MEET THE BASE TEAM
Graham Sykes
Chief Executive
Graham has been a supporter of the Trust for most of it's existence. In 2019 he was recruited by the then CEO as potential sea staff. Soon after the sad news of the laying up of Morning Star of Revelation broke. Graham shared in the re-think of the business model and helped procure funds for the purchase of Eastern Star. He served as a Morning Star Trust Ambassador until his appointment as CEO.
Graham is a minister in the Church of England. He has sailed everything from a Mirror dinghy to a 200' tall ship!
Chris Tarling
Staff Skipper
Chris has been sailing with MST since 2016, when he crewed on the Tall Ships Race from Antwerp to Lisbon. Since then he has sailed as a volunteer relief and a full-time skipper across the fleet.
As well as being an RYA Cruising Instructor and Yachtmaster Instructor, Chris is a qualified school science teacher and has specialised in SEN. Chris loves to share with trainees his extensive knowledge of the wildlife we encounter at sea and is a mine of information about the the natural world with trainees onboard. His dry sense of humour provides light relief on challenging voyages when he is expert at lifting people’s spirits. He is good at helping people to know what they have achieved, building their confidence and self-esteem.
Andrew Costa
Administrative Assistant to the CEO
Andrew is the Administrative Assistant to our CEO. He is relatively new to sailing and is very keen to build up experience and complete more training. He loves being out on the water and hopes to get his Yachtmaster qualification.
Andrew believes in the power of the gospel to change and transform lives and he loves to be involved in the mission of Morning Star Trust. If he’s not at church, you can find him taking long walks through nature, at the gym or in a swimming pool.
Barry Hampton
Finance Manager
Barry is our Finance Manager and looks after the bookkeeping and financial arrangements for the Trust.
He assists with our forward financial planning and is always looking for ways to improve the way we run our finances together with our data and record keeping.
Ted North
Fundraising Assistant
Ted has held senior leadership positions at numerous charities and organisations over a distinguished career in outdoor education, and led MST for ten years until his retirement in 2017.
Never one to sit still, Ted continues to use his fundraising expertise to help ensure we have the resources we need to run our programmes.
Rebecca Newall
Administrative Assistant
Rebecca first sailed with MST in 2016 and went on to spend two years as our Staff Mate.
In 2020 she traded her sea boots for university books, but continues to support the Trust remotely by assisting the office with administration. Rebecca is an RYA Cruising Instructor and tries to spend at much time at sea as possible.
Stewart Scott
Volunteer Vessel Maintenance Manager and Diversity, Equality & Inclusion Manager
Stewart has had a long career in engineering, but his passion is sailing on the sea. He brings these two things together in leading the volunteer team who keep our boats safe, seaworthy and up to the high standards of the MCA Coding requirements. Stewart also has a strong commitment in enabling everyone to have the opportunity to experience sailing a yacht on the sea and serves MST as their Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer as well as being Yacht Mate. MST is determined that EDI will be a reality and not just an exercise in looking good. He also volunteers for the Sea Cadets as Yacht Mate and Relief Engineer on their Tall ship TS Royalist.
David Marshall (Q)
Administrative Assistant, Qualifications and DBS
David joined the Trust as sea staff when he took early retirement in 2012 and is now also providing administrative assistant support from home. He is looking after any DBS applications and maintains the records of our sea staff’s various qualifications and certificates. He enjoys sailing regularly, particularly on our Duke of Edinburgh voyages as he is one of our DoE expedition assessors.