Today, 23rd May 2022, on Press Day at Chelsea Flower Show the David Colegrave Foundation are pleased to announce a new Trustee joins the organisation to help it build its future and those of the many horticultural students it supports every year.
The Foundation awards scholarship each year to students who are studying horticulture at UK colleges and universities and is supported by companies and organisations within the industry such as Blue Diamond Garden Centres and the BPOA (British Protected Ornamentals Association). These grants can help students with the purchase of course materials such as text books and computers, college fees and travel. In 2022 so far more than £25,000 worth of bursaries have been awarded to 11 students.
All Trustees are volunteers and bring a variety of skills from a diverse range of backgrounds. The focus of the Foundation is towards ornamental and production horticulture but includes scientific research and increasingly environmental matters.
Jeff Colegrave, Chair of Trustees said:
“It seems very fitting that today, on the Tribute to Peter Seabrook display at Chelsea Flower Show, to be honouring one of our founding Trustees, Peter Seabrook. This would have been his 70th year exhibiting at Chelsea, before his sudden death earlier this year. It gives me immense pleasure to welcome his son Roger as a new Trustee to our Foundation.”
Roger Seabrook joined Unilever as a graduate Finance trainee having studied Natural Sciences at university. His finance career with Unilever has taken him from the UK to roles in Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil and then back to Europe. More recently he has been in the Unilever Investor Relations team, with a particular responsibility for Sustainability.
Outside work Roger is the trustee for a Water Meadow Trust in Oxfordshire and enjoys music, birdwatching and battling against the weeds on his allotment.
Roger said:
“I feel very proud to be invited to join the Foundation as a Trustee. Its work was very important to my father, who was a Trustee himself for 30 years, and like him I see immense value in supporting young people who want to advance themselves and develop their own careers in horticulture. This as I have been able to do myself, especially, when thinking to the future, and learning and work in environmental matters and sustainability of which Horticulture is such a key part. This is all the more important as we think to the future where we need to face a range of environmental and sustainability challenges where horticulture has a key role to play.
I am really looking forward to working with the other Trustees and helping them both grow funds at the disposal of the Foundation and deploy them effectively. Increasing the scale and scope of the activities was one of the last decisions Dad was involved in at the Foundation before his sudden death in January and it is a privilege to be able to play a part in taking this important work forward.”
(C) Howard Drury 23.05.2022
