Our Trustees

Our Trustees are vital supporters of our programme. They use their skills and experience to help us make good decisions and achieve our goals. If you would like to know more about how being a trustee can help us help our co-farmers, please contact us.

Roz Warren

Chair of Trustees

Roz has a background in agricultural economics and began her professional career as a fellow of the Overseas Development Institute in Belize, Central America. She was a lecturer in the Department of Agriculture and Food Marketing, Newcastle University and more recently in the School of Agriculture and Policy Development, University of Reading. She worked for LMC International as a consultant and Director of Sugar and Sweeteners Research, and has also worked with the pharmaceutical sector as a consultant. She ran “Charity Mentors”, an Oxfordshire-based charity offering free-of-charge mentoring to charity leaders in Oxfordshire for 8 years and is now a member of the Step Change Oxfordshire funding panel.

Judith Samuel

Judith grew up on a small holding in rural Devon. A walk in the garden and woodland planted by her parents from the 1960s remains a pleasure. Although she has not inherited her parents’ green fingers, Judith does enjoy helping on the land and tends a much smaller garden at home. Having graduated from Oxford in 1982, Judith is a clinical psychologist with over 37 years experience working within health, social care and special educational settings starting in the East End then moving to Greenwich and onto Oxfordshire where she has lived and worked for the past 27 years. Her clinical work has been mainly with adults and children with learning disabilities. Her research and service development interests have focussed on Intensive Interaction. Judith has had a long-standing involvement with the Oxford Doctoral Course in Clinical Psychology. She became Head of Psychology Services for Oxfordshire Learning Disability NHS Trust (Ridgeway Partnership) in 2008. On retirement in 2016, she resumed clinical work part time. Judith has had two stints, twenty years apart, as the national chair of a committee for the British Psychological Society and is a mentor for the BPS. She was chair of the year-long Edward the Confessor Millennium Festival in Islip in 2005. For several years Judith was chaperone coordinator and safeguarding lead for Musical Youth Company of Oxford. Since 2000 she has been a volunteer in the Islip community shop.

It is a joy to support the opportunities for personal development and fulfillment that FarmAbility offers its co-farmers.

Lawrie Coupland

Lawrie has recently retired after a variety of roles in education. He began as a subject teacher in three comprehensive schools, moved into the commercial sector in several management positions, and latterly became Director of an International College in Oxford. Career breaks have provided some of his outstanding memories: VSO at a university in Qena, Upper Egypt; Education Officer at Avebury Stone Circle; teacher/manager at the British Council in Caracas, Venezuela; and teacher at a residential school in Wiltshire for children with specific learning difficulties. Since August 2021, Lawrie has enjoyed volunteering with FarmAbility once a week, first at Blenheim and presently at Willowbrook Farm. Inspired by the experience, he created his first raised-bed garden at home this year – but says he’s still got plenty to learn!

Hannah Kempsell

Following a series of campaigning and project management roles in the charity sector (in disability and health organisations), Hannah now works in Public Health at Oxfordshire County Council. She is excited to be involved with FarmAbility, as she has a brother living with Down’s Syndrome and autism, and has seen first hand the benefits of a varied and active lifestyle for him. Hannah has a degree in International Development and enjoys travel. She lives in West Oxfordshire, and loves enjoying the beauty of the local area by walking and cycling in her spare time.

Neil Sleight

Mark Crosby

Mark has worked with a range of charities through his career with a focus on volunteering, community involvement and participation. He is currently head of volunteering with RABI – a charity providing practical, financial and mental health support for farming people across England and Wales. Mark has previously worked with the National Trust, Ramblers and VSO – in roles that support his passion for the outdoors and creating opportunities to benefit people of all abilities. Mark lives in Witney – not far from Cogges Farm where he was a previous Trustee. He can often be found either walking or running around Witney or pottering down the local allotment. Mark joined the board in March 2024 and is looking forward to working with the team to help FarmAbility continue to grow and enable more people to benefit from our work.

Helen Saunders

Helen had a 15-year career working for several charities in various fundraising and supporter relations roles, seeing first-hand the difference charities can make and the challenges they face. Always interested in the numbers, budgeting and finance side of things, Helen retrained as an accountant and has worked for a range of different organisations in accountancy since 2013. Helen has lived in north Oxfordshire for over twenty years. She first came across FarmAbility when working for Oxfordshire Community Foundation and was delighted to be invited to join the board of trustees as Treasurer in 2024. Helen is looking forward to supporting FarmAbility to grow and expand its outreach on a firm financial footing.

Would you like to make a positive difference to adults with learning difficulties and autism? Join our Board!

We are about to start recruiting for a new Chair to replace our current Chair, Roz Warren, who is retiring. A full role description will be published here soon. The most important attributes of a Trustee for us is a belief in what we are doing and an enthusiasm and commitment to help us do it.

This is a particularly exciting time to join FarmAbility. We have grown substantially in the last few years and the need for our service is demonstrated by high demand for Co-farmer places and the recent opening of our sixth site, our ability to raise funds and our relationship with statutory bodies. We are proud of what we offer and our governance.

We would be particularly interested in hearing from people who hold/have held leadership positions either in the voluntary or commercial sector. If you like the sound of what we are doing, please do get in touch.

The time and dates of our four annual Trustees’ meetings are fixed by mutual agreement a year in advance. There are also occasional ad hoc meetings as the need arises (usually by Zoom when this happens), some time from each of us devoted to our oversight area and, the occasional social event – joyful opportunities to meet and spend time with our Co-farmers, their families and the FarmAbility team.

If you would like to find out more, or would like to have an informal chat about the Chair of Trustees role, please contact Roz Warren (Chair of FarmAbility) through our Contact Us page.