About Us
The Edward Hain Centre is run by our staff and a board of trustees, with the help of many volunteers.
Our vision is of optimum health and wellbeing for all in St. Ives and surrounding areas. To this end, our mission is to provide accessible and affordable health, wellbeing and community care for everyone, without exceptions.
We are also a community hub, offering a variety of community activities and events. Some are shared with the St. Ives Food Bank, whom we are proud to have based at the Centre. Read about them below.
See below also for info about our resident, independent practitioners, Penwith Ear Care and Samantha Evamy Counselling
The Edward Hain Centre is a registered charity, number 1200936
The St. Ives Food bank: our strategic partner
St Ives Food Bank delivers meal supplies to individuals and families experiencing food hardship. In partnership with the EHC, they also provide free community meals at the Centre.
Samantha Evamy Counselling
Samantha Evamy is a BACP-registered counsellor working with both individual clients and couples. She specialises in supporting clients of all ages and life experience dealing with issues such as relationship difficulties, anxiety, low mood, low self-esteem, addiction and bereavement.
You can now book a session with Samantha at her therapy room in the Edward Hain Centre. Click below to find out more.
Penwith Ear Care
An independent ear care specialist offering the best tools to help your hearing be the best that it can be. This includes microsuction, Ear Health Checks and Hearing Screening with Video Otoscopy.
You can now visit them at the centre. Click below for more information and to book an appointment.
The Edward Hain Centre Team
The EHC team consists of three staff members, a board of trustees, and many supporters and volunteers.
Sharron Goldingay
Manager
With her background in management and Procurement, Sharron’s experience brings a fresh, vital approach to the Edward Hain team.
Sharron has two grown sons and a teenage daughter, and is a keen gardener with an allotment in Gulval. She also has a soft spot for donkeys and her whippet fur baby, Audrey.
Kerrie Cox
Administrator
With over 25 years’ experience in administration and office duties, Kerrie is responsible for the Centre’s day-to-day operation and running.
She enjoys gardening, socialising, reading, and fixing things. With a lifelong passion for animals, Kerrie and her husband love hanging out with their 3 ducks, 3 dogs, 2 guinea pigs, and tortoise.
Claire Jefferies
Community Hub Officer & Volunteer Co-ordinator
Claire has run several small businesses, most recently in care and companionship for the elderly. She brings the Centre a wealth of safeguarding knowledge and a can-do attitude.
With three grown children, Claire and her husband’s spare time is now filled with grandchildren, dog walking and gardening.
Lynne Issacs
Chair of Trustees
Lynne brings the Centre decades of invaluable experience in social work. Mayoress of St Ives when her husband was Mayor, she has been involved in community campaigns for many years, including those to prevent closure of the former Edward Hain Hospital.
Previously Secretary of the hospital’s League of Friends, Lynne is a major force in steering the development of the new Edward Hain Centre.
Elizabeth Veal
Trustee: Treasurer
A member of the Edward Hain League of Friends for over 40 years, Elizabeth brings the Centre’s board of trustees her irreplaceable wit and directness.
She is a very active chapel member with roles that include safeguarding, and also serves on the Old Cornwall Society’s committee and volunteers at the British Heart Foundation and St Ives Museum.
Claire Young
Trustee
As a former District Nurse who for several years was a Registered Nurse at the Edward Hain Hospital, Claire’s experience working within the NHS is a great asset to the Centre. She is passionate about the former hospital’s transformation into a new hub of health and wellbeing.
With three grown children, Claire regularly sings with folk and shanty groups around St. Ives. She is also a member of the Shanty Shout committee.
Kit Grindstaff
Trustee/social media
Kit (née Hain) is the youngest great-niece of Capt. Edward Hain. A former professional singer and songwriter with a B.A. in psychology, she now manages the Centre’s social media and website content.
Kit is proud to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother, Capt. Edward’s sister, who, until 1948, was an original trustee of the hospital founded in his name.
Alan Bennetts
Trustee
Alan was born and grew up in St. Ives. In 1977 he moved to London and obtained an LLB in law at King’s College University. Recently retired after 40 years’ experience in commercial property, he brings his considerable legal expertise to the team.
Alan now divides his time between London and St. Ives, accompanied by his new rescue dog, Arthur.
Beth Reyhani
Trustee
Since relocating to Cornwall in 2017, ear care clinician Beth has dedicated her efforts to advocating for the benefits of early hearing loss detection. As owner of Penwith Ear Care, she brings the board her business acumen and experience working alongside the NHS.
