Our trustees

We are grateful for the work of our current and past trustees.

Current trustees

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  Priscilla Gordon-Duff

  Chair

  Priscilla Gordon-Duff lives and works near Keith in Banffshire. In 2001, she formed a sustainable development charity, Drummuir 21. The charity’s projects have included developing a path network on Drummuir Estate in partnership with Moray Council and others. The network included an all-abilities trail, and received a planning award for excellence. Now retired from Drummuir 21, Priscilla has since chaired the LEADER Local Action Group, which works with communities in rural Morayshire. Priscilla came to know Andrew Raven through their shared interest in land management.

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  Nigel Leask

  Trustee

  Nigel Leask holds the Regius Chair of English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow. He has published extensively in the area of Romantic literature and culture, with a special emphasis on empire, India and travel writing, as well as Scottish literature and thought. He is author and editor of several books on Robert Burns. Nigel is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Nigel was a close friend of Andrew's and is a longstanding and regular visitor to Ardtornish.

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  Rob MacKenzie

  Trustee

  Rob MacKenzie is Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Birmingham, with expertise in computer simulation of air quality at urban and regional scales, and the effects of vegetation on atmospheric composition. Lately much of this air quality work has been focused on communicating evidence-based interventions to the public and urban practitioners. Rob was born in Glasgow to island stock and spent the latter part of his childhood on Lewis, failing to learn Gaelic. Since graduating from Edinburgh University, his academic career has taken him to the universities of Essex, Cambridge, Lancaster, and now Birmingham. Since November 2013, Rob has been the inaugural Director of the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research. BIFoR hosts one of the world’s three largest climate change experiments: the Free-Air Carbon dioxide Enrichment (FACE) facility, investigating decadal (2017-2026) effects of elevated (+150 ppmv) CO2 on mature oak woodland. Rob also leads the highly multi- and interdisciplinary Forest Edge Doctoral Scholarship Programme funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2017-2024).

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  Annie McKee

  Trustee

  Annie is Secretary of the Andrew Raven Trust. She completed her PhD with the Centre for Mountain Studies, as part of the ‘Sustainable Estates for the 21st Century’ research team, following a Geography undergraduate at St Andrews University and a Masters in Sustainable Rural Development from Aberdeen University. Her PhD aimed to examine the role of private landownership in facilitating sustainable rural communities in upland Scotland. She has developed close links with the Ardtornish community. In October 2010, Annie joined the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute (now the James Hutton Institute) in Aberdeen, as a social researcher in land management. Her research interests include stakeholder and community engagement practices, action research and effective knowledge exchange, rural governance and institutions, land management and land use policy, rural community development and achieving sustainable development in rural areas.

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  Amanda Raven

  Trustee

  Amanda Raven is a Freelance Exhibition Curator and Writer with a specialist interest in contemporary craft and design. She has over thirty years experience working within the sector in Scotland in both commercial and non profit sectors. Her knowledge and interest in sustainable rural development was fostered through the work of her late husband Andrew Raven OBE. His recognised ability to create shared, imaginative space, across interest groups, to consider and deliver strategic change for rural Scotland is continued in the work of the Trust.

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  Isla Robertson

  Trustee

  Isla Robertson is a freelance writer with a special interest in the unique environment of the west coast of Scotland. Isla grew up in Ardtornish as the daughter of Angus (Estate Factor of Ardtornish and previous trustee of the Andrew Raven Trust) and Jennie (freelance archaeologist) and aims to combine both those fields in the subject matter of her childrens writing. Isla has particularly fond childhood memories of times spent with Andrew and feels honoured to be a trustee of the Andrew Raven Trust.

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  Sally Thomas

  Trustee

  Sally spent the early years of her career working as a policy planner in local government. In 1990 she joined the Civil Service and held a number of roles dealing with land use and biodiversity policy, access rights, protected areas and landscape. In 2017 Sally joined NatureScot as Director of People and Nature, and Chief Scientist. Until her retirement in 2020 Sally was responsible for ensuring that nature lay at the heart of decision making in NatureScot, and for supporting Scotland’s response to the twin challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change.

Past trustees

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  Will Boyd-Wallis

  Secretary

  Will Boyd-Wallis was Secretary for the Andrew Raven Trust until standing down as a trustee in June 2013. He has been Senior Land Management Officer for the Cairngorms National Park Authority since 2005. He previously worked on combining community interests and conservation for the John Muir Trust as Policy and Partnerships Manager and latterly as a JMT Trustee. During his time with JMT, he served as a Director on the Knoydart Foundation, North Harris Trust, Assynt Foundation and as vice-chairman of the Nevis Partnership. He started work in the Highlands chasing mountain ringlet butterflies and before starting working with Andrew Raven in the role of Conservation Manager for Sandwood Estate in North West Sutherland. He studied Ecology at Stirling University.

