WHO WE ARE
We welcome the support of our patrons the Countess Sondes and Sir David Melville. Our Board of Trustees come with a variety of skills and knowledge including finance, fundraising, project management, engineering & design. They are all passionate about the heritage of the Creek and preserving it for everyone to enjoy and learn from.
Patrons
The Countess Sondes
The Countess Sondes is not a typical member of the British aristocracy in either her origin or her attitude. She represents the fusion of twenty-first century enterprise and insight, with centuries-old tradition. An American by birth, the widowed Phyllis Kane married Henry George Herbert, The Fifth Earl Sondes, in 1986. The Countess rapidly embraced the natural beauty of Lees Court, the Sondes family ancestral Estate, and its way of life evolving over seven centuries. When The Earl Sondes died in 1996, The Countess was determined for Lees Court to be retained and to preserve the continuance of its way of life; she has brought her own unique vision to the Estate.
Unusually, the ownership of the Lees Court Estate includes the majority of the Swale Estuary and Faversham and Oare Creeks. The Countess Sondes is passionate about this area and the Estate adopts a proactive approach to its management and conservation. There is particular focus on protecting its biodiversity and using the Estate’s ownership to responsibly protect socio-economic activity on the Estuary and Creeks, including moorings, wildfowling, fishing and the management of its oyster beds and works closely with Hollowshore Fisheries on the day-to-day activities. The aims of the Faversham Creek Trust are aligned with those of The Countess Sondes which is why she was honoured to become a patron of the Trust.
Professor Sir David Melville CBE
David Melville is a Faversham resident and he has been a sailor for over 50 years. His career has been in Further and Higher Education as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kent, Chief Executive of the Further Education Funding Council and Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University and before that as a Professor of Physics.
He has been Chair of Pearson Education Ltd and a member or chair of several national Government education reviews and inquiries. He was the Government Thames Gateway Skills Envoy and chair of Health Education and the NHS Postgraduate Deanery for Kent Surrey Sussex, Lifelong Learning UK, the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the Learning and Skills Council in Kent and Medway, the University Vocational Awards Council and Higher Education South East, and a board member of several universities, the ifs School of Finance, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, The Place and the Council for Industry and Higher Education. He is currently a member of the Parliamentary Higher Education Commission, a Kent Ambassador, Chair of Faversham & Oare Heritage Harbour Group and Vice-Chair of the Faversham Society.
Trustees
Philippa Dickenson – Chair
Philippa started her working life as a chartered engineer with engineering degrees from Cambridge University. She followed her work in industry with an MBA from INSEAD and then worked as a senior strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co before becoming a freelance organisational and leadership specialist. With over thirty years of coaching and facilitating experience, she has worked with senior executives from a range of sectors and government agencies. She is also a registered psychotherapist with UKCP.
Liz Tootell – Vice-Chair
Liz has lived in Faversham since 2004 and loves walking or cycling along the creek and all the history of Faversham. She is a freelance fundraiser and has worked in the charity sector for 20 years. She has secured grants to support children and young people, grants to help adults to recover from addiction and projects to support physical and mental health. It’s the best job in the world when you help to bring in funding and make a project happen that has a transformative impact on people’s lives and their loved ones.
Kristyna Hill – Treasurer
Kristýna was born in Prague, however as soon as she finished secondary school where she studied languages and tourism, she decided to travel abroad. She worked in the UK, Slovakia, Japan and Ireland before eventually settling in England to resume her studies. She studied at the Open University and later moved on to study with the ACCA to become a fully qualified Chartered Certified Accountant. She has worked as an accountant in accountancy practices for over 10 years, specialising in advising owner managed businesses. Kristyna lives in Faversham in Kent with her husband and 2 daughters and her hobbies, amongst other, include walks along the Creek with her family.
David Hadley
David has strong family connections with Kent going back 40 years but only moved here in 2019. He now lives near Faversham and keeps a small sailing boat at Hollowshore. He was an Educational Psychologist then a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in the NHS for twenty years, consulting widely to organisations in mental health. Retirement brought greater involvement in environmental matters and in 2021 he and fellow citizen scientists founded Faversham and Villages Water Testing – ‘Favwat’. David as a trustee also represents Favwat who are newly affiliated with Faversham Creek Trust.
Simon Lintott
Born and raised in South Africa near Cape Town, Simon has been close to water and the sea for a long time. With a British born father Simon decided to move to the UK in his early 20’s and has been here ever since. Working pre-dominantly across account management and commercial management roles Simon has operated at a Director level within Contact Centres, Insurance Firms and large Retail for the past 15 years of his career. Now a father of two daughters and happily a Faversham resident since 2022, Simon loves to spend time outside, particularly near the waters edge or in the sun hosting a braai.