Trustees
Denmark Farm is managed by a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) called The Shared Earth Trust, with a board of voluntary Trustees.
We are currently seeking new Trustees, if you have the skills to offer more information can be found here.
We are very grateful to our Trustees who are:
A Tribute to Aline Denton 1967 – 2025
Andy Polkey
Discovering permaculture in 1995 put Andy and his wife Angie on a life-long path of learning and growing, 27 years of that path rooted on and in their place in mid Wales. Quite early on that path Andy & Angie discovered Denmark Farm. They grew to love the place and have also worked for and with the Shared Earth Trust for over twenty years. This continues to the present day, with Andy running the Denmark Farm garden volunteer group jointly with Angie.
Andy has worked in conservation for 40 years. Primarily as a site manager, first for the RSPB in East Anglia and the South of England, then for the Countryside Council for Wales and Natural Resources Wales here in Ceredigion, managing wetlands, woodlands and upland sites. Now Andy works as a both an environmental consultant, specialising in habitat & site management and ecological restoration, and as a gardener. It is primarily these skills that he brings to his role as a Shared Earth Trust trustee.
Andy finds the “edge” between ecology and permaculture a fruitful and fascinating zone of cross fertilisation and interaction. But he is primarily and passionately a gardener, and since leaving full time work you can now find him spending many of his waking hours practicing gardening as meditation.
Glenn Strachan – Chairperson
Glenn first became involved with Denmark Farm through the Ceredigion Biodiversity Enhancement Scheme in 2004. He became a trustee of the Shared Earth Trust in 2010. He worked in farming for eight years when he first left school before going back into education and qualifying as a teacher. He has taught in schools, further education and higher education and was Head of Education at the Earth Centre, a large Millennium Project devoted to sustainable development. He currently works as a consultant in education for sustainable development and global citizenship and is particularly interested in the educational aspects of Denmark Farm Conservation Centre.
Guy Hopwood
Following a degree in Agriculture & Forestry at Bangor University, Guy went on to obtain an MSc at Bangor University in Rural Resource Management. Guy worked for Environmental consultants RSK ADAS for over 24 years in a variety of roles which included on-farm advice, monitoring of agri-environment schemes and project management of consultancy advice to Welsh Government and a range of commercial clients.
From 2010 Guy focused particularly on renewable energy including the development of Wind, Solar and Anaerobic Digestion projects across Wales and the UK. Guy left RSK ADAS in 2018 and now runs his own renewable energy and environmental consultancy business, he is also a director of a local community energy wind project (Grannell Community Energy) and is a mentor for Renew Wales.
As well as taking part in practical conservation management at Denmark Farm, he has also become (slightly unwittingly!) a technical expert for our biomass heating system and anything to do with the Denmark Farm Glastir scheme agreement. He has a particular interest in sustainability, renewable energy and raising environmental awareness. In his spare time Guy enjoys walking, cooking, natural history and looking after his vegetable garden!
Linda Bradshaw Wood
Linda was employed as the Reserve and Volunteer Manager at Denmark Farm for 3 years and retired from the role in October 2021. Since then, she has continued as a volunteer to be involved with the conservation volunteer group in managing the nature reserve and then joined as a Trustee in October 2022.
She has worked in conservation, environmental education and community projects for the last 35 years, working for various charities and organisations including the Wildlife Trust, BTCV, Keep Wales Tidy and community woodland projects.
Now retired, Linda and her husband, manage their half-acre garden for wildlife, which includes native trees, pond, bog garden, meadow and various shrubs and herbs as well as a small polytunnel. Linda also enjoys wild swimming throughout the year, tribal belly dancing and salsa, crafts, reading, travelling and watching wildlife.
Maria Wilding
Maria started her working life with an environmental biology degree and then decided that being outdoors and doing practical conservation work was much more to her liking so spent several years training volunteers and running work sessions for various conservation organisations in Lancashire, Scotland, Merseyside and Northampton. After a move to South Yorkshire, Maria started working with Community Woodlands at the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership in 2002, and with a brief hiatus supporting Social Enterprises for Ceredigion County Council, has continued woodland themed work since. Maria now manages work programmes for Llais y Goedwig the community Woodland network for Wales, and lives across the valley from Denmark Farm.
Neil Howard
After completing a degree in agriculture at Bangor University Neil worked in ADAS as a soil scientist looking at ways of improving the productivity of the uplands in Wales. A very different approach from what would be considered acceptable today!
Neil has over 40 years management experience across many roles in the Civil Service and nearly as many years in working with and managing charity and voluntary organisations. Key areas of interest are corporate governance; budget and financial management; staff development and compliance and audit.
Neil’s first involvement with Denmark Farm was in the early 2000’s when SET applied to one of the EU programmes he was managing for grant funding to install the first boardwalks and prepare some interpretation materials. Some years later after moving to Lampeter he became a trustee.
Outside of ‘office work’ Neil is a long standing supporter of the National Trust and can be found out walking the hills around Builth Wells with Skye (a spaniel cross) somewhere out in front.