Our Special Friends

Mark Johnston

Chair

Mark Johnston trained as a vet and worked initially at a large equine practice in Newmarket where he took a special interest in equine anaesthesia and intensive care. He subsequently earned a PhD in this area. He is now Managing Director of Vetstream, a company providing online clinical information, continuing professional development, websites and other digital services to veterinary practices.

Robert Ferguson

Treasurer

Robert is an experienced chartered accountant. He qualified with KPMG in 1979 and worked in the firm’s London, New York, Silicon Valley and East Anglian offices. He was senior partner of the East Anglian practice from 2004 to 2009.

Since 2012, Robert has worked as Finance Director at Ashtons Legal, a full service regional law firm, and more recently as Finance Director at Suffolk Primary Care, a super partnership of GP practices.

As a corporate auditor and investigator, Robert advised a wide range of businesses on strategy, organisation, financial control and processes. More recently that experience has been put to use implementing change as part of board level teams in both legal services
and primary care.

Robert is married, with four grown up children. He enjoys cycling and music.

Elizabeth Ormerod

As Small Animal House Physician Elizabeth was responsible for Glasgow University’s charity veterinary clinic during which period she became attuned to the significance of companion animals in the lives of vulnerable people. Elizabeth has pioneered bond-centred veterinary practice – taking the needs of her clients into account and tailoring treatment plans accordingly. With multidisciplinary collaboration she developed outreach programmes, delivering Animal Assisted Intervention (AAI) programmes to schools, nursing homes, hospitals, sheltered housing, psychiatric hospitals and prisons.

Elizabeth has travelled widely to visit model AAI programmes, as a Churchill Fellow, and additional overseas study trips to N America and Asia. Elizabeth is a Vice President of The International Association of Human-animal Interaction Organisations (IAHAIO); Past Chair and a director of SCAS; co-founder and Vice President of Canine Partners, the UK assistance dog programme; and a visiting lecturer to veterinary schools. She is recognised internationally for her work in anthrozoology and was awarded the Inaugural International William F McCulloch Award for excellence in human-animal interaction education and practice.

Carolyn Bradburne

Fundraising and Events Co-ordinator

Carolyn held senior positions in financial control and planning for major fashion retailers such as the Burton Group and River Island for many years before moving to the voluntary sector. Since then, she has built up considerable experience in fundraising for a wide variety of charities, including Spinal Research, Motor Neurone Disease, St Nicholas Hospice in Bury St Edmunds and the restoration appeal for the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds. Carolyn contributes to the management of our finances, fundraising and events.

Jill Gurney

After qualifying as a doctor Jill entered clinical practice for several years before moving to medical research, where she was involved in all stages of the development of new medical compounds, from their first administration to humans, to tests of their efficacy and safety in treating disease. More recently she has worked part-time as a medical assessor for claimants of disability benefits. For many years Jill has kept dogs and had an interest in animals and in their relationships with humans. She was involved with PAT Dogs shortly after its inception and for several years she edited the Journal of the Society for Companion Animal Studies. She recently obtained an MA in Philosophy with a dissertation on the Moral Status of Animals.

Our Team

Belinda Johnston

MA VetMB MRCVS

Founder and Chief Executive

Belinda trained as a vet and worked in London, becoming a founding partner of a veterinary practice in Battersea. Life experiences and her time in practice stimulated her interest in the relationship between people and their pets – the mutual benefits these relationships offer and the impact of losing them. Moving to Suffolk, she developed her person-centred approach and trained in bereavement support and counselling. She now lectures veterinary and animal welfare staff on how to help people cope with companion animal end of life decisions and loss.

She saw the need for a charity which would promote and enhance the bond between people and their animals, providing support to enable these relationships to continue through difficult times, whilst empowering and supporting difficult decisions and loss. Our Special Friends was born! Today Belinda is our Chief Executive. She is also our main practitioner, visiting potential users of the services we offer, assessing their needs and matching them to appropriate support from our volunteers and affiliate organisations. She believes firmly that people need pets and pets need people because they both benefit from being together – but they need to be a good match and, when necessary, to be supported by others to maintain the relationship.

Mark Toller

Finance Director

Mark is a Chartered Accountant, who after working at board level in banking and investment management in the city, joined Juddmonte Farms and served as their Chief Financial Officer for nearly 20 years. Subsequently he acted as a part time Finance Director for the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket whilst advising a number of private clients on their tax and business affairs. Mark is now coming to help Our Special Friends on financial matters and the development of their future business plans.

Anna Hunt

Trusts and Grants Manager

Anna is an experienced Trusts and Foundations Manager with fifteen years’ experience in the voluntary sector and a Distinction in the Certificate in Fundraising from the Institute of Fundraising. Amongst other things some of her key career achievements have included managing a small team which secured over £1.7m in a single financial year for EACH, personally raising over £1.8m over four years for Action for Children and previously £1.5m over four years for St Nicholas Hospice Care. She has also secured major grants from the St. James’s Place Foundation, the Big Lottery Fund, the Thompson Family Charitable Trust, the Bradbury Foundation, the Department of Health, the Primary Care Trust, the Wolfson Foundation, the Henry Smith Charity and other grant-givers. Anna will be helping Our Special Friends by researching and applying for funding opportunities.

