Who we are
BTCV's vision, mission and values are outlined in our Strategic Plan 2004 - 2008 (pdf - 1MB).
The charity was set up in 1959, and has a successful history of environmental conservation volunteering throughout the UK and around the world. Our Annual Report and Facts and Figures provide essential information about BTCV.
Working with and supporting BTCV can be a rewarding experience for corporate partners, the Government, Big Lottery Fund, local authorities, government agencies such as English Nature and individual donors.
Will you support BTCV? As a charity, BTCV is almost entirely reliant on voluntary donations. The work we do is only made possible by people like you - people who want to make a difference to their community and environment.
Vision, Mission & Values
Vision: A better environment where people are valued, included and involved
Mission: To create a more sustainable future by inspiring people and improving places
Values: BTCV's values are integral to all our work. They have been developed through four decades of a 'hands-on' approach to conservation activities. During this time we have adapted to meet the changing needs of communities, we care about people, the communities in which they live and the quality of their environment
Our key values:
- Sustained environmental improvement: A healthy environment and improved biodiversity is at the heart of all BTCV's activities
- Inclusiveness, accessibility and choice: BTCV is sensitive to people's needs, their environmental awareness, personal values and beliefs, and is striving to be accessible to all
- Appropriate support: BTCV understands that individuals and local communities require different types of support
- Individual and community empowerment: BTCV inspires people to fulfil their potential
- Corporate responsibility: BTCV provides a safe, healthy working environment for our staff and volunteers, with development opportunities to meet their personal aspirations
Strategic Plan 2004 - 2008
With Inspiring People, Improving Places as its philosophy, our Strategic Plan sets out our goals for 2004-2008:
- Enrich the lives of 1 million people, through involvement with BTCV, volunteering opportunities, employment, improved health, and life skill development
- Improve the biodiversity and local environment of 20,000 places
- Support active citizenship in 5,000 community-based groups
Download BTCV's Strategic Plan 2004 - 2008 (pdf - 1MB)
Governance
BTCV Group Chief Executive - Tom Flood CBE
Prior to joining BTCV as Marketing Director in 1986, Tom worked for A.E. Herbert Ltd (machine tools), WS Atkins and 3M UK. He became BTCV Group Chief Executive in 2001. He has sat on a number of government boards including the Home Office Volunteering Group, the New Deal Taskforce, the UK Biodiversity Steering Group, and was a board member of ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations). He is a member of the Joint Agency Forum for Cleaner, Safer, Greener communities. Tom is a regular conference speaker on environmental and social issues and was delighted to see BTCV's work recognised when he was appointed CBE in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours.
BTCV is governed by a Board of Trustees elected by our members. The Board meets around six times a year. It is responsible for setting overall policy for BTCV and monitoring progress towards achieving our goals.
We are always on the lookout for new trustees - especially those with a financial or management background - and would particularly welcome interest from people from ethnic minority communities and other under-represented groups.
The Trustees are elected by the members of the trust.
Trustees
Rupert Evenett - Chair
Kay Ritchie
Sue Hilder
Caroline Frances-King
Heidi Strawson
Peter Hirst
Alan Strickland
Barney Tallack
Rupert Evenett
Rupert has held leadership roles across each of the private, public and third sectors.
In a career of some 20 years in investment banking and corporate finance, he advised clients from small start-ups to market-leaders and was part of a small team building a leading equity advisory business advising nearly a third of the UK’s leading FTSE100 companies. In his last five years as a banker he raised £10billion for corporate clients and advised on £30billion of mergers and acquisitions. As a senior civil servant, he was a founding director of a new Whitehall unit, the Shareholder Executive, advising on applying shareholder disciplines to publicly owned enterprises.
After semi-retiring to help bring up his children, he has pursued interests in voluntary and charitable work. As well as BTCV, board positions include being non-executive director of Futurebuilders England, vice-chairman of Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation for the Disabled and governor of leading south London sixth form college, Christ the King SFC. He is also completing PhD research at the London School of Economics in political theory, into the role of community in politics and global justice. Aged 44 and married with two small (and active) children, Rupert lives in Greenwich, one of the greenest areas of inner London, is a keen walker and life-long supporter of popular access to and involvement in the environment.
Sue Hilder
A trained environmental sculptor, Sue has worked in countryside access with a variety of organisations including North Yorkshire County Council, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and East Dunbartonshire Council. She is currently Access Officer for the National Farmers' Union Scotland, advising land managers across Scotland on access management issues. She started life with BTCV as a Volunteer Officer in Hull and became a Trustee in 1993. She is also an active member of the BTCV Scotland committee, the Nominations Committee and a Trustee/Director of Glasgow and the Clyde Valley Greenspace Trust. She combines her ongoing involvement in environmental art with interests including birdwatching and karate and currently resides in Glasgow.
Kay Ritchie
Kay combines substantial experience of volunteering and the youth perspective with good general experience of Boards, governance and organisational efficacy in large not-for-profit organisations.
On the volunteering and youth side, over the past 18 years, she has been heavily involved in youth volunteering organisations, from organising holidays for 7-10 year olds to becoming the Chair of the British Youth Council (BYC). She has worked extensively with the European Youth Forum and the Commonwealth Youth Programme and has experience of youth organisations across the globe.
