ACRE Trustees

ACRE aspires to develop and maintain effective governance through its Board of Trustees, while maintaining strong relationships with RCAN members, which provide input to ACRE’s governance through trustee representation. The organisation is accountable to both its members and other stakeholders through its Corporate Plan, annual performance assessments and the fulfilment of formal external regulatory requirements. Core tasks cover the strategic management of ACRE, as well as corporate responsibilities and accountability. Achievements include:

• Annual General Meeting
• Regular Board and sub-committee meetings
• ACRE trustee awaydays to discuss strategy.

The ACRE Board of trustees consists of a chair, two vice-chairs, a treasurer and a maximum of eight regional trustees selected by the Rural Community Action Network. A further six trustees can be co-opted by the board to provide skills appropriate to ACRE’s work focus.

Sue Shaw - Chair, Co-opted trustee

Sue Shaw is based in Durham City and was co-opted to the ACRE Board in February 2007 and elected as chair in December 2008. Sue is a self-employed community development facilitator, trainer and researcher.

Janet Thornton - Vice-chair, Yorkshire & Humber region trustee

Janet Thornton was elected to the ACRE Board in November 2009 and elected vice-chair in December 2010. She has been a trustee for Rural Action Yorkshire since 2005 and has trained as an ACRE Peer Reviewer. She sits on the Yorkshire & Humber Rural Affairs Forum Management Board and is a member of the West Yorkshire Rural Partnership. Janet is vice-chair of Involve Yorkshire & Humber, chair of the North East Regional Committee of Guinness Northern Counties Housing Association, and a member of the Yorkshire & Humber Community Activists Network (YCAN). She also sits on Leeds Council's Planning and Developers Forum. Janet recently retired from her local parish council after 13 years involvement in many initiatives.

John Hazelwood - Treasurer

John Hazelwood was elected to the ACRE Board in 2001 and appointed as ACRE’s treasurer at the AGM in November 2007. He is a past chairman of Gloucestershire Rural Community Council. John was a director of IiP (UK) Ltd, a governor and chairman of the Audit Committee of the University of the West of England, deputy chairman and chairman of Audit for the Design Council and deputy chairman of Business Link Advisory Accreditation Board.

John Rose - East Midlands region trustee

John Rose was elected to the ACRE Board in November 2011. He joined the Board of Community Lincs in 2001 and is a Board representative on Rural Community Action East Midlands. John has served as an elected member of the Lincolnshire Association of Local Councils for 25 years and is currently vice-president of the Association. John's other voluntary and community work includes: vice-chairman, Lincs Local Involvement Network (LINK), representing LINK on the NHS/PCT LIncs Board, NHS Patient & Public Engagement Steering Group and III Clinical Governance GP. He is Chairman of Governors of Phoenix School in Grantham, a governor of Fortuna School, Lincoln and a member of CPRE.

David Spreadbury - Eastern region trustee

David Spreadbury was elected to the ACRE Board in November 2006. He has been a member of Cambridgeshire ACRE for fifteen years and was chairman from 1998 to 2006. Over that time he was also a member of the Eastern region RCC Group and sometime chairman. David has been chairman of Rural Action East since October 2008. His career was in Educational Administration and he was for many years a member of the local Health Authority.

Peter Cleasby - South West region trustee

Peter Cleasby was elected to the ACRE Board in November 2011 and is a trustee of the Community Council of Devon. Peter lives in Devon where he has worked as a policy and management consultant since 2006. He was previously a senior civil servant, latterly at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where he was responsible for business support for land-based and other rural enterprises and the Department's social enterprise champion. He is currently chair of the Plunkett Foundation and a member of the Campaign to Protect Rural England's national policy advisory committee.

Richard Priest OBE - South East region trustee

Richard Priest was elected to the ACRE Board in November 2009. He has been a trustee of the Isle of Wight RCC for over 10 years and involved with SERCC and ACRE for some of this time, as well as serving on the Island’s Strategic Partnership. He is also a school governor, town councillor, housing association trustee and former chair and trustee of a drugs/alcohol rehabilitation charity. Richard is also manager of the Riverside Centre, recipient of the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Services, European Social Firm of 2008 for developing as a Hub for the voluntary sector on the Island, in partnership with other agencies. Richard was awarded the OBE in 2010 for work with the voluntary sector on the Isle of Wight.

Jan Worters MBE - North East region trustee

Jan Worters was elected to the ACRE Board in November 2010 and she is vice-chair of Durham Rural Community Council. Jan started work in the voluntary sector with Tyneside Housing Aid Centre in 1979 and she worked for Durham Rural Community Council for 10 years before moving to North Tyneside Voluntary Organisations Development Agency (VODA) in 1996, becoming chief officer in 1997. Jan’s vast experience includes: Chair, North Tyneside Strategic Partnership, a member of North Tyneside @ Work (SRB) Board, North Tyneside Challenge Board and vice-chair of the Voluntary Organisations Network North East. She also played an active role on the Invest 2006 Campaign and the resulting Regional Task Force which was established by Government Office North East. When Jan retired in 2009 she was deputy chair of the Community Foundation serving Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, Chair of Tyne & Wear Infrastructure Consortium, member of the Regional Strategic Third Sector Forum and Regional Infrastructure Development Group, and member of NTSP Executive. In 2007 Jan was awarded an MBE for services to the community in the North East.

Ian Soane - North West region trustee

Ian Soane was elected to the ACRE Board in November 2010. He is a trustee of Action with Communities in Cumbria and a trustee for North West Rural Community Councils. As ACT's nominee he represents the voluntary sector as a Governor of the Universities of Morecombe Bay Hospitals Trust. Ian retired from over thirty years in nature conservation with his last three years on secondment to the University of Lancaster, then University of Cumbria as director of the International Centre for Uplands. He maintains his research interests on rural issues (with a particular interest in resilience and sustainability) at a national and international level.

David Voysey - West Midlands region trustee

David Voysey was elected to the ACRE Board in November 2009 and he has been a trustee for the Community Council of Shropshire since 2008. He is a retired civil servant whose career spanned many years in welfare departments, including secondment as regional manager of a Special Health Authority for several years. David's current activities include being chairman of Alveley & Romsley Parish Council, Shropshire. For over 30 years David has been on the Community Buildings Advisory Group of the Community Council of Shropshire, where he is at present chairman, and for several years he has been chairman of the Bridgnorth branch of The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE). One of his pastimes is to play boules and he is chairman of the Severn Valley Petanque League.

Pat Holtom - Co-opted trustee

Pat Holtom was co-opted to the ACRE Board in 2006. She was a former East of England Regional Development Agency Board member with a special remit for rural issues. She is currently chair of the East of England Regional Rural Affairs Forum as well as being chair of the Norfolk Rural Forum, which she established in 2006. Since the development of the RDPE (LEADER) Programme, she has chaired the Waveney Valley Local Area Group and is heavily involved in assisting in the development of farming and green tourism projects in that area. She is now a freelance rural consultant advising on bid writing, evaluation and monitoring mainly for European funding programmes, delivering training and facilitating at workshops.