A great county show and a good deal more – that’s the promise from Daren Bowyer as he settles into the newly created role of Chief Executive with the Newbury & District Agricultural Society.
While leading the Newbury Showground team that will deliver its next Royal County of Berkshire show on 19 and 20 September 2015, Daren is also intent on building the society itself, enhancing the attractions of membership to families and increasing its charitable contributions. An important part of that will be to further progress the society’s key mission in engaging children in the countryside and boosting their appreciation of the vital role of the British farming industry in food, stewardship of the countryside and everyday life.
Alongside that, he will be heading the drive to market the attractions of one of Britain’s best equipped and located showgrounds to a wider user audience.
“It is an exciting new challenge for me with a lot of overlap from my previous roles,” says Daren who has strong team leading experience over a 26-year military career which included active service in the Gulf War, the Balkans and Afghanistan. More recently, he has applied his management skills from the Army to running the day-to-day support operations of a leading Oxford college and to two education-focused charities. His most recent role was as Director of the Sandhurst Trust, the Royal Military Academy’s own charity promoting leadership.
“The show is undoubtedly one of the best in Britain and manages to maintain its agricultural traditions while also offering a superb mix of trade stands and activities for people of all ages,” he says. “But there is much more that we can do to take the work of the society to a wider audience. I think we can look back with pride and look forward with confidence.”
During his Army career, Daren completed masters’ degrees in defence technology and management at Cranfield, and in international relations at Cambridge, plus a PhD. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. He has held staff appointments at the Ministry of Defence, the British Embassy in Washington and the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.
Daren lives at Shillingford in South Oxfordshire, where his wife, Jill, is a teacher. They have two adult daughters and a teenaged son. In his spare time, Daren is Oxfordshire’s Army Cadet Force Commandant in the rank of Colonel, and he is a member of the judging committee of the Oxfordshire Restaurant Awards.
