The Team — Flourish

The Trustees.

Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, and a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch.
Formerly a Consultant Psychiatrist of the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley NHS Trust in London, he was Clinical Director of their southern sector Acute Mental Health Services. He trained at the Maudsley Hospital in London, working on specialist units including the Neuropsychiatry and Epilepsy Unit, the Children’s Unit and the Forensic Unit, as well as, at Senior Registrar level, the National Psychosis Referral Unit and the National Eating Disorder Unit. His clinical experience has been broad-based, and he has run a busy Community Mental Health Team in an ethnically diverse and socially deprived area of south London.
He has published original research in numerous topics including the phenomenology of schizophrenia. He has also contributed to other papers and journals on various subjects, and taken part in many radio and TV programmes and documentaries.
He now lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of North West Scotland, where he continues to write, and lectures worldwide.

Raoul Curtis-Machin has 33 years of experience in horticulture and heritage. He has been Director of Horticulture at the Horticultural Trades Association, a National Trust Gardens and Parks Adviser, landscape historian, private estate manager, garden designer, publisher, author, lecturer and more. Born in Dundee he developed his childhood interest in horticulture through studying for a degree in landscape management at Reading University.
He has a wealth of heritage, politics, communications and landscape management experience. Raoul also helped protect some of the Scotland’s most valuable landscapes when he was the Landscape Historian with Historic Environment Scotland. In his twenties, he managed Sir Winston Churchill’s former estate in Sussex and ran a successful garden design business in London. In his early thirties he set up and launched The Northern Garden Magazine, for gardeners in Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland.
As the HTA’s Director of Horticulture, he helped lead the UK garden industry by playing a key role in developing the Ornamental Horticulture Roundtable Action Group and he represented the UK Government as Commissioner-General at the Antalya Expo 2016. In 2018, Raoul returned to Scotland to be the National Trust for Scotland Operations Manager for Culloden Battlefield, which has given him hands-on experience of Scottish heritage tourism, as well as conserving one of Scotland’s iconic heritage assets. He has a Certificate in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors, as well as Postgraduate Diplomas in Journalism and Public Affairs.

James is an independent fundraising and marketing consultant. He began fundraising in 1992, after a short career as a Land Agent. For ten years he managed a national team handling regional appeals, grant bids and PR for conservation charity, The Woodland Trust. James moved to Tonbridge School in 2003 to set up a new Foundation, moving on to King’s School, Canterbury in 2011, before setting up his own consultancy in 2013.
During his time with schools, James taught English and Creative Writing and was a house tutor. He continues to stay involved in education by helping run Tonbridge School's climbing trips.

Having graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Economics, Michael Osborne qualified as a chartered accountant. He then became a Teacher, principally of Maths and Latin, and for fifty years he has had a close involvement with schools and education. After 22 years as Headmaster of Belhaven Hill Prep School in Dunbar, he was for 12 years a Governor of Fettes College, three of them as Chairman. In 2015 he obtained an M.Sc. in Classics at Edinburgh University. He continues to work as a tutor and he retains a keen interest in schools, particularly as regards the benefits to be gained from outdoor education and introducing pupils to the natural world.

Philip Mackenzie combines a deep knowledge of forestry, trees and conservation with professional accountancy experience. He graduated from Oxford with a BA in Forestry and then became an accountant, working initially for Ernst and Young in London, Aberdeen and Inverness. He then spent the majority of his career applying his accountancy skills to land management and timber businesses in Scotland. In the early 1980s he was Finance Officer for the Highlands and Islands Development Board. He then moved to Badenock Land Management Ltd before becoming Financial Director of John Gordon and Son Ltd, a sawmill based in Nairn, employing 100 staff. Philip has also served on many boards, including Inverness and Nairn Enterprise, UHI Court, Findhorn Fishery Board and the Board of Governors of Croftinloan School.

The Flourish Team.

Julia Jane Gladwin is garden designer and director of Black Isle Brewery which she and her husband started in 1998. She now focuses on the horticultural aspect of the business to grow organic produce for the two Black Isle Bars. She has over 30 years of experience in horticulture. As a high-end garden designer with public commissions under her belt, she has a clear aim to incite an appreciation of plants, to ignite wonder at the richness and curiosity of the natural world and to encourage her clients to be hands on gardeners.
For 30 years she and her husband have hosted young people through the WOOF organisation (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) and grown increasingly aware of the disconnection from nature so many young people experience and the profound negative impact this has on their ability to work cooperatively, to empathise, on their resilience and stamina, and on their sense of fulfilment and happiness.

Laura has 20 years of experience working in education and has worked with children and young people across the globe, including New Zealand, Australia, India and of course the UK. As a graduate she returned to her hometown of London where she worked for a Lloyds of London syndicate and became involved in the Tower Hamlets scheme, volunteering time to support primary literacy skill development in a socio-economically deprived area of the city.
She has an abundance of teaching, leadership and project development experience. Laura has worked for the Ministry of Education in New Zealand, managed a research centre in northern India and was invited to partake in the first New South Wales local government Food Leaders programme. She’s worked in food forests in Australian Primary Schools and, more recently, taught in Primary Schools in Aberdeenshire and Inverness. Laura has worked with children who have been displaced, who are neurodiverse, who have additional support needs and who have experienced early childhood trauma.
Now based in Inverness, Laura is passionate about reconnecting people to nature, regenerating the land and creating secure food systems. She believes this goes hand in hand with the regeneration of our communities and our own health and wellbeing. For Laura, this starts with education and a meaningful experience of nature from a young age. She is a qualified Primary School Teacher, Yoga Teacher, ESOL Teacher and has a Postgraduate degree in Social Anthropology.

The people behind the project.

The Trustees.

The Flourish Team.

‘It’s critical that we get this link into education.’

Grow with Us - Support the future of Outdoor Learning