Trustees and Fellows
Trustees
Plunkett UK is governed by a board of trustees who are elected by our members. Click on their profiles below to read more about each person.
Helen Aldis
Vice Chair
Helen is the chief executive of Moor Trees a charity in Devon dedicated to restoring native woodland with the aim of improving the environment and connecting people with their forest heritage. Supported by an active group of volunteers the charity collects local-provenance seeds to grow in its community tree nurseries, assists with the designing, planning and creation of high quality woodlands and advocates for native temperate rainforest re-creation. Her previous roles include head of strategic development (programmes) at the Soil Association and deputy director at The Prince’s Countryside Fund where she oversaw its grant giving programme supporting both the Plunkett Foundation and many of its members during her time there. Helen joined our Board of Trustees in 2019 and is currently joint vice-chair.
Alex Begg
Alex is based in Mid-Norfolk, supporting his wife in their family farming business and co-leading the Wendling Beck Environment Project an innovative rural partnership restoring habitat and biodiversity to their local area.
Alex is an OnPurpose Fellow and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants with professional experience across the public, private and charity sectors.
Alex built a relationship and a passion to support the Plunkett Foundation mission whilst launching The White Swan – a community owned pub situated in Gressenhall. He joined the Board of Trustees in September 2022.
Martin Collett
Martin Collett is Chief Executive of English Rural Housing Association and has been working in the rural housing sector for around 20 years.
He is a corporate member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, graduate of the University of London and former Chair of the Rural Housing Alliance.
Martin is also a Director of the Rural Services Network, and a Trustee of the LGBT+ youth homelessness charity the Albert Kennedy Trust. After supporting the Plunkett Foundation for many years, he joined the Board as a Trustee in 2019 and is the current Chair of the Governance and Nominations Committee.
Gordon Hector
Gordon Hector became a Trustee of Plunkett UK in November 2024. He is a policy and strategy professional. Previous roles include setting up a public affairs function for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, writing speeches at the Department for Education, and working as Head of Communications for an AIM-listed health company.
He led the Scottish Conservatives’ research and strategy function until 2020 and since then has worked as a consultant to governments, companies and charities on economics, public services and placemaking. He lives in rural Fife and is passionate about rural development and community-led policymaking.
Helen Jackson
Helen Jackson became a Trustee of Plunkett UK in November 2024. Based in rural Hampshire, Helen is a heritage consultant, a national museum trustee and a member director of regional consumer co-op, the Southern Co-operative. She chairs Southern Co-op’s governance and membership committee, acts as climate ambassador and represents member interests in national retail co-op networks.
Helen is also an experienced charity Chief Executive, having led charities supporting museums development and National Parks. As a trained community business adviser, active local volunteer, and past Heritage Lottery Fund regional committee member, she is a passionate champion for community-led projects that celebrate and sustain rural life, heritage and assets.
Alison Jeffers
Alison joined the Board of Trustees of Plunkett in September 2022, having previously worked with the organization in her capacity as Chair of The Red Lion pub in the village of Preston, Hertfordshire. Alison joined the board of The Red Lion in 2009. The pub was purchased by the village in 1983, becoming the first community owned pub in Britain. Stepping up to the role of Chair in 2016, Alison has led the pub through some significant achievements and changes including CAMRA finalist in 2019, the hiring of the pubs current Managers and a significant extension to the building.
Alison has served on, and advised, boards and executive management committees on a range of matters including strategy, diversity & inclusion, cultural transformations, audit, risk, digital transformation, energy transition,
She has held a variety of progressive leadership roles in the regulated sectors of Energy and Telecoms. She has worked for FTSE 100, US Listed, Swiss Listed, Privately Owned, Local Government and Community Owned organisations. Having recently retired from full time work, she is building a portfolio of Non-Executive and Trustee roles.
Alison lives in Preston and with her husband Jeremy, she is embarking on building a sustainable home in the village, using renewables and new technologies to limit the carbon footprint of the house, both now and in the future.
Jeevan Jones
Jeevan Jones joined Plunkett’s Board of Trustees in September 2023. He lives in the West Midlands, works as a regulatory economist and is a former senior elected representative in the UK co-operative movement.
Ruth McAreavey
Ruth became a Plunkett Foundation trustee in December 2021.
Ruth is a Reader in Sociology and an Associate of the Centre for Rural Economy, both at Newcastle University. She has less direct experience of community businesses, but grew up on a farm in County Armagh (Northern Ireland), and has been working with rural communities for over twenty years with a very deep appreciation of their needs.
