Holly Cross joined WWOOF UK as Personnel and Organisational Administrator in April this year and has already proved how much the organisation needed someone to take on this role – and how good she is at doing it. We asked her to tell us a little bit about herself. Welcome Holly!
I currently split my time between my parents’ smallholding and my partner Dan’s parents’ sheep farm – one valley apart from each other in North Pembrokeshire. I was born in Carmarthen, but brought up in Somerset – my parents and I made our very own second wave of migration to Wales in 2000 when I came to study at Swansea University (and my folks finally bought the land they’d always wanted)! After completing my degrees, I spent a few years working for community projects in Swansea and Cardiff, and did some travelling and WWOOFing in Europe. I went off to visit a friend in Australia in 2007… and somehow ended up living and teaching English in Kiev and Odessa in the Ukraine! But I’ve settled in Pembrokeshire now… I think!
Aside from the paid work I do with WWOOF, a local Care Farm and in a vegetarian restaurant, I sing with a local choir, have learnt and taught Welsh, am dabbling in some eco building and the animal and plant husbandry that comes with being part of a family smallholding community. Dan and I are also volunteer directors running a community benefit cooperative which intends to erect a wind turbine to generate a clean, green sustainable income for local people and enterprises.