Trustees Gail Sprake, Chairman In her 30+ years as an RBST member, Gail has been an active member of the East Anglia Support Group, standing as group Chairman for a number of years. On her farm on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, Gail keeps Southdown and Devon Closewool sheep and Irish Moiled and Northern Dairy Shorthorn cattle, together with various poultry breeds. She is also the secretary of the Southdown Sheep Society. [email protected] Professor Tim Morris (Co-Opted) Vice Chair Professor Tim Morris has extensive experience across veterinary medicine, commerce, professional and voluntary activities, coupled with a longstanding interest and involvement with native breeds of livestock, and keeps Southdown sheep. He is a non-executive on Defra’s Animal Health and Welfare Board for England and has been a Trustee/Chair of several charities and a Director of several companies. [email protected] Alison Pope (Co-Opted), Treasurer Alison is from a farming family on the West Lancashire coast – dairy farmers with a horse drawn milk-round in the 1930s and 40s as well as farming pigs, hens and turkeys. She grew up with early morning starts in the 1970s to feed beef cattle and worked the usual crop cycles growing arable produce. Alison left West Lancashire to study Economics and Accountancy at Leeds University, and then qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant in the City of London. She is also a member of the ICSA and the RSA, a Trustee of the Alder Hey Hospital Family House Trust and is Treasurer of her local Royal British Legion Branch. [email protected] Tom Davis Living in London and having no family links did not deter Tom from pursuing a career in Land based Management and becoming a great advocate of rare and native breeds. Tom started volunteering at his local city farm at the age of 8 and his passion for rare and native has grown ever since. Tom is currently Farm Manager at Mudchute Park and Farm. [email protected] John Atkinson John Atkinson has spent 40 years as a commercial farmer, with 25 years’ experience of working for the National Trust in department and project management roles. He currently sits on the Board of the Whitebred Shorthorn Association and The Federation of Cumbrian Commoners and was co-opted onto the Board of Trustees of the Dry Stone Walling Association for ten years. With his partner Maria Benjamin, John farms 450 acres in the Lake District, running rare and native breeds of cattle and sheep. The farm has searched out different markets for its produce and developed new products and income streams to add value. [email protected] Ryan Perry Professionally, Ryan Perry works in the NHS as a biomedical scientist specialising in microbiology and has an interest in livestock genetics. He has kept rare breeds for around 20 years, an interest he first developed when volunteering for RBST city farm, Bill Quay Community Farm in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. He has served as a trustee for various charities, including Bill Quay. He is Chairman of the Tamworth Breeders’ Club and breed representative for the British Pig Association, where he has served for three years as a Trustee. Ryan farms Tamworth pigs, Bagot goats and Castlemilk Moorit sheep and has recently added Shetland cattle. [email protected] Catherine Lascelles Catherine began her career as an in-house lawyer in a record company, progressing into senior management in the record and music publishing business. She was elected to the board of The Performing Rights Society, representing 124,000 members with a turnover of £350,000 million per year. Catherine grew up with sheep, hens and horses and became a member of RBST whilst still in London. She moved to North Yorkshire for her daughter to experience an outdoor muddy childhood with animals. [email protected] James Fanshawe James Fanshawe describes himself as ‘an accountant turned farmer’. After a successful career in business as a partner in a large accounting firm, he became a livestock farmer when he and his wife Tina rescued a derelict farm. They started with rare breeds acquiring their first sheep, Manx Loaghtans, in 1985 and their first cattle, Gloucesters, in 1986 and still have both breeds. They also acquired their first Beef Shorthorn cattle at the Rare Breed Sale at Stoneleigh in 1996 and have now built this pedigree herd to over 150 cows. [email protected] Claire Saunders (Co-Opted) Claire has recently stepped down from a five year term heading up The Prince’s Countryside Fund which she joined in 2015. At The Fund, Claire led The Prince’s Farm Resilience Programme, which has assisted 1,000 small family farm businesses to date in adapting to sector change, and developed the Prince’s Countryside Fund’s research and fundraising initiatives, as well as publishing The Village Survival Guide. Following Bristol University, Claire began her career in advertising at Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising, returning to her native North Northumberland to head up the Marketing department of Barbour, and following an MBA at Durham, of Hunter Boot in London. She now lives in Bushmills, County Antrim, enjoying the company of her partner Simon, her Irish Wheaten Terrier, Groovy, and a small herd of Belted Galloways. [email protected] Kate Green Kate has worked for Country Life since 2007 and is the Deputy Editor. She has almost certainly written more on RBST and its work than any other individual journalist. She is well connected in media, countryside, equine and agricultural circles. Kate has previously worked for Horse & Hound and was the Editor of Eventing Magazine for 10 years as well as working in the offices of two major horse trials. She is still involved in the sport, has written 10 books and has worked as an equestrian reporter at four Olympic Games. She lives in Berkshire, but grew up in the West Country, and still has strong connections to. She is Vice-Chairman of the British Equestrian Writers Association. [email protected] Cate Le Grice Mack Cate, initially a teacher, became founder of Norwood Organic Farm in the 80s, an early pioneer of the new wave of organic farms devoted to producing meat and cereals for local sale and breeding native breeds of farm livestock. She has been a district councillor and leader, a county councillor, and from 2000 - 2009 a member of the Social, Economic and Environmental Partners (SEEPs) of the South West Regional Assembly, becoming chair during the critical period of the development of the Regional Spatial Strategy from 2006-2008. A founder board member of the Countryside Agency, and later chairing the region's Rural Affairs Forum. Involved in third sector work for many years, Cate started with a position as chair of trustees of Envolve Partnerships for Sustainability in Bath. She is currently a Board Member of the Cotswolds AONB. [email protected]