The Team

Our Team

Gilly Notley

Freelance Associate

Gilly lives in Somerset with her family and has been a teacher for over twenty years. Gilly is a qualified Level 3 Forest School leader who also leads a busy Early Years setting in a local school. Gilly brings a wealth of knowledge and experience of working with children and is particularly passionate about working with our youngest children and their families. Having taught in various locations within the UK, as well as overseas for many years, Gilly is happy to be back in the West country and to be working in Young Wood whenever she gets the chance!

Jane Embleton

Freelance Associate
Jane has a love for our land, especially the land where there are people who love or have loved it too. She facilitates art and creativity with adults and young people and has a degree in Art and a PGCE in teaching adults. She was a lead tutor for the arts for Somerset Skills and learning for several years.

Her path has led her further and further into the woods and she trained in Forest School and many other ways of connecting to nature and the land and now helps others do this too.

As one of the Eco Shamanism team she writes in their monthly newsletters and helps run online and in person trainings.

Council and circle ways have become part of her core way working and she runs regular online and in person groups in various places and within camps often in collaboration with Jenny Archard in Young Woods.

Dr Rosie Viant

Ex Chair
Rosie has worked in education and teaching all her life. Now retired and resident on the Blackdown Hills she volunteers as a mentor for young people in Somerset and is Chair of her local Parish Council. Rosie was part of the Neroche Local Stakeholder Group, which drove the direction of Neroche Landscape Partnership Scheme, and latterly the Blackdown Hills Trust.

She brings to Woodlanders her expertise in governance, her love of the outdoors and a desire to help young people and families.

Rowen Wilde

Freelance Associate

Rowen has a background in community arts and drama, and holds a fine art degree from Sheffield Hallam University. She has a broad range of experience and really enjoys working with people of all age and abilities - from elders in care homes to children at birthday parties. Locally she worked for Superact in Wellington. In the last few years Rowen has got involved in nature-based projects and loves working with Woodlanders on families events, off-site events, parties and monitoring wildlife.

Jo Hinds

Freelance Associate
Jo first came to Young Woods with her daughter to attend Young Saplings Parent and Toddler group and felt a connection to the woodland. She got involved with Neroche Woodlanders first as a volunteer and then as a freelancer.
Jo is a qualified Forest School Leader and Level 3 Playworker, as well as having a Level 3 in Countryside Management where she achieved a Double Distinction. She is also a Youth Mental Health First Aider.
She likes natural crafts and woodwork, having assisted on chair making courses and willow craft workshops as well as regularly running woodworking workshops at festivals.
Jo lived and worked in the off-grid community Tinkers Bubble, doing forestry, coppicing, gardening and timber frame building as well as gaining skills in cooking for large groups on an open fire.
Jo works at a primary school near Langport providing Forest School sessions as an intervention for children with Special Educational needs.
Jo is now Leading Young Saplings Parent and Toddler group.

Ellie Hayes

Freelance Associate

Ellie has an engineering background and is a level 3 qualified Forest School Leader. She loves working, playing and volunteering with everyone in the woods at Neroche Woodlanders. Her experience includes running home ed outdoor learning and engineering clubs with Rama Life in South Petherton in Somerset and previously at Monkton Wyld Court in Dorset. Ellie is exploring ways to encourage interest in learning maths, in addition to all the forest school fun!

Chris Heron

Freelance Administrator
Chris is an experienced Secretary/PA/Business Administrator. She specialises in supporting small businesses and charities with their administration and back office tasks. She started Time Well Spent in 2012 and since then has supported many different organisations. She has been working with Neroche Woodlanders since 2018 and although virtual has visited young wood for meetings. She loves the outdoors and the coast and has recently moved near to Seaton.

Is this you?

we are on the lookout for freelance staff
- forest school leaders, bushcraft types, woodland management people

Cara Jenkins

Freelance Associate
I have been in Outdoor Education on and off for most of my working life. I guess I don’t mind the rain!
It started at 18 with PGL in Shrewsbury as a holiday job whilst at UWE. My studies were in English Literature but my “down” time was all walking and countryside.
It wasn’t until 17 years later in my work at the Ancient Technology Centre in Cranborne and at an Alabare Ecominds project that I came full circle to return to it. That was taking school and specialist groups in kinaesthetic learning – ‘doing not viewing’ approach to hands-on history and conservation.
It was at Core Creative Education that I developed a more therapeutic side of Outdoor learning and play that brought me to Neroche Woodlanders.
I very much embrace the following quote from George Bernard Shaw -
‘We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.’
We should all, at any age, be able to gain joy from playing. For me it is outside, Forest & Beach groups, connecting with that inner child who sees laughter in the trees!
However resilient we may have been to survive, there is a need to return to playfulness if it was absent in our childhoods.

