He stood for election as a trustee in 2001 and served a total of 11 years, becoming Chairman of the BBKA Executive in 2006 and in 2008 was elected BBKA President. He is currently President of Surrey BKA. 

After his two years as BBKA President, Tim went on to serve as Director of Public Affairs for a further six years, representing the BBKA to the media and to MPs at Westminster. He worked with DEFRA on the Healthy Bee Plan and Bee Health Advisory Forum and provided the Secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Bees. 

CAMPAIGNS

 

In 2006 as BBKA Chairman, Tim led the successful BBKA campaign to stop cuts to the National Bee Unit’s team of inspectors, raising 32,000 physical signatures in a petition to the Government. Then in 2008, with the worrying emergence of Colony Collapse Disorder in the USA, causing dramatic bee losses and rising concern elsewhere including the UK, Tim again led the BBKA campaign as President, to persuade the Government to invest in research into honey bee health.  This time, raising 136,000 signatures, the petition was presented to No. 10 Downing Street as part of a colourful demonstration under the banner ‘Smokers in Whitehall’, which saw hundreds of beekeepers lobbying their MPs dressed in their beekeeping veils with smokers ablaze. Success came with the Government setting-up the Insect Pollinators Initiative in 2009, establishing a £10m research fund, revitalising research into bees at universities across the country.

 

A most welcome side-effect of the campaign as public awareness and interest rose, was a massive growth in BBKA membership, with more and more people taking up the craft. The membership tripled to around 25,000 where it has remained more or less to this day.

 

MODERNISER

 

From the date that Tim joined the BBKA Executive he was a keen moderniser and was instrumental in setting up the Register of Members (with close colleagues Ivor Davis and Mike Lambert) - the membership data-base which has since enabled the direct mailing to members of BBKA News, for which he was Publisher for many years.  Again with Ivor Davis and others the Constitution was modernised.  He took the BBKA Spring Convention under his wing in 2007 and oversaw its growth into the major event that it now is in the beekeeping year.  A recent project has been the development together with the NFU and the Crop Protection Association of BeeConnected, a web-based system enabling farmers to alert beekeepers of their intention to spray crops with chemicals, in the hope of mitigating damage to bee colonies, a project which has attracted interest from Brussels.

 

Tim, who lives in Claygate in Surrey, has been involved in a number of other charities principally with musical connections, being founding Chairman of the Friends of Tiffin Music, Chairman of the Cobham Band, an active member of the Tiffin Oratorio Society and a brass tutor for the Claygate Scout and Guide Band.

 

He read Biological Sciences at UEA Norwich and was made an Honorary Fellow in 2009 for his work in promoting the UEA Alumnus Fund programme.

 

 

Tim is married with two children and three grand children; his other interests are classic cars and long distance trail-walking raising money for Prostate Cancer and Parkinsons.

 

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