About Us

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.

Clare has degree in three-dimensional design however somewhat accidentally spent her career working in social justice.

Firstly, teaching art to probation clients in a cultural centre in Birmingham (her hometown) Clare then ran a community based juvenile crime prevention project and became the national organiser for the same programme which ran in high crime communities across England and Wales for 10 years.

During this time Clare moved to the Sussex coast had three daughters and then began teaching art in the local prison. There began another ten-year career this time in prison education and resettlement. In 2007 Clare set up the first independent social and environmental enterprise business in a prison: Work This Way offered long term prisoners end to end training, voluntary work experience and employment in waste management, biofuel production and construction site health and safety skills including management level qualifications. Clare was unofficial CEO and then took redundancy from HMPS to become official CEO of the business and was made a fellow of the RSA.

Clare left the business in 2013 when it had to move to Kent and the next years were spent training and working as an associate coach, specifically working with adults with neuro-differences. In 2015 Clare moved to north Herefordshire and became a coach supervisor and manager until December 2020 when again she was offered and accepted redundancy (again).

While her family were growing up in Sussex, Clare helped run Woodcraft Folk and also worked at Chichester Harbour Conservancy teaching pond dipping and other glorious past times to school children from London and the SE. Clare she is now a volunteer at Jaime’s Farm Monmouth. She is still working as a wellbeing and personal development coach, is a member of the Climate Coaches Alliance, and coach and trainer working with the NHS and privately.

Clare visited the Centre for Alternative Technology with her family in the 70’s returning again and again over the years and seeing the radical but gentle message as inspirational. From 2014-2018 she became a trustee at CAT sitting on HR, Fundraising, and Communications and Marketing Committees. In this way and as a member of the Steering Committee at HGN Clare aims to use her skills and experience to support others doing the more technical and specialist stuff!

Toni Fagan has lived, worked and raised her family in Herefordshire since 2005. In 2019 Toni was elected to Herefordshire Council as a Green Party councillor for Birch,  to the south of Hereford. 

Initially studying and working in journalism and then travelling Toni became interested in community development while living in the West Highlands of Scotland. Since then she has been involved in many community based projects and environmental campaigns. Toni’s involvement in the council  includes the Planning Committee, Pensions Committee, and the Climate and Ecological Emergency working groups for Scrutiny and the Worcestershire Pensions Fund environmental, social and governance working group. Toni is a partner in a small, extremely ethical and low carbon, catering business.

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.

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!

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

I’m 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 I’m keen to support HGN develop practical support for our existing members and broaden our grass roots reach.

Beth Williamson is a former Secondary School teacher of English now working as coordinator for ‘The Great Collaboration- towards Zero Carbon Herefordshire.’ 

In 2016, having worked in Education for 10 years, she moved to Herefordshire to have a family and pursue a more sustainable lifestyle. 

She has set up and solely run The Green Schools Project in Herefordshire where she has been able to work alongside Herefordshire Council, Spring Greens Educational Days and The West Midlands Sustainable Schools Network. Beth sits on Leominster council.

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.