Earlier this year more than 180 delegates attended the Marine Southwest conference called Turning the Tide at the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton in Somerset.

Focussing on best practice and calling for better marketing and promotion of marine leisure businesses - as well as the use of e-business - and lobbying for the region's marine industry at European level conference heard guest speaker Tracy Edwards give them a wake up call to improve attitudes.

She suggested that the best teams spend their time trying to win, rather than trying not to lose, adding that it is not the big crisis that overwhelms but the constant "pitter-patter of tiny defeats".

Chairman Mike Leece, a board member of the SW RDA, reported that across a two year period to August last year 600 individuals had received training in five key areas for action, namely training and skills, networking, communications, sharing best practice and identifying funding opportunities.

These are in addition to developing marketing initiatives and e-commerce opportunities.

The University of Plymouth was well represented at the conference and contributing to the success of the day was Jim Grant with a workshop on Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the University's Centre of Expertise in Marine Science and Technology which is now better known by its acronym of CoEMST.

In its recent newsletter, Marine Southwest emphasised that 500 companies have now received training at all levels from diplomas in management to NVQ Level 2.

Under the Marine Southwest Training Grant Scheme companies can benefit from a free training analysis, which is followed by sponsorship of an agreed training course or courses for 50% of the cost.