Two new Directors were elected at the AGM on 28th June 2017.

Bridie Ashrowan is Chief Executive of the Broomhouse Centre and Enterprises, which is a community based organisation which serves Broomhouse while also bringing services to the south west of Edinburgh, and on some projects, the city of Edinburgh. Vintage Vibes, a partnership with LifeCare to address isolation in older people, is city wide; Youth Befriending, Young Carers, Youth Counselling, Beacon Club Dementia Service, Employment Training – all South West Edinburgh; a catering social enterprise, Crescent Kitchen, works across the whole city. Bridie’s background has been in the Youth sector recently; as Chief Officer at YouthBorders, her team won the national Innovation Award, YouthLink Awards 2015. She is a Tutor with the Social Enterprise Academy. She has worked with organisations such as Columba 1400, ProjectScotland and Borders Forest Trust, where she was Fundraising manager on the successful Devil’s Beef Tub land acquisition campaign. 25 years ago Bridie co-founded an innovative drug and alcohol charity, Open Road, in Essex, with an holistic approach. It operates across East Anglia today. Bridie is originally from near Enniskillen, N Ireland.

Chris Miles

ln May 2017 Chris retired as Area Manager in Southern Scotland for Scottish Natural Heritage after 18 years in that role and 24 years with SNH. His area covered Borders and Dumfries and Galloway.  The work included the delivery of protected site work, development advice, support for land management through SRDP or management agreements, the management of National Nature Reserves and working with partners in delivering Biodiversity, the Biosphere, Landscape partnerships, biodiversity recording, and environmental education and interpretation.

Before coming to Scotland in 1993, Chris worked for 7 years with the Essex Wildlife Trust as Conservation Manager.  Before that he had worked at the University of Reading, firstly taking an MSc in Plant Taxonomy and then completing a PhD on the reproductive strategies of Bryophytes.  He is a botanist and has been the Botanical Society of Britain and lreland’s (BSBI) recorder in Dumfriesshire for 20 years with principal responsibility for mapping the changes to the distribution of wild plants in the county. This involves carrying out targeted recording through the summer, data entry and organising occasional field meetings. He was formerly chair of the Scottish Committee and  sat on a review group for BSBI in 2016/17 and is standing to become a Board member later in 2017. He recently completed a Rare Plant Register for Dumfriesshire which is published online.  He is also chair of the Hutton Community Fellowship which is a group set up in Boreland to handle the distribution of wind farm community benefit funds and deliver benefits to the local community. With more schemes coming forward locally, he will also be a Director of the SCIO managing the community benefits from the Ewe Hill Wind Farm – Dumfriesshire East Community Benefit Group.

In addition to this, Cllr Katie Hagmann has been co-opted onto the Board to represent Dumfries and Galloway Council and Cllr Mark Rowley has been co-opted to represent Scottish Borders Council.