Sally Bycroft – Marketing & PR

Sally is a PR and marketing professional who has worked with both agencies and direct clients over the years and latterly as a freelance marketing consultant. Sally joined Our Special Friends in July 2017 to help develop the marketing communications and streamline the PR and marketing process.

Susan Bradwell – Finance officer

Susan also joined the charity in 2017. Susan brings a wealth of experience with her to Our Special Friends. She is a trained accountant and offers invaluable support on the financial side from donations, book keeping and accounting through to payroll and expenses.

Frances Roach – Volunteer Support Manager

Frances has recently joined the team having worked in a variety of roles in the third sector. Following her graduation with a degree in Psychology from Sheffield, Frances began her working journey as an outreach worker at MIND Cambrideshire. It was here that Frances recognised the huge importance of supervision, and support, for those working at grass-roots level. Feeling the pressures of being on a zero-hour contract, Frances decided it was time to progress and joined a lively team at Action for Children. Here she began to develop her team management skills and was, after two years, offered an opportunity to manage and coordinate a very active youth provision with the YMCA. Frances supported a team of both paid staff and volunteers and enjoyed the opportunity to empower individuals to support those with vulnerabilities. When Covid arrived, the project’s funding was jeopardised and saw a very sad demise. It was time to move on and, seeing the opportunity to utilise and develop her skillset, as well as combine her love for amimals, Frances was delighted to join the Our Special Friends team. Frances believes that volunteers are an intrinsic cog in the OSF wheel and endeavours to support and empower them throughout their time with the team.

Bil Thorn – Administrator

Bil’s career started off as a cordon bleu cook in both wine bars and Directors Boardrooms for over 15 years. She then had a career change, firstly working as a Secretary/PA for an importer of Italian ceramics, then as a PA/School Secretary for a private school with children from 2.5 – 11yrs. After getting married she moved back to Suffolk. She had her first experience in working in the charity sector with The Prince’s Trust, then as secretary/administrator working in Norwich. Getting fed up with the commute, a change of career was called for. Having experienced the wonderful work that OSF do, with firstly finding a dog for her elderly father, then having to re-home the dog when her father recently passed away, the opportunity arose for her to join us as Office Admin which she started on 1^st October 2018. She looks forward to having her own dog very soon.

Gemma Reid – Animal Companionship Practitioner

Following a series of temporary jobs after leaving school I then realised my ambition to work with animals when I landed a trainee Veterinary Nurse position at a mixed practice in Stowmarket. 5 years later and wanting a new challenge I then moved on to referral nursing at the Animal Health Trust. Over time I worked my way up to Deputy Nursing Manager, and oversaw the nursing team based in the busy hospital wards, and for a few years alongside this also helped develop and run the hydrotherapy unit, until the wards became too busy to split my time that way (how I missed squelching up the long corridor to reception in my wetsuit, especially in winter!) Having initially thought that I’d gain a year’s referral experience to take back to general practice, I found the work constantly evolving and stimulating, and before I knew it 17 years had passed! It was again time for a change, so the next 5 years were spent self employed locuming at various practices, and then lately being employed by Vets4Pets in Haverhill, until being fortunate enough to get the coveted new role of Animal Companionship Practitioner with Our Special Friends. I’ve known Bin for several years after meeting her at a local event and then doing a small amount of volunteering, and since then OSF was on my radar as a place I’d love to work. I consider myself lucky to have had a rewarding career as a VN, but had long been thinking that I’d like to help people with their animals from a different angle (and to not spend another day in theatre if I could help it!) so I am extremely pleased to join the lovely team.

Dianne Rowe – Major Donor Manager

I am delighted to have joined the lovely team at Our Special Friends. I have worked in the charity sector for over 20 years, mostly at director level, and really enjoy building relationships with supporters. To have the opportunity of being Our Special Friends’s first Major Donor Manager, and work with fellow animal lovers, is something I’m very much looking forward to.

I am in awe of the work which Our Special Friends does for vulnerable people of all ages in our society and I want to tell people about it! The help that they give, the joy and reassurance that they bring – especially through looking after people’s pets in times of need – is both remarkable and invaluable. Companion animals are very often members of the family – sometimes, the only ones. Our Special Friends respects that and I am proud to belong.

Our Volunteers

At any one time we have up to 100 volunteers helping Our Special Friends with their clients and their animals over the West Suffolk area. Some provide regular weekly support and other help as an when they can on an ad hoc basis.

Our Animal Helpers

We currently have around 37 volunteers with their friendly dogs visiting people in our community.

Our dog walking volunteers are walking approximately 35 of our clients dogs. We have teams of volunteers looking after some pets so that their walking needs can be met.

These figures are changing all the time as our requirement change pretty much on a daily basis.

(Date: 11th May 2022).

Honorary Patron

Trustees