About Us

Following a career with Siemens, culminating as a Director for the Asia Pacific region with responsibilities for 32 countries, Gordon decided to focus his work on climate change issues, in particular those related to energy use. He has significant experience of working in the renewable energy sector both in the Marches and across the UK. His personal journey with using solar panels started in the 1980’s and he has worked for one of the UK’s pioneering renewable energy companies, Wind and Sun, based in Leominster. Gordon is a Director of Pomona Solar Co-Operative, Herefordshire’s largest community owned solar generation system supplying low cost electricity to local businesses, which is actively seeking more sites.

He is Vice Chair of Herefordshire Green Network, has been very involved with the county wide h Energy events over the past 10 years, and in 2019 created the Zero Carbon Herefordshire project. Until recently he was chair of his local town’s award-nominated environmental group KLEEN. He has also worked with Marches Energy Agency to support the Keep Herefordshire Warm project. He has just been elected to the board of the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership to support consideration of the energy consequences of decisions made.

Gordon is an elected member of the Institute of Physics (IOP), and has been a STEM ambassador to support the IOP Lab in a Lorry project for schools across the Marches and in Wales. He has developed (with support from the IOP) educational energy bikes for all ages and taken these to events across the Marches.

In any rare spare time he enjoys astronomy, long distance walking with his family and friends and cycling using only his own energy!

Richard has been working in Film & video production for the past three decades spanning social-educational, commercial and environmental sectors. He is keen to promote new approaches to tackling climate and ecology initiatives highlighting creative networking over wider communities.

Richard is focussed on broadening the understanding of zero carbon messaging and wider cultural engagement through website and online media production. Growing networks is particularly important and is keen to support HGN develop practical support for existing members and broaden their grass roots reach.

Heather has spent over 30 years building Wiggly Wigglers into one of the UK’s leading environmental home-composting and wildlife brands, with a particular focus on helping people deal with kitchen waste using Bokashi and worms. Through thousands of households, schools and communities, Wiggly Wigglers has helped divert many thousands of tonnes of food waste from landfill and turned it instead into living, biologically active soil – putting microbes, worms and carbon back where they belong: in the ground, rather than in a bin lorry heading for trouble.

Empowering people to close nutrient loops and reconnect everyday waste with food and nature has been the driving force of her work. Alongside this, Heather founded and built The Great British Florist, one of the UK’s first businesses to champion British-grown flowers and seasonal, sustainable floristry long before it became fashionable. The business helped shape what is now a fast-growing sector and the brand was successfully sold after Covid.

Today she is also a partner in A R Gorringe & Partners at Lower Blakemere Farm in Herefordshire, a business which integrates regenerative agriculture, direct food supply, composting, biodiversity and education – and conversations about soil biology, carbon and worms are considered perfectly normal (and occasionally unavoidable) dinner-table chat.

Heather is committed to helping people buy local food, support farmers who are doing the right thing, and understand that building living soil is one of the most powerful climate actions any of us can take – even if it does involve getting rather excited about worms at parties.

Jonathan has spent many years involved in all sorts of environmental projects, from field conservation work to active campaigning. He has managed or looked after various urban or semi-rural nature reserves and worked alongside wildlife trust wardens on trust reserves. He spent 16 years developing his own “rewilding” project, which involved the conversion of 6 acres arable farming land into a highly biodiverse site requiring minimal human intervention. He is currently part of a team working with an inner city council to set up a community woodland. He studied ecology and conservation, and also modern history at university, and has been a non-executive director of a leading sustainable building products company and a disputes resolution lawyer in various international firms.

Botanist turned businesswoman, Rachel is now pursuing environmental interests working as Administrator for the Herefordshire Green Network, volunteering for RSPB Gloucestershire local group as Group Leader and Newsletter Editor and undertaking an eco-renovation of a semi-derelict Malvern stone cottage. A keen walker, leisure cyclist and interested birder, she has an obsession with incorrectly used apostrophes. 

With a background in marketing and communications, since moving from Hertfordshire to Shropshire in 2018 Gemma has turned her focus to helping improve the lives of people (and animals) across the region. She’s joined HGN as a project co-ordinator on the Building Sense project, is researcher and project manager on a 2-year Marches-wide retrofit project, provides Vet-IR infrared imaging services for horses and dogs, is undertaking a Masters degree in Sustainable Food and Natural Resources with the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales and in her down time volunteers with Zero Carbon Shropshire, manages her holiday cottage, Wrens Nest in Clun and enjoys spending time exploring the countryside walking and riding with her dog and horses.

Fran has a background in IT and project coordinating, has previously worked for a number of environmental organisations including Small Woods and Shropshire Wildlife Trust, and is currently employed by Community Resource Shropshire. Fran is committed to improving the environment and saving carbon, and is a director of Shropshire and Telford Community Energy. She enjoys exploring the UK in her campervan, volunteers a lot in her spare time; her main goal at the moment being to help Babbinswood Farm raise funds to become community owned.

Nick Read is an Anglican Priest and an Agricultural Chaplain with Borderlands Rural Chaplaincy. He combines chaplaincy with being Director of the Brightspace Foundation, a charity focused on supporting Herefordshire’s future sustainable development. He has a degree in Agricultural Science a Masters’ Degree in Forestry, an OBE for services to agriculture and is a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society.

Former roles include: Research Fellow with the Technical Change Centre, looking at technology transfer in the biosciences; national Food Policy & Research Adviser for the NFU; Co-founder and Director of the Rural Stress Information Network, a charity supporting farming families suffering from stress, and Chair of the West Midlands Rural Affairs Forum. 

He is currently Co-Chair of the Herefordshire Green Network, Chair of the Herefordshire Local Nature Partnership and he is also Chair of Farm Herefordshire which consists of 12 organisations working collaboratively to improve soil and water management within the county.

Pat is a chartered accountant who has supported various charities as the finance trustee in a voluntary or paid position for at least 40 years. As well as being the treasurer for HGN, and for a couple of other local charities, Pat tutors in accounting and finance for the Open University in Wales. Pat worked in film and video production for the past three decades spanning social-educational, commercial and environmental sectors, and is keen to promote new approaches to tackling climate and ecology initiatives highlighting creative networking over wider communities.