Emma lives near the Hampshire/Wiltshire border and her role is to liaise between the Council and our branches. After being made redundant from a part-time bookkeeping role for Farms and Estates, Emma decided to become a self-employed farm secretary and has been in the role for more than 10 years. She has been on the committee of the Thames and Test Branch for a number of years, serving recently as Chairman for the last few. Emma has a Level 3 Certificate in Rural Business Administration and regularly attends training courses and workshops

Lynn is the council member responsible for CPD and reporting to the CPD Assessor. Raised as a farmer’s daughter, she has worked within the agricultural industry all her life.   With over 25 years’ experience, she has provided mobile farm secretarial services including book keeping, payroll and property management latterly in the Staffordshire / Derbyshire border area.   Having been actively involved within the Staffordshire Branch, she now promotes CPD training and development to IAgSA members to raise the Institute’s Standards of Professionalism.

Rebecca has held the Council post of Treasurer since July 2012, having previously served on Council from 2004-2011. As Treasurer, Rebecca is responsible for IAgSA’s finances, budgeting, monitoring bank movements, approving and paying bills and expenses claims, and reporting to Council. Brought up on a dairy farm in Gloucestershire, Rebecca obtained secretarial and accounting qualifications prior to completing her NCFS at Staffordshire Agricultural College.  She began her farm secretarial career working for the Farmers Secretarial Service, based in Devizes, Wiltshire before becoming self-employed, looking after the administration on about a dozen farms.  The businesses range from large contract farming operations, needing visits, to small farms needing quarterly VAT returns.  A keen supporter of CPD since its inception, Rebecca also believes the branch network offers good training opportunities and would encourage all members to participate in their local branches.

Hannah grew up on an arable farm in South West Norfolk.  She left East Anglia to study for a degree in psychology at the University of Lancaster and then spent 8 years working in the brewing industry as a Sales Forecaster and Pricing Manager.  After having children Hannah and her husband moved to Suffolk, to be closer to family, where she did an IAB bookkeeping qualification and Units 2 – 4 of the IAgSA training programme.  She is a self employed farm secretary with 4 clients, covering arable, veg, pigs and free range eggs.  She was one of the first mentees to benefit from the mentor programme and is passionate about helping others to tap into the enormous amount of experience that exists within the IAgSA membership through this programme.

She is also secretary of the Suffolk branch.

Louise was born in Cumbria, daughter of an accountant and granddaughter of a dairy farmer. She studied at Bishop Burton qualifying as a farm secretary in 1985 and remained in Yorkshire until 1990 working in the seed trade as a crop inspector and seed sampler. On her return to Cumbria she worked at Borderway Mart in the Pedigree Department with responsibility mainly for dairy sales where she met her husband. Following the birth of their two daughters, she decided to return to her roots of farm secretarial work, working freelance for a large farm consultancy firm for two years until the contract came to an end, and then she became self-employed. The majority of her business is farm bookkeeping, although she also bookkeeps for her clients’ diversified businesses. In her spare time she is involved with the local County Show and also is current chairman of the Cumbria Branch of the Northern Counties Ponies Association

Amanda lives in the Scottish Borders but originally comes from Angus, north of Dundee. She grew up on a mixed farm and now lives with her husband and two children on a livestock farm. She enjoyed helping her Mum and Dad with their farm paperwork so it is no surprise she became a farm secretary. Her move to the Scottish Borders was to work for FBR, Kelso as a farm secretary and after having her family, Amanda became a self-employed farm secretary and has been doing this since 2007.Amanda has been a member of IAgSA since 2009 and was elected Secretary for Scottish Borders Branch in 2016 and has helped to grow the Scottish Borders Branch in the past 5 years. Amanda runs a weekly Highland Dancing Class for children from the age of 4 in the local village. In her spare time she enjoys walking and socialising with friends.

The highlight of Amanda’s IAgSA career so far would be organising the 2020 IAgSA Conference in Peebles Hydro with the other Scottish Borders Branch committee members.

Lesley grew up on a mixed family farm in Shropshire and now lives in Hereford, with spells in Mid Wales and Hampshire in between. She qualified as a farm secretary at Rodbaston, Staffordshire in 1981 and completed AAT Technician Level in 2002. She has worked in the full range of farm secretarial settings, as well as other industries such as construction and estate agency and managed the finances for her husband’s company until he recently retired. She is currently employed as Farm Accountant on a traditional mixed farming estate with separate soft-fruit company producing cherries, raspberries and apples for the past 8 years, responsible for all aspects of business accountancy and monthly cashflow, budget comparisons and forecasting, for which she has a particular passion. She has been Branch Secretary of Herefordshire Branch for the past 5 years and is currently also Deputy Chairman. Lesley is delighted to have been recently elected to Council and looks forward to supporting the Institute in the coming years

My name is Elin Jones and I have been living on a farm just outside Corwen in Denbighshire, North Wales for the past 34 years. I was brought up on a sheep and beef farm in Anglesey. When I met my husband, I moved to Denbighshire. We were given the opportunity to buy the farm we continue to live in now- this was the beginning of our farming business together and we were farming sheep and beef for many years.

We have two sons and two daughters who are all adults by now; luckily they all live locally and we are busy grandparents to nine grandchildren! After both our sons studied agriculture at College and University, they both came home to become partners in the business with different experience, knowledge and ideas to expand and improve the business. We changed direction of the business and build a Free Range Poultry Unit beginning with 16K and have increased to 32K.

Myself and my husband are in charge of the poultry unit. Our sons have recently moved direction again and now run a rotary dairy unit. Due to the demand of the poultry unit and the new dairy; we decided to stop farming sheep and beef to concentrate on both these enterprises. For 25 years; I ran my own farm secretarial business. I was a farm secretary for a number of farms around North Wales and had great pleasure out of my work. However, three years ago I decided that I needed to priorities my work on our own business. It was nice to hand over my work to local ladies who had a keen interest in the work. I have been a member of IAgSA for a number of years and have gained a lot of knowledge, inspiration from my fellow member by attending annual meetings and conferences around the United Kingdom. I was pleased to welcome the conference to North Wales in 2018- when it was held in the beautiful setting of Nant Gwrtheyrn. I am currently a chairperson of our own North Wales Branch.

In my spare time I like walking the country side of North Wales with my friends. My proudest achievement was to walk the Offa’s Dyke which runs from Chepstow in South Wales up to Prestatyn North Wales.

Billie is a co-opted Council Member responsible for liaising with Government on behalf of IAgSA. She has played an invaluable role through her participation at the RPA (Rural Payments Agency) Technical Stakeholder Group meetings. Billie is a member of the Association of Accounting Technicians and has been a member of IAgSA since 1986. She also manages her own practice providing rural business services along with helping to run the family farm.