UK Team

We are an improvised team of impassioned individuals who have come together to bring Jon Young and the Art of Mentoring to the UK. We are volunteering our time because we feel Jon’s teachings have so much to offer our already strong nature mentoring community. There are also many others before us and around us who have made this possible.

Victoria Mew
Victoria is currently studying at UCL following a gap year spent at the Wilderness Awareness School where her life was touched by the Art of Mentoring teachings and the community there. Prior to this she was lucky enough to spend many weeks of her teen years on nature awareness and survival courses both in the UK with Trackways, founded by Thomas Schorr-Kon, and with Coyote Tracks in New Jersey.

Maeve Gavin
Maeve has long been engaged in grass roots movements from food growing with refugees in Glasgow to the landless movement of Brazil. Her own nature connection journey took her into the wilds of Scotland, Canada and America. She has trained with various earth wisdom based organizations, and is a Vision Quest guide. She lived in a tipi for a year in the Pine Barrens of Tom Browns Tracker School, and then went on to teach at the Wilderness Awareness School’s homeschooler programme. Maeve continues to make documentaries, and is currently researching a BBC series about the future of Scotland’s Landscape. Maeve loves dancing, singing around fires and swimming in lochs!

Nicky Gould
Nicky is a Chartered member of the Society for the Environment and a full member of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. She has been working in environmental education and ecological consultancy for over 12 years. She is deeply thankful… an has been particularly inspired by her school geography teacher who set up an after-school “Green Club”, her biology teacher who set her off on an unexpected lifelong geeky passion for ponds, Thomas Schorr-Kon who introduced her to Nature Awareness through his Trackways courses, Jon Young’s tape series, Rudolf Steiner and all the work he has inspired. Nicky now has a two year old son and together they enjoy much singing, stories, exploring in the woods, making, mending, creating and playing.

Cliff Wright
Cliff has worked as an artist for over 20 years, mainly in the field of childrens books and is currently moving into sculpture. For the last dozen or so years he has taught in countless schools, colleges etc all over Britain and abroad and now runs a unique series of drawing-based workshops entitled Nature of Seeing. He has a lifetime’s passion for all things wild, has studied under Tom Brown and Jon Young in the States and Trackways in the UK, and spends as much time in the woods as possible…

Amanda Cruise

Amanda’s work and passions include teaching, photography, art and nature.  She loves nurturing the learning and discovery process of all age groups. While her love for the outdoors and the natural world has been very strong since childhood, her own nature connection journey of discovery is only just beginning. In 2009 she was mentored by Joanna Macy in The Work that Reconnects and is continuing intensive studies in a variety of practices and approaches to inner and outer transformation, so that she may share them with others. She and her ten year old daughter enjoy woodland explorations, fireside song and stories, beach combing, adventures of all kinds and much silliness and  laughter.

Alex Travers

Alex teaches wilderness living skills in the uk and abroad. His passion for nature started as a young boy when he studied the birds and hid in bushes to get away from It all. After a number of years practicing the art of learning from nature and being influenced by the teachings of Grandfather, Tom Brown and Jon young, he has started to get a real insight into the power of nature connection in the construction of what it is to be a truly alive human being. He also likes to laugh a lot.

Billy Richardson

Billy  is a trained nurse but now works part time leaving plenty of space for her family and her interests. She has lived in many places in the UK and for a short while in New Zealand and wherever she has been, has found herself drawn to the natural environment.

Encouraged to play outside every day come rain or shine and taken on annual holidays in Scotland, her interest in the great outdoors developed as a child.  She learnt to swim in a Scottish loch in April!   Although not quite so hardy now, holidays are usually taken on foot and in wild places.  At home she works hard on her organic garden. In recent times she has joined the landshare scheme and offered plots on her land for neighbours  to grow their own vegetables.  She would like to expand this into the whole village and encourage a locally sustainable community as at least as far as food is concerned.

Her recent affilation with Art of Mentoring provides her with an opportunity to promote a deeper connection  with nature for her family, friends and wider community.