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The Will Mackaness Trust was set up in 2008 at the Wey Valley School,following Will’s death and it achieved charitable status in 2011.

Will was an avid sportsman who took a full and active part in all aspects of school life, despite undergoing intensive treatment for the most aggressive form of brain tumour.
One of Will’s passions was water sports especially windsurfing. It is for this reason that the trust’s aim is- to give more water sport opportunities to the youngsters of Weymouth and Portland, so they too, can experience the fun and exhilaration of windsurfing, sailing, paddle boarding and kayaking for themselves.

Our wish is to build on the Olympic legacy of the 2012 Games.

We are, indeed, fortunate to have all the facilities right here on our doorstep, but, all too frequently the cost of the activities is prohibitive, also the youngsters often do not know how to access them.

So the trust aims not only to give financial support to youngsters who want to participate, but to organise the courses too.

From our initial desire to encourage more young people to be involved in water sports we have enabled hundreds of youngsters to participate in these activities, however from organising the various courses we realised that there are many who would like to get involved but who are unable to swim the prerequisite 25m.  We, at the trust, consider swimming to be an essential skill for everyone, especially as we live so near the sea and that to be able to swim is of life long and all round benefit for all those involved even if they choose not to pursue the other water sports and so we aim to establish termly swimming courses for those who need them.