Our trustees

We are grateful for the work of our current and past trustees. Please use our enquiries form to contact us.

Current trustees

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  Will Boyd Wallis

  Secretary

  Will Boyd-Wallis is Secretary for the Andrew Raven Trust. 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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  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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  Annie McKee

  Trustee

  Annie is in the final stages of 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 aims 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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  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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  Amanda Raven

  Chair

  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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  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.

Past trustees

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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 has served on the Deer Commission and – with Andrew – on the Forestry Commission and Millennium Forest for Scotland. Now on Scottish Natural Heritage, he also acts as an independent advisor, mainly on climate change issues. He lives on a former tenant farm growing trees and sheep.

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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.