Biographies
Allan Wilson – Chair
Allan co-founded Save Our Shropshire CIO (SOS) in July 2021, a charity dedicated to increasing people’s understanding of Climate Change. SOS provides education to Householders and Parish/Town Councils to enable them to make lifestyle changes to achieve a net-zero carbon future in Shropshire.
Allan had a 31-year career in the Police Force until 2015. Alongside his service, he provided 3-day courses in drink/drug driving and rehabilitation, to bring about behaviour change.
Since retirement in 2015, he has been actively involved in his passionate concern for the environment. He co-founded the Edgmond Wildlife Group to increase biodiversity and protect the parish where he lives. In 2017 he created a hedgehog preservation organisation. He became a parish councillor and then was elected to become chair of the council in 2019. He was also elected to become vice-chair of the Shropshire Association of Local Councils, holding the portfolio responsibility for climate change matters. Allan has presented to councils extensively on their responsibilities under the Climate Change Act 2008.
Michelle Wilson – Trustee
Michelle left college and worked in the Civil Service for 15 years with the Department of Employment and then in Local Government. She then worked for 15 years with the West Mercia Police as a Resource manager. She managed a budget of £ 2.5M. Later she moved to a contracts manager role for the entire police force area until 2006.
After she left the Police Force, she then moved into self-employment running a small business. She had previously taken a teaching qualification and taught adults at further education colleges in Cannock. Michelle then became Cilca qualified as a Parish Clerk working for several Parish and Town Councils in Shropshire. She retired early in order to look after her ageing mother.
Currently, Michelle enjoys volunteering as treasurer for two local organisations: Edgmond Wildlife Group and Female 77 and supporting local community work within the village, alongside her work as a trustee for SOS, which she co-founded in July 2021.
Richard Watkins – Vice Chair
Richard co-founded Save Our Shropshire in July 2021. He gained Carbon Literacy certification in 2020 and pledged to get involved in the fight against the effects of Climate Change. His enthusiasm builds on the power of education to bring about transformational behaviour change.
Before that, he had set up his own consultancy for manufacturing companies in 2002, which helped big and small businesses change their systems, processes and culture. Clients saw phenomenal improvements in the way that they performed. Core to that change was a behaviour change built on the establishment of a consistent vision, a desire to change, and a proven pathway to change built on teamwork. Before that, he worked from 1990 to 2002 with similar consultancies involved in delivering facilitation and education, which led to the transformation of those companies. He has written a book – “Integrated Business Leadership”.
Between 1978 and 1990 he worked for ICI Agrochemicals in a global marketing role, and in a project team which radically changed the way that division worked. After university, he worked in industrial marketing with Tube Investments Ltd.
Diane Lyle
Di’s background is in administration. She worked in the private sector attaining office manager status before grabbing the opportunity to go to university as a mature student where she studied English at Royal Holloway College. That was a life-changer; she returned to work, still utilising her admin skills but in the voluntary sector, working for a spiritual healing charity, the Royal College of Nursing and the Guide Association. In her spare time, she set up a tutoring business where she could share her enthusiasm for the written word with students ranging from 10 years to adults. That enthusiasm also led her, tentatively, to put her own words on paper and she has been featured in various poetry anthologies as well as having four books of her poetry published.
She moved to Shropshire from Greater London in 2007 and became immersed in Ludlow life, initially taking on the chairmanship of the Friends of Ludlow Arts Festival, acting as secretary of the Ludlow U3A, setting up and running the Ludlow Repair Café (now in its 8th year) and is currently charity secretary of the Friends of Gallows Bank Trust and the Friends of Mortimer Forest. She is also a board member of Ludlow21.
In 2015 she enrolled at the Centre for Alternative Technology and gained a Post Graduate Certificate with merit in their Adaptation and Sustainability course and she has completed the Carbon Literacy training. Having been a member of Greenpeace for more years than she might be willing to admit to, she has long been ‘environmentally aware’ and has adopted her own behaviour change strategy. She doesn’t drive, she has taken a lifetime flight-free pledge, even though there is so much of the world she might wish to explore, she avoids single-use plastic (with depressing success), has installed solar panels and a rain-water harvesting tank which serves her washing machine and the downstairs toilet and was proud to be disconnected from the gas main in 2016. She can’t live off-grid but wishes she could.
She is the fierce (and often unwelcome) voice of climate change awareness on Ludlow Town Council, having been elected in 2012, and currently chairs the Council’s Climate Action sub-committee.
