David Gwillim

Davis has recently moved to Woodcote in Oxfordshire with his family. He is a practising solicitor advocate and Partner with Pitmans LLP, which he joined in 2013 after over 30 years in the City. He works with the construction sector and has a particular interest in sustainability and the way in which the built environment impacts on our rural environment.

Russel Matthews

Russel has spent his career working on integrated land use and management with particular reference to forestry, landscape, and arboriculture. He has run a small consultancy firm since the turn of the century and has worked throughout the UK and in Australia, the Far East, the Middle East, North America & the Caribbean. He has also worked for Local Government in Norfolk, in education, and as a partner and director of environmental and engineering consultancy firms.  Russel is a Chartered Forester, a retired Chartered Landscape Architect, and was formerly a trustee of the Earth Trust. 

Major projects Russel has worked on include the transfer of New Town landscape assets; management plan preparation and the restoration of parks and open spaces within the UK and the United States; the ecological work associated with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link; four new woodlands (total area 1000 hectares) for the Will Trust and the London Tree Survey.  He was also Environment, Consultation and Consents Manager for the upgrade of the West Coast Mainline Railway. 

Anita Prosser

Anita was born and educated in the UK having spent her early years in West Africa. Following a degree in Botany and Zoology she worked in education and as a researcher for a wildlife film company.

For over 30 years Anita worked for BTCV (now The Conservation Volunteers), initially setting up training schemes for the unemployed and then moving on to establish BTCV International and activities. Her career has involved working in over 32 countries throughout the world, running organisational training programmes in central and Eastern Europe, Japan and Africa, and helping to establish National Conservation Volunteer organisations and volunteering activity. Recently she focused on European funding including transnational work, influencing EU Volunteering policy and recently on the new EU growth funds. Alongside this, in a voluntary capacity, Anita is a board member of a number of European and local organisations and chairs the European funding network on behalf of NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations).

Toni Robinson

After completing a degree in Environmental Science, Toni worked in countryside management for a short time before deciding on a career in waste management. She now has over 25 years’ experience in the industry with much of this time spent managing landfill sites.

In recent years her role at Grundon has broadened and she am presently Head of Compliance, with her main focus being related to the environmental and health and safety aspects of the business.

Toni lives close to Wantage and in her spare time she enjoys exploring the Oxfordshire countryside with her daughter.

PETER SHEPHERD

Peter is an ecologist with over 30 years’ professional and research experience in ecology and nature conservation. He has worked in the voluntary and private sectors in the UK and overseas in Eastern Europe and South East Asia.

His specialist areas are urban ecology and biodiversity design. He has undertaken a very diverse range of projects that have included Environmental Impact Assessment, Habitats Regulations Assessment, large and small scale habitat and biodiversity design within new developments, management planning for a wide range of sites from urban parks to sites of international importance, strategic biodiversity infrastructure provision at City and regional levels and in development master plans, research and training provision. Peter is an expert botanist and bat ecologist with extensive experience of dealing with protected species and species of conservation concern.

Peter has presented numerous papers to local, national and international conferences.

Nick Thorn

Nick is an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College where he spent 19 years as Director of Development, before leaving in 2020 to allow more time to work as a sculptor. He has over 25 years of professional fundraising experience and was the founding Director of The Oxfordshire Community Foundation, having spent several years working in London for national campaigning organisations.

In 2020 he established the conservation group, Hinksey Trail Regeneration, which he still chairs and where he volunteers twice a week, rebuilding paths and helping to manage habitat on the southern escarpment above Oxford.

MARTIN WILKINSON, TREASURER

A fully qualified accountant (CIMA), Martin has over twenty years experience as a financial director, largely in Blackwell Science where he was involved with building a medium-sized UK business into an full international group with a turnover of c. £140m.

He has held a number of non-business positions, including chair of the major sub-committee of the Board, Finance & Resources at Oxford Brookes University and several governor posts in schools, including as treasurer of The Oxford Academy. He has held positions of Chair and Treasurer in a number of Oxfordshire charities, including The Art Room, Oxfordshire Family Mediation & Earth Trust. In early 2016 he joined the panel of the Step Change Fund (within Oxfordshire Community Foundation) which grants charities monies for a major shift in their development.