Staff changes and SOPA welcomes new chair

SOPA chair: Back in the autumn the SOPA board elected a new chair Jean Mclean replacing Roger Baird who was the chair of our board for 3 years. Jean is a dairy farmer in New Deer, Aberdeenshire in partnership with her son John.  They farm 280 acres and have a herd of 200 Holstein Friesian cows. Dairy heifers are reared at home and all beef calves are sold after weaning to Jean's husband Robert and his brother Michael to be finished on their 400 acre farm at Turriff.  Both farms became organic in May 2020. Jean also has 30 Beltex ewes and sells breeding stock.  Store lambs are purchased in the autumn and sold as prime lambs.

Jean has been a member of the local Holstein Club, NFU Milk Committee, Red Tractor Dairy Board, NE Milk Producers Association and became a director of SOPA in October 2020.

Roger continues to be a valued member of our board, leading projects in legume dehulling and grain separation.

‍

Becky: After 3 years with SOPA we are sad to inform our members that our comms lead Becky McAngus has left our team at SOPA to continue her path at Norvite Animal Health as Marketing Manager. Becky has been a joyful, keen member of staff, always willing to help and has provided SOPA with many valuable skills, organised many events for us and provided input and structure into our world of communications. We wish Becky all the best in her promotion at Norvite and hope to continue to see her at events including the Royal Highland Show.

‍

Jo B: Jo Barron will carry on her role as Policy Lead and Company Secretary, and is taking responsibility for co-ordinating the communications - emails, newsletters and PR - that we include in the SOPA Member Services package.

‍

SOPA Mentors: Many of you will have had contact with a SOPA Mentor this year. Mentoring support is a new programme we initiated in 2025 to provide targeted support on a one to one basis. We have had excellent feedback about the SOPA Mentoring programme and it will continue in 2026.