Herald - Issue 415

Page 56 • The HERALD • 18th November 2021 v THE HERALD - Proud to be part of your community v Building Plans & Estimating Building Plans for Planning & Building Regulation approval Builders Estimating Service Free initial meeting and estimate CAD drawings produced on latest software Please call Bob on 07795 692060 Email abbott.bob@sky.com ASK A PROFESSIONAL Looking for a first aid course? Link Medical Services provide accredited rst aid training delivered by registered Paramedics! For more information contact us via our website: www.linkmedicalservices.co.uk Losing the ability to make decisions is the stu of nightmares. But it happens to many of us. And quite o en without warning. It may be caused by a serious car crash or a stroke or a whole ra of other nasty things that life throws at us. If you do lose mental capacity, who would you prefer to make decisions on your behalf? Your spouse? Your son or daughter? Or someone from social services? You can choose now by lling in a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), a legal document that appoints one or more people you trust to act on your behalf. It’s useful to note here that attorneys have a legal responsibility to act in your best interests. Without an LPA in place, the Court of Protection will appoint a deputy to handle your nancial a airs and make decisions about your health and care. e deputy made indeed be a family member. Or it may not. e court will decide whatever it believes is in your best interests. Make life easier for your loved ones by appointing someone to manage your a airs if you lose mental capacity. Contact Heritage Will Writing on: 023 8087 9243 or email: info@ heritagewillwriting.co.uk What is a Lasting Power of Attorney? by Heritage Will Writing Totton Scientist Awarded Fellowship of the Royal Agricultural Society In October, Hampshire- based Professor Nick Sotherton was granted one of farming’s highest honours at an awards ceremony in the House of Lords, hosted by Lord Taylor of Holbeach FRAgS in the presence of HRH e Princess Royal. Professor Sotherton led the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s (GWCT) research for 22 years until his retirement last year and the fellowship from the English Panel of the Council for Awards of the Royal Agricultural Societies (CARAS) recognises his lifelong achievement in the farming sector. A Fellowship is a recognition of outstanding contribution by an individual to the understanding, efficiency and well-being of agriculture. Nick spent 44 years with the Fordingbridge-based research charity, ever since undertaking his PhD in 1976. His research includes the highly influential Cereals and Gamebirds Project, a national scheme that provided farmers with practical management plans for conserving gamebirds and other wildlife on arable farms. rough the project, he invented both beetle banks (raised strips of perennial grasses, situated strategically across arable fields, where predatory insects and spiders can overwinter before helping to control crop pests in spring) and conservation headlands (the selective spraying of cereal crop edges) and is widely acknowledged to have transformed cereal production and wildlife conservation. On receiving the award Nick said: “It is a great honour to be nominated for an RASE Fellowship both personally and for the GWCT where all the farmland wildlife-friendly research originated and where the research was funded primarily by the farming community.” Nick Green FRAgS, Chairman to the English Panel said: “We are delighted to be able to organise such a fitting ceremony to highlight individual personal achievement in such a historical and grand setting’. ‘To have the event in the presence of HRH The Princess Royal is the icing on the cake, and as an apolitical organisation, we feel that our membership can really lead the industry to step even further forward”. Also awarded a fellowship was GWCT Ex-o cio Trustee Jeremy Finnis, who chairs the GWCT’s Allerton Project demonstration farm. In a distinguished career starting at the Ministry of Agriculture, Jeremy worked directly with Ministers during the UK Presidency of the EU in 1992 and on a further secondment to the President of the NFU on food marketing policy. He has served as Chairman of the NFU Mutual Advisory Board for the East of England and farms in partnership with his wife and family in South Essex. (left to right) Nick Finnis and Nick Sotherton were awarded their Fellowships at the House of Lords.