This is the first in a series of interviews by Lucy Johnson, in which she interviews some of the key players in the development past, present and future, of The Aire Rivers Trust. We thank her for her committment and expertise in putting these pieces together.
Before Christmas I sat down with Geoff, a former Chair of the Aire Rivers Trust and current trustee, to talk about what led him to become involved with the charity and to discuss some of his aspirations for the future including partnerships with other Rivers Trusts and Yorkshire Water. Our conversation took place on a gloomy day in December, in a small room furnished with vending machines just behind the post room at the ART HQ.
Geoff is tall, bluff, direct and straightforward, with a warm manner. He comes across as very grounded in practical matters, so I was surprised at the almost whimsical nature of the quote he chose when I asked him for a favourite piece of wisdom. He plumped for the famous quote from the 1989 film, Field of Dreams, “build it and they will come,” which he interprets and puts into practice as, “create opportunities for people who will take those opportunities.” This has been a focus for Geoff since winding down his second career as a consultant on organisational change post several decades with Yorkshire Water, within his work with ART and a recent new trustee role with the Bradford-based Participate Projects.
Geoff characterises the River Aire as the “life-blood” of the community, and has worked for many years to enhance that. He has also been able to bring the environmental focus into play in his role at Participate Projects, using his expertise to guide young people as part of the Venturists programme.
A theme that emerged through our conversation was the importance of the exposure to nature in childhood. Geoff himself during his childhood in Hull would frequently go fishing with his father. He credits these trips with giving him exposure and knowledge that was definitely not part of his schooling, commenting, “you didn’t talk about the environment. No one was worried about it.” Geoff was also influenced by the author Henry Williamson and his books, “Tarka the Otter,” and “Salar the Salmon,” both titles coming readily to mind. Building on this personal experience, Geoff states, “If we can work with children and get children to value the environment and to value water in particular, they will become advocates for life.” Education and engagement are part of the Trust’s key strategies.
We also spoke about ART’s early days. We’re getting into third-hand information here as Geoff was not on the roster till 2013, but it seems that Kevin Sunderland called a meeting a couple of years prior to that, identifying the need for action to improve the River Aire, and a small charity was formed in 2012 comprising some trustees including current chair, Wendy. With typical understatement, when Geoff heard about ART, he contacted them saying, “I know a bit about the Aire.” He has been putting his knowledge to good use on ART’s behalf since, notching up hundreds of hours.
Geoff was asked to become Chair a couple of years after joining. He remained as Chair for seven or eight years, during which time the annual turnover of the Aire Rivers Trust increased tenfold, mainly thanks to the DNAire project. This project was based around getting salmon up to Skipton, and creating fish passes at four significant weirs.
Throughout the interview Geoff emphasised the importance of working in partnership with other organisations, and commented that in his own career he saw a shift from technical skills to relying more on people skills to move forwards. Sam Riley-Gunn leads the ART citizen science projects, and with his professional background Geoff is able to advocate for the use of data gathered to supplement the knowledge base of organisations such as Yorkshire Water.
Recently, in addition to supporting Wendy, Geoff has been instrumental in bringing about a regional partnership with Yorkshire Water between the Aire Rivers Trust and four other Yorkshire rivers trusts – the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust, East Yorkshire Rivers Trust, Calder and Colne Rivers Trust and the Don Catchment Rivers Trust. As a group, there will be opportunities to learn and develop, and perhaps to have more of a voice at a broader level.
Geoff’s journey from being a young boy with an impressive chemistry set, to working within analytical chemistry at a firm which was itself polluting, and from there to Bradford to work for many decades with Yorkshire Water working with pollution at all levels, is one that has made him invaluable to the Aire Rivers Trust and to the broader community and given him irreplaceable knowledge and experience.
Anything Geoff turns his hand to is likely to have a successful outcome. I know this from our association together as employees of the former Yorkshire Water Authority in the pursuit of river pollution prevention and control of industrial effluents.