The Team
Richard
Richard is the CEO of Nearly Wild Camping and he brings over 20 years of experience in small business, sustainability, publishing, and community-building. He’s founded and grown multiple purpose-led ventures and has worked across strategic roles in events, content, and digital transformation.
A passionate advocate for nature connection and low-impact living, Richard has guided more than 1,000 people on foraging walks and bushcraft sessions, and has helped launch sustainability initiatives across sectors.
Lee
Lee is largely responsible for ensuring the smooth running of Nearly Wild Camping. He is a keen outdoor and camping enthusiast and has a history of hiking, fishing and cycling, plus online retail experience of expedition foods and camping accessories.
Michelle
Michelle manages the admin and member engagement side of Nearly WildCamping. She grew up on a farm in Zimbabwe where she spent most of her time horse riding, fishing, camping or building dens. She move up to the Highlands of Scotland 20 years ago where she is now happily settled. Nature has always played a huge part in her life and camping is a way of ‘taking a breather and recharging’ from everyday life, either solo or with friends.
The Board
Kerry
Kerry has been involved in Nearly Wild Camping since its inception, beginning first as an administrator and project coordinator to taking her place on the board today. Kerry has many threads woven into her bundle. Her interests lie in the many levels of how to weave relationship and connection, including to other than human beings, to our own bodies, our own wildness and between people, through community and regenerative culture. Her work has spanned from supporting grassroots solutions with transition towns to facilitating connection with nature and then into her own inner landscapes, working with clients to rediscover the ease and vitality of their natural bodies through somatic experiencing. She is currently involved in an exciting project weaving together restoring Celtic rainforest, regenerative farming and a thriving community in an eco village.
Jim
Jim is an ecologist and trekking guide who educates about the natural world through guided walks, writing and the training of mountain leaders, Nature’s Work. His work is “all about people and the environment. It’s about sharing opportunities and engaging people with the natural world.”
Jim is happiest out camping on the Isles of Scilly. “You get out of the tent and you’re in the outside world. When you’re out camping and see someone else pitched up, you have things in common with people.”
Shels
With a background in community work, and a lived experience of physical disability, Shels is an important voice within Nearly Wild Camping. A volunteer with Cymru vs Arthritis, Shels has seen first-hand how empowering camping and the outdoors can be for everyone, and is passionate about sharing it. Camping is, for Shels, a deeply therapeutic exercise – when done right. Commercial campsites had been too busy for Shels, who has physical disabilities. She felt that she needed that back to nature feeling, the back to basics that is good for mental health.
Rupert
A teacher, scientist, wine-expert, climbing instructor, fencing champion and experimental archaeologist, Rupert Loch brings an almost infinite amount of skills to his outdoor teaching organisation, Feral Science. Passionate about inspiring people to learn outside, his mission is to “stick around and maybe – maybe – change an education system.” One common link between all of Rupert’s diverse career steps and interests is a deep love of the outdoors, and the drive to inspire us to learn more about the inner workings of the natural world.
Irene
Irene, Steve’s wife, has been a part of Nearly Wild Camping from the beginning and has given a lot of her time and energy to help it grow into what it is today. Inspired by the natural world, one her favourite things is sitting somewhere outdoors ‘weaving the view’, distilling key elements of what she sees to create a tapestry in just a few hours. “When I look at the tapestry afterwards, I’m reminded of the birdsong, breeze and sense of wellbeing that I experienced while I was weaving”.