Alan Bruford

Freelance Associate
Alan brings a huge amount of experience of working with children, families and adults in the woods. Latterly he was the Ranger at Escot and created the Saxon Village that so many people still love and visit. A very skilful Forest School Leader and outdoorsman, he has run Forest School Leader training for Bicton College, at Escot and for others over the years. He helps run Wild Beginnings toddler-parent group at his place, and works with the Exeter Woodcraft Folk. He also organises the woodland craft area at Beautiful Days.

Sarah Churchill

Freelance Associate

Sarah lives in Dorset with her partner and son.
She splits her time between Forest School (running family camps and holiday clubs) and teaching Pilates at her studio in Bridport.
She also enjoys throwing pots and growing food and medicinal herbs, wild camping, making lotions and potions, and kick boxing!

Lawrence Bole

Freelance Associate

Lawrence is an experienced Outdoor Instructor and a qualified Forest school Leader. He holds a counselling skills award and is a youth mental health first aider. After working for some time within Outdoor Education centres Lawrence spent four years delivering Therapeutic Outdoor interventions and Outdoor education within a specialist school in Somerset. Currently when he's not at Young wood he spends most of his time at Otterhead Forest school as well as delivering Outdoor learning within an alternative provision.

DIRECTORS

Gavin Saunders

Director & Conservation Lead
Gavin is a co-founder, grew up in the Blackdowns and has worked in the nature conservation sector for 35 years, first as a field botanist and then for the Wildlife Trusts. As a freelance advisor he has influenced some innovative programmes in conservation policy, community engagement and landscape scale habitat conservation. He came home to the Blackdowns in 2005 to lead the multi-disciplinary Neroche Landscape Partnership Scheme for the Forestry Commission (now Forestry England). He has a special interest in helping people connect with nature, and in exploring the links between nature, culture and community. He is a self-taught green woodworker, has an advanced Bushcraft Award from the Woodcraft School, and is Chair of the British Association of Nature Conservationists. Alongside Woodlanders Gavin also runs the Blackdown Hills Farming & Woodland Group, a environmental training and collaboration group.

Sue Farrell

Non Executive Director / Volunteer
Sue is a retired GP who lives and worked the Blackdown Hills. She volunteers with the adult wellbeing and the child and family sessions. Sue loves the outdoors and values the opportunity of working and learning with others in the Woods.

Andreas Hofmeyr

Non Executive Director / Volunteer.
Andreas has a background in architectural design and in the voluntary sector, working with environmental and community organisations including Transition Town Wellington, Wellington Community Food (as co-founder/grower) and previously as an adult leader in the Scouts Organisation in Namibia, where he grew up surrounded by nature. He is also a keen environmentalist and currently runs his own ecological landscape design and management business after leaving architectural practice in 2021. That same year he started volunteering with Neroche Conservation Volunteers at Young Wood to broaden his knowledge of habitat and woodland management; as well as assisting during numerous wellbeing programmes for children. He has subsequently joined as a director of Neroche Woodlanders and has undertaken further training to obtain his chainsaw, brushcutter, tractor and forest machine operations technical certificates to benefit their work. Outside of work, he is a keen outdoorsman, timber builder, family man, and musician, enjoying much merrymaking around the open fire with other kindred spirits in the wide expanse of the outdoors.