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  Fiona Carnie

  Trustee

  Fiona Carnie is an educationalist with an interest in how educational settings can foster in young people the skills, values and attitudes to enable them to contribute to the creation of a fairer and more environmentally sustainable world. She is involved with a range of organisations concerned with educational transformation and has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex and the Institute of Education at the University of London. She is currently Vice President of the European Forum for Freedom in Education. Alongside Dr Evelyn Arizpe of Glasgow University, Fiona curated the 2013 Andrew Raven Trust weekend on the theme of Flourishing Children; childhood, nature and community. Fiona Carnie was a close friend of Andrew’s since their days at Bristol University and has been visiting Ardtornish since 1979. She is at present living on the Isle of Coll.

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  Maggie Gill

  Trustee

  Maggie Gill has over 30 years of a research career, graduating from an initial focus on sheep and cattle nutrition to much broader interests in agriculture and the environment with particular interests in land use and food security. Much of her career was spent working in Government research institutes in England, but she returned to Scotland in 2000 as Director of the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen. From 2006 to 2011 she was Chief Scientific Adviser for Rural Affairs and the Environment in the Scottish Government. She now works on food security issues, mainly in relation to developing countries.

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  Angus Hardie

  Trustee

  Although originally trained in accountancy and then social work, Angus’ principle interest lies in working with communities and in particular, exploring ways to build local resilience.  He spent 20 years setting up and developing community organisations in and around the peripheral housing schemes of Edinburgh before moving to establish the national umbrella body for development trusts (DTA Scotland).  More recently he has initiated the Scottish Community Alliance - a broad coalition of the major community based networks operating in Scotland – with the aim of promoting the interests of the community sector more widely.  Married with two daughters , he likes the occasional game of football.

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  Jason Pennells

  Trustee

  Jason Pennells works in education development in developing countries, predominantly in Africa and Asia, currently as an education adviser with Cambridge Education, and formerly with the International Extension College, an NGO dedicated to improving educational access through open learning. Jason was a friend of Andrew’s and a social visitor to Ardtornish since getting to know Andrew and Amanda when a student in Edinburgh in 1980. Resident in Cambridge, he has a non-expert interest in environmental issues and in the conservation of wild land.

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  Simon Pepper

  Trustee

  Simon Pepper OBE was a close colleague of Andrew Raven, and founding chairman of the Trust in his memory. This was one of the most inspiring experiences in his career. Director of World Wildlife Fund Scotland for 20 years, he served on the Deer Commission and – with Andrew – on the Forestry Commission and Millennium Forest for Scotland. He also acted as an independent advisor, mainly on climate change issues, for the former Scottish Natural Heritage. He lived on a former tenant farm growing trees and sheep. For more information about Simon's life, please see: http://andrewraventrust.org/about/simon_pepper_obe_1947_2018/

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  Faith Raven

  Trustee

  Faith Raven first came to Morvern in 1930, aged one month, when her parents, Owen and Emmeline Hugh Smith, from London, bought the Ardtornish Estate on the seaboard of Morvern and the Sound of Mull in North Argyll. She has spent a good part of the year at Ardtornish ever since, though also living in South Cambridgeshire, because her husband was a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and taught in the university. Faith has a MA in History from Oxford and diplomas in Social Administration from the LSE and in Criminology from Cambridge. She inherited the Ardtornish Estate in 1967 and immediately put the ownership into trust to ensure the estate’s continuity. She is one of the partners in the firm of Ardtornish Farms. The mother of five children, her interests also include wildlife, oral history, photography, screen printing, engraving and gardening. Both her garden at Ardtornish and at Docwra’s Manor in Cambridgeshire are open to the public.

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  Angus Robertson

  Treasurer

  Angus Robertson, a lifelong friend and colleague of Andrew Raven, arrived at Ardtornish in 1985 following a two year spell working on agricultural scientific research and development in the Falkland Islands and has remained at Ardtornish, as Estate Factor, ever since. Over the years at Ardtornish, Angus has specialised in hill farming, deer, woodland and wildlife management, renewable energy, property maintenance and community issues. He was a Morvern Community Councillor for 20 years and is a founding member of the Morvern Community Development Company, of which he is currently a director. He is currently responsible for Ardtornish Estate’s Energy division and in particular for construction and operation of the significant hydro schemes which the estate has been developing since 1996. Angus is the treasurer of the Trust.