Stephen Nicol
Chair
Stephen Nicol joined Plunkett’s as a trustee and was elected chair in September 2020. He is a professional economist with over 35 years of experience working in the public and private sectors. His early career was spent as a government economist in the Department of the Environment and then HM Treasury. He subsequently moved into private economics consultancy where he advises on social and economic impact and local economic development. He has worked for major companies, UK Government departments, international bodies, local enterprise partnerships and local government. From 1990, Stephen ran several divisions of different consultancy businesses and in 2000 set up his own firm, Regeneris Consulting. He grew and led the business as its managing director before leaving to form Nicol Economics in 2017. He is a trustee of an outdoor adventure charity for people with disabilities and a community-run outdoor swimming pool in Cumbria. He has been a board member of a Community Arts organisation and a regeneration partnership in Greater Manchester.
Zanna Patchett
Zanna joined the Plunkett board in 2022 having had a long standing relationship with the charity via the New Inn, Norton Lindsey. As Warwickshire’s first community-owned pub, Zanna has first-hand experience of how a community pub can transform a place – creating an inclusive space for everyone.
Zanna is a corporate/commercial lawyer by profession, with over 20 years’ experience. She has a proven track record at board level, with executive responsibility for strategic direction, legal, HR and risk and compliance functions. Zanna has significant experience of being a trustee with other charities.
Adrian Smith OBE
Adrian was appointed as a Plunkett Foundation trustee in December 2021.
Adrian has had a 30 year career in Financial Services across the UK & Ireland, and is currently Chief Executive of Reclaim Ltd – the organisation responsible for managing the dormant assets scheme across the UK which has distributed over £800M to good causes. Adrian is passionate about rural communities and plays an active role in community activities locally including having been a Parish Councillor for 8 years and being a founder member and Secretary of the Winterbourne Bassett Community Pub in Wiltshire.
Adrian was awarded an OBE for services to Financial Services in the 2022 Queen’s New Years Honours list.
Fellows
We bestow fellowships to individuals in recognition of the support they’ve given to Plunkett Foundation over a number of years. Click on their profiles of the people below to find out more about them.
Charlotte Hollins
Charlotte Hollins – of the Fordhall Community Land Initiative – became the Plunkett Foundation’s Centenary Fellow in November 2019. Charlotte was awarded the fellowship in recognition of her dedication and long service to the community farm, which was the first community business of its kind in the UK. Charlotte is the first fellow to also be the founder of a community business.
Charlotte and her brother Ben were faced with losing the family farm in 2004, and with it, years of organic farming research. Determined not to lose this unique farm, they turned to the local community for help. The fight for Fordhall led to the brother and sister unintentionally being pioneers of the community shares model. They also made a significant contribution to the creation of the Community Benefit Society model – a model which the majority of community businesses adopt today. Fordhall Farm has also stayed true to its original motivations and continues to be a much-loved resource for the local community and brings a range of wellbeing, training, social and educational opportunities to many. Charlotte has led the farm through many stages of diversification and development, whilst always keeping the community at its heart.
Charlotte has endless time and energy to support Plunkett, the community business sector and she inspires many to follow in Fordhall’s footsteps. Due to Charlotte’s commitment and energy, Fordhall truly encompasses what community business can achieve.
David Button
David Button has almost thirty five years’ experience in the Co-operative sector, having held key senior positions in Food from Britain, both as agricultural development director and as financial controller.
He is a past Chairman of the Plunkett Foundation holding the position for six years being instrumental in leading the organisation through an extensive strategic, financial and staffing review. This enabled the Foundation to maintain its key agricultural and rural co-operative development objectives whilst developing a leading role in the social enterprise sector.
David has considerable practical experience of all forms of cooperative development within the UK and also as a senior consultant working on international projects in Central and Eastern Europe funded by DFID and through them the World Bank He is currently a main Board member of Co-operatives uk representing its federal members and is also Chair of the UK Co-operative Forum where he also represents English Farming and Food Partnerships for whom he works as an Associate Consultant advising on all areas of agricultural collaborative development.
Edgar Parnell
Edgar Parnell started his working life in a consumer co-operative in the north of England and subsequently held senior management posts within several UK co-operatives before becoming General Manager of the Co-operative Development Trust, Botswana, which established the nation’s first supermarkets and central wholesaling operations.
On returning to the UK he was appointed as a retail management consultant for Clarks Ltd and later held a similar position with the Co-operative Wholesale Society (UK). Next he became the Non-Food Retailing Manager covering co-operative stores throughout Scotland; then in 1974 adviser on co-operative management to the Government of Jamaica. Other appointments followed, including Manager for the Fund for the Research and Development of Africa and then UN/ILO adviser on management and marketing to co-operatives in India. In 1980 he was appointed as Education Officer at the Plunkett Foundation and thereafter served as Chief Executive from 1984 to 1998.