In her spare time, Beth enjoys exploring the Cornish coast and camping with her two sons and their dog, Pugsley.
How We Are Funded
We are funded by: renting rooms to our service providers; grants; generous corporate and individual donors, and events. We are grateful for each and every one.
Room Rentals
Rooms are available for the use of service providers and community groups during our normal business hours of 9-5, Monday to Friday; and in addition, from Monday to Thursday up till 7pm.
We also have full-time space available for health & wellbeing providers.
For more info, please click below
Grants and Donations
We depend on grants from foundations and local government groups. For more about our grant funders, scroll down to ‘Our Funding Supporters’ just below, and click on any of their logos.
We also receive donations from local businesses, and individuals from near and far. We are grateful for every one.
If you would like to donate , please click the Donate Now button at the top right corner of each page, or click HERE. Your contribution of any amount is invaluable in helping us keep our doors open. Thank you.
Friends of the Edward Hain Centre
The Friends have been an integral part of our journey. Previously called the League of Friends of the Edward Hain Memorial Hospital, their fundraising made the building purchase possible. They are now winding down their fundraising, and we will be folding fundraising events into the Edward Hain Centre. We are thankful to them for the invaluable contribution they have made to to the Centre’s existence, and to our mortage and running costs up till now.
For more about them and their past events, please click below.
Our Funding Supporters
What we do
In order to provide our community with a wide range of health services, we work with a number of different providers, groups and organizations.
These are a mixture of traditional service providers of medical and clinical sessions, and independent providers. Between them, they offer broad-based care and preventive programs to improve over-all health and wellbeing.
Please explore our site to see all of our offerings. Under ‘Latest News’ you will also find a number of blogs and articles dating back to our opening in September, 2023.
We look forward to you and your family members joining us at the Edward Hain Centre.
In the know
Keep up with what’s happening and what’s new at the centre by signing up to our Newsletter here.
We respect your privacy.
The history of the Edward Hain Hospital Building
The Edward Hain Memorial Cottage Hospital in St Ives was founded in 1920, following the purchase of Albany House with funds from the Hain Steamship Company.
Its purpose was to create a lasting memorial to Captain Edward Hain, the only son of Sir Edward and Lady Catherine Hain, who was tragically killed at Gallipoli in 1915. His parents felt that a hospital, which was sorely needed in the town, would be a fitting tribute to him.
The hospital was always strongly supported by the local community from the very beginning, as well as after it was taken over by the newly-formed National Health Service in 1948. In the 1960s the hospital’s League of Friends was formed, and have been unfailing fundraisers ever since.
Now renamed Friends of the Edward Hain Centre, you can read more about them HERE.
Following the closure of the hospital in 2020, the Friends faced a decision: either wind the charity up, or continue their long-standing mission of supporting local community healthcare. With the loss of the St Ives Day Centre as well as the hospital, health and social care provision in the town had become considerably worse than it was twenty years ago.
So the decision was made: to attempt to buy the building that had been such a beacon of local care for the past 100 years, and bring much-needed services back to the town by creating a new health, wellbeing and community hub, to be named the Edward Hain Centre.
18 months of talks and negotiations followed, with St. Ives Town Council mediating between the Friends and NHS Property Services. The Friends’ funds, raised over many years, fell short of the £1 million purchase price — but the charity was not set up to take out any loans, or to own property. A new charity, the Edward Hain Centre charity, was formed from several of the Friends members to own and run the Centre. They took out a £400,000 mortgage to cover the difference.
Finally, in late July 2023, the purchase was complete, and the building was returned to community use. The new Edward Hain Centre for Health & Wellbeing was born. Its first services were in November, 2023.
Several members of the extended Hain family have been involved in the proceedings since the wards’ closure in 2016. In a joint statement made in 2022, they said,
‘This building not only commemorates our great-uncle, Captain Edward ‘Teddy’ Hain, but is also a poignant memorial to all the lost sons of St Ives from the First World War. Our great-grandfather gave so much back to the town he loved, but this particular legacy represents the heart and soul of its people and embodies their unshakable sense of community.’
Two Hain descendants currently serve on the Centre’s Board of Trustees: Captain Edward’s youngest great-niece, Kit Grindstaff (née Hain); and great-great niece Helen O’Riordan.
