Staff, Board and members show appreciation for one of AECB’s longest serving members.

Sally Hall, one of the founders of the AECB recalls first meeting Neill way back in 1992 when he was helping organise a Friends of the Earth event in Malvern and her and Keith Hall (co-founder) were promoting the AECB. Shortly after he joined the AECB he very quickly became a very active member. He was appointed to the very first formal committee back in 2003, being first a committee member and later a Trustee when the AECB became a not for profit limited company. He attended virtually every meeting before he stood down from the Board in 2014.   He continued to run the Three Counties local AECB group with Ruth Busbridge, organising visits and events for interested members and non-members.  Neill was a regular at our conferences where he took photographs for use on our website and marketing materials. He gave his time and expertise freely, helping out with legal and other matters throughout his time as a member.

Neill was an architect, designing environmentally sensitive, low energy projects incorporating sustainable technology.  He also offered practicable solutions for creating and adapting buildings for older and disabled people, believing that no-one should be restricted in using their home as a result of the way it is designed.  As a qualified teacher, Neill also taught building subjects as well as delivering programmes of workshops and seminars concerned with environmentally responsive design and the selection of appropriate materials.

Neill says; “When I joined the AECB it had fewer members than our local group has today.  We comfortably got through Committee business in a couple of hours and Annual Conferences took up all of an afternoon.  I’m glad to see the way the Association has grown but I hope it doesn’t get so big and bureaucratic that members can’t continue to greet each other by name.”  

We would like to wish Neill a very happy retirement and thank him for his continuous support over many years, including being the longest standing committee member/Trustee and running the Three Counties group on a voluntary basis.