He has undertaken consultancy and training assignments for co-operatives both in the UK and in over 40 other countries. He also served as: a member of the General Assembly of the International Co-operative Alliance, co-chairman of the EU Committee for the Development of the Rural Economy of Poland, a member of the Council of the Federation of Agricultural Co-operatives (UK), chairman of the UK national Co-operative Development Agency, Education and Training Committee, and on various COGECA (the EU federation of agricultural co-operatives) working parties. Edgar Parnell is the author of many publications of which the best known is Reinventing the Cooperative – Enterprises for the 21st Century, which has been translated into several languages. Edgar is author of the Co-op Pundit blog http://www.co-oppundit.org/
John Tyrell
John Tyrrell comes from a farming background in County Dublin and is a graduate of University College Dublin with an Honours Degree in Agricultural Science, specialising in Animal Production.
Between 1975 and 1978, he worked with ADAS in the UK as a Dairy Husbandry Advisor. In 1978 he joined the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS), the umbrella organisation for agricultural co-operatives in Ireland. In 1990, he was appointed Director General of ICOS. He has been deeply involved in the major structural changes which have occurred in the Irish co-operative sector since 1990 including the mergers of co-operatives. This has included chairing of merger negotiations. He has also played an active role in the development of the Irish position on the Common Agricultural Policy, and is on a number of expert groups which the Irish Government has set up to advise an food and agriculture policy.
ICOS advises co-operatives on policy issues, including sectoral policy, co-operative structures and representation of co-operatives’ interests at national and international level. It also provides a wide range of services for co-operatives and has long been involved in facilitating the re-organisation of the Irish dairy sector.
He was Vice President of COGECA, the European Association of Agricultural and Fishing Co-operatives from 1996-99. He is also a member of a number of European Advisory Committees including the Common Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee.
Kate Targett
Kate Targett began her career as a journalist in the USA, before arriving in the UK in 1984. Here she put her honours degrees in history and English to work as Press Officer and ‘wordsmith’ for five counties of the English Tourist Board. In 1992 she joined the Plunkett Foundation, initially with the international development department and subsequently as Information Services Manager, librarian and archivist. A substantial grant from the Ireland Funds in 1998 enabled her to undertake a major project of heritage conservation, preservation and electronic classification for the Foundation’s historic collection of co-operative books, journals, manuscripts and correspondence.
After a year studying and teaching English as a Foreign Language at Oxford Brookes University, Kate returned to her major interest in the Foundation’s heritage in 2003. At the invitation of ICOS Director-General John Tyrrell and James Moloney, Chairman of the IAWS (now One51), she transcribed, annotated and indexed the fifty-one volumes of Sir Horace Plunkett’s handwritten diaries. Covering the years 1881 to 1932, these documents clarify and amplify Plunkett’s colourful biography, as well as his unique role in the social, political and co-operative landscape of Ireland, England and America.
Since retiring in 2008 Kate has remained committed to promoting a range of social enterprises and occasionally edits material for co-operative publications. She became a Fellow in 2011.
Quintin Fox
Born and raised in rural Worcestershire and educated at the University of London, Quintin joined the Plunkett Foundation at the beginning of 2001 and went on to become Head of Consultancy and Training. The values of Sir Horace and the work of the Foundation in promoting and supporting economic self-help in rural and agricultural communities resonates deeply with him. At the end of 2005, Quintin and his family emigrated to Canada where he became responsible for member services, education and research at the Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA) in Ottawa. Quintin continued to maintain links with and promote the work of the Plunkett Foundation since coming to Canada. His experience during his time at the Foundation in developing education and training programs for farmer-directors directly led to his involvement in the award-winning Leadership in Governance director and delegate training program at Gay Lea Foods Co-operative. Gay Lea Foods is one of Canada’s largest dairy co-operatives with over 30% of Ontario dairy farmers as member-owners and over $600 million in sales. In 2012 he joined Gay Lea Foods as Director of Training Development and Capacity Resourcing and is responsible for leadership and co-operative development programs for members, staff, delegates and directors. He resides with his family in beautiful Guelph, Ontario.
Richard Moreton
Former Plunkett Foundation Chief Executive Richard Moreton became a Plunkett Fellow at the 2013 Plunkett Foundation AGM. Richard originally joined the Plunkett Foundation team for the first time in the 1980s working closely with another Plunkett Fellow, Edgar Parnell. Richard then rejoined Plunkett as Chief Executive in 2000 and led the organisation until late 2006. Richard has contributed hugely to building what the Plunkett Foundation is today. Under Richard the Plunkett Foundation took on the community shop support role previously provided by ViRSA. He developed Plunkett’s reputation as experts in rural social enterprise and also conceptualised the Making Local Food Work programme which became a reality shortly after leaving the Plunkett Foundation.