Sonia Hulejczuk

Volunteer and Non-Executive Director.
Sonia is a retired special needs teacher, who has worked in schools, residential care, and therapeutic mental health provision. She specialised in teaching troubled young people, as well as training and advising schools on how to include children and young people who are experiencing emotional and social difficulties. She has maintained a keen interest in ecology and holistic approaches, courses and activities, throughout her professional life for her own wellbeing. She loves designing and making with a variety of materials. She enjoys mixed media art, textiles and crafts from many cultures and especially outdoors

Jenny Archard

Director and Wellbeing Lead
Jenny is a co-founder, and has a background in group facilitation, therapy, Forest School and project development. She has been working with the Forest School ethos for the last fifteen years, at Burnworthy Outdoor Learning Centre with Gordon Woodall, then with Otterhead Forest School in the Blackdown Hills. She is a level 3 Forest School Leader through the Forest School Training Company and with an Advanced Bushcraft Award from the Woodcraft School. She is an experienced group facilitator, has a counselling skills Award, a background in rural and urban community development, and is a fellow of the Devon School for Social Entrepreneurs programme at Dartington. She is also a holder of the Medicine Wheel. In 2017 she trained with the School of Lost Borders in the USA , to lead pan-cultural Vision Fast work and continues to learn the Way of Council. She is an active member of the Forest School Association and the Wilderness Guides Network.

Tiffany Lovedale

Director & Freelance Associate
Tiff is passionate about inclusion and child-led learning. She has worked in primary schools supporting inclusion and literacy, as well as providing 1:1 support within alternative specialist provision working as a land-based mentor at a smallholding and woodland site. Her experience also involve leading an alternative specialist provision within a therapeutic interventions charity.

Tiff is trained in the Steiner craft curriculum (felting, clay work, willow work, green woodwork, blacksmithing) and is a Forest School leader. She uses seasonal, rural crafts to build on the strengths of both adults and children, and promotes connection with nature as a tool for mindfulness and grounding and investing in nature.

She holds a BSc in Environmental Hazards and Disaster Management and has been part of flora and fauna surveys with NGO in sub Saharan Africa. Her wider experience includes conservation including chainsaw work, supporting neurodivergent primary-aged children on a 1:1 basis, and working individually with adults with learning difficulties to support independent living.

Alongside her professional work, Tiff is raising two teenagers and enjoys supporting them with pursuits in engineering and countryside studies as they find their way in the world—learning plenty along the way herself. She values staying active and having fun, and is currently undertaking a paddle sports instructor award. In her free time, she attends the “Dance Connections” group and enjoys veg patch and sports when time permits.

Maxine Anderton

Non Executive Director /Volunteer
Maxine has recently joined the board for Neroche Woodlanders after initially attending Saplings parent and toddler sessions and finding a love for Young Wood and the people and place that make it so special. Maxine has worked in retail management and people development for years and has a strong business background, she is currently a project manager at Edventure Taunton and works hard to build strength within communities through enterprise and engagement through that role. She is a certified coach and prides herself on her ability to listen and amplify the voices of those that need support.
Maxine decided to join the board and become more involved in supporting Neroche Woodlanders to develop and deliver projects as a way to give back to a community that has provided her with an access to nature connection and wellness. She is looking for ways to build her skills and looks forward to immersing herself in learning more about woodland management and nature connection.

Sarah Holdway

Director, Company Secretary & Freelance Associate
Sarah is passionate about helping people connect with the outdoors. She is a qualified Forest School Leader and a member of the Forest School Association, with a background in teaching and experience in equine-assisted therapy.
She is also a Wild Passport practitioner and a Therapeutic Forest School Leader, as part of the Approved Practitioner Networks. Sarah undertakes CPD training with a multidisciplinary team of therapists, including Clinical Psychologists, Play Therapists, Speech and Language Therapists, and Occupational Therapists. She also holds qualifications in Children and Youth Mental Health First Aid and Adult Mental Health First Aid. Sarah runs the Happy Healthy Holidays (HAF) programme and supports early years sessions through Young Wild Explorers.

In her spare time, she is a support crew member for Jurassic Coast Swimming, and she has also qualified as a Beach Teach leader, offering more opportunities to be outdoors, learn new skills, and support others in building meaningful connections with nature.

Barbara Wilcox

Non Executive Director / Treasurer
Barbara is the Treasurer and a Trustee on the Board. In her role as treasurer she manages all the financial transactions and liaises with the other Board members and external agencies/advisers. In the past she has run her own business including managing the finances and payroll. She also works as a volunteer during our sessions with families and young people. She is happy to pass on her knowledge and love of nature and the environment to the families and young people as well as learning new crafting skills with willow etc.

Sue White

Volunteer and Non-Executive Director.
Sue is a retired coach and trainer with a career in corporate sales management. Sue has run her own business and enjoys helping people maximise their potential. Sue likes volunteering with children and adults in the woods helping them to get away from it all and have fun.