Strongly committed to BTCV's environmental volunteering and with a background in youth participation, peer-to-peer training methods and facilitating group working, combined with leadership of the Board of BYC gives Kay the skills needed to play an effective role on the BTCV Board and in contributing to the continuing development of its strategy.
Kay currently lives in Garforth Leeds, enjoys walking, getting involved in youth work, volunteering, advocacy and representation.
Caroline Frances-King
Caroline is a professional fundraiser with a background in communication including writing, editing, photography and film-making. Following a career in Los Angeles, her overriding interest in the environment saw her return to England to study Countryside Management where she first encountered BTCV as a VO during her college placement in the mid '90s.
This introduction to the third sector has seen her work in a voluntary, professional and strategic capacity with the City Farm movement, CSV Environment, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and currently, as head of fundraising for Avon Wildlife Trust. Caroline’s strong commitment to improving quality of life through connection with the environment has also seen her involved in local regeneration schemes and setting up and establishing an environment centre.
Caroline expresses her creative passion for the environment through her botanical art, exhibiting with the Bath Society of Botanical Artists and Society of Floral Painters.
Heidi Strawson
Heidi graduated from both Nottingham University and Kings College London and is now a Management Consultant with a leading business consultancy organisation. She advises UK and international government clients on how to improve human performance and make efficiency and effectiveness changes. Heidi was first exposed to BTCV as an Ecology and Conservation undergraduate, and has been involved in volunteer activities ever since. She has also worked, both professionally and as a volunteer, for Friends of the Earth and other UK environmental charities. Heidi lives in Devon where she spends as much time as possible outdoors, between the Moor and the sea.
Peter Hirst
Peter believes strongly that people should be helped to re-connect with the places where they live and work. He originally became involved with BTCV through the Advisory Board of the People and Places Programme. He is a keen advocate of sustainable communities and developed his thinking in this area towards the end of a long career spanning teaching, youth work, social work, and community development. He worked for local authorities and national NGOs including the Community Development Foundation and ENCAMS where he was Director of Policy. Most of his time was spent trying to build bridges between organisations specialising in either 'people' or 'environment' and he has sat on several boards of local and national organisations. His last post before becoming a consultant with LINK4Sustainability was in the Local Sustainability Team at the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA).
Peter is married with two grown children and lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, where he has spent the last 25 years developing a large garden, growing food, encouraging wildlife and generally enjoying himself.
Alan Strickland
Alan is passionate about connecting people and policy to encourage social change. He is a project support officer for v, managing part of their grants portfolio and previously worked on forward strategy and project management at Comic Relief.
With experience as a social entrepreneur, Alan helped connect young activists from around the globe as founding chair of 'Young People Change the World! Ltd' and founded a training company 'Vibrant Futures'. He has worked with young people in India, China and Bangladesh.
Alan spent a year as president of Oxford University Students' Union where he led an organisational reform programme and served as a director of the union's commercial subsidiary. He is Labour's general election candidate for the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency, England's largest rural constituency.
Alan is deeply committed to environmental regeneration and has visited many BTCV projects since becoming a trustee.
Barney Tallack
Now living in Oxford, Barney gained an MA in medieval studies from Leeds but felt deeply that he would like to ‘make the world a better place’ and commenced volunteering with Oxfam after university, with whom he remains today. He works as Deputy Trading Director (supporting Oxfam's 21,000 volunteers in 730 shops) and also as Head of New Income overseeing Oxfam’s e-commerce, virtual gifts, community fundraising, festival stewarding and events businesses (involving another 10,000 volunteers) as well as Oxfam's fundraising innovation unit.
Barney first encountered BTCV at sixth form and has always been impressed by BTCV's practical "getting things done" approach. The combination of BTCV's mission for people (social justice) and places (the environment) is what drew him to wanting to volunteer as a Trustee.
With 16 years of experience behind him Barney has been a Trustee of International Health Exchange and is still a director of the Association of Charity Shops as well as Oxfam Activities Limited (their commercial entity). He brings with him experience in structural development for non-profit organisations where change management or long term financial security are needed; knowledge of public fundraising, charity governance, codes of practice for fundraising and reporting and accountability.
His two children are also BTCV supporters - and his three year old has volunteered on several very muddy occasions.
Our Patron, President and Vice-Presidents
BTCV's Patron is HRH The Duke of Edinburgh KG, KT
BTCV is also supported by our President and Vice Presidents who help to champion our interests and raise public awareness of the organisation.
President of BTCV - The Lord Norrie
Lord Norrie has been president of BTCV since 1987. Following a military background, Lord Norrie started a successful nursery and garden centre business and has gone on to be an environmental advisor to a number of multinational companies.
During his parliamentary career in the House of Lords, he was a member of the EC Environment Committee for four years and sponsored the National Parks Bill, later incorporated into the Environment Act. In 1993 Lord Norrie won the House of Lords Green Ribbon Political Award for Services to the Environment.
He is currently working with the Albertan Government in Canada on resolving water-related issues. He remains a Vice President of both the Council for National Parks and the Tree Council.
BTCV Vice Presidents
Sir David Attenborough
Prof David Bellamy
Dr William Bird
Robert E Boote
Andrew Brown
Aitken Clark
Prof Michael Dower
Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava
Dame Barbara Kelly
Baroness Hilton
Baroness Miller
Rob Morley
Bill Oddie
Jonathon Porritt
Mrs Mary Pye
Richard Williams
