a Trelawny’s Army of Ambassadors!

“Signing up is easy – just go to cornwall.uk and click on ‘join us’. We welcome ambassadors from every background, and from all over the world. To be born and bred in the Duchy is a great privilege, but if you weren’t, that doesn’t mean you need be any less passionate about Cornwall nor able to be a great ambassador. We all share the same goals, and in my experience, converts often make the strongest evangelists!

“We are delighted that Business Cornwall has been named as cornwall.uk’s official business media partner, and we look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration acting in the interests of the Duchy.”