The Soil Association's elected council appoints standards board members, with the aim of ensuring a representative spread of appropriate expertise on the board. It meets around three times per year. The standards board is responsible to the council for upholding organic principles in the Soil Association standards. It does this by overseeing their development and maintenance. It works in conjunction with the standards committees who provide the expert, technical input. The charity's standards department provides the administration and management for the process. The standards board also guides the strategic direction of the standards department and agrees the annual work programme of standards development. The meetings We like to keep our standards setting process as transparent as possible. To view the last meetings' agendas, please visit the links below. SB 26/06/07 [PDF, 17 KB] SB 25/01/07 [PDF, 24 KB] To view the last meetings minutes, please open the pdfs. Minutes 06-07/02/08 [PDF, 49 KB] Minutes 26/06/07 [PDF, 32 KB] Issues that have arisen in recent meetings: Air freight In-conversion feed Ethical trade Review of processing standards Review of wild harvesting standards Rehydration of ingredients The possibility of standards for seaweed Use of derogations and permissions Governance and accountability (see below for more information) Communications strategy and plan for standards Timetable for next year Approving standards amendments for Council Current board members and their expertise: Anna Bradley: independent chair of the standards board Jo Fairley: health products standards committee chair and freelance writer on health and beauty issues William Lana: textiles standards committee chair and licensee – textiles and retailer Jenny Usher: Soil Association council member, horticulture standards committee vice-chair and licensee – greenhouse crops, vegetables, soft and top fruit Charles Weston: producer board chair and licensee - farmer Andrew Whitley: processing standards committee chair and bakery consultant Nigel Woodhouse: aquaculture standards committee chair, Soil Association council member and licensee – trout farmer Simon Wright: ethical trade task force chair, Soil Association council member and organic food consultant John Newman: agriculture standards committee chair Jill Vaughan: horticulture standards committee chair, licensee - grower Vacant: forestry standards committee chair Lizzie Vann: Organic Trade Group representative Ian Bretman: lay member Isobel Collyer: lay member Alistair Cruickshank: lay member This page will be updated as changes to the standards board arise. The next board meeting will be held on 3rd July 2008. For more information, please contact Amanda Woodman-Hardy at awoodmanhardy@soilassociation.org. Grower representative for the Standards Board We are advertising for a grower representative to sit on the Standards Board. This post will complete the ‘new look’ Standards Board following the review of our standards setting governance which we completed last year. During the review, we identified that the organic grower community was not adequately represented on the Standards Board, in the same way that both farmers and processors, and now lay people, are. To address this, we are seeking a grower representative who: has authority within, and the confidence of, the organic grower community; can represent grower interests, but not act as a representative; has experience of working on boards/committees and working to find collective solutions; has experience of chairing meetings; can assess technical information from other disciplines; and has an interest in and sympathy with organic production and the work of the Soil Association. The role of the Standards Board is to protect and enhance the integrity of the standards. It is a non-executive body and does not need to be technical (which is the role of the standards committees). However, members do need to be sympathetic to the Soil Association’s organic vision. The Board seeks to arrive at consensus decisions and it is the responsibility of all Board members to help achieve that goal. This requires that Board members bring their expertise and knowledge to the table, but leave special pleading for any particular constituency at the door. The fact that Board members come from a range of backgrounds and bring a range of expertise should give the different stakeholder groups confidence that their particular issues will be understood by the Board. However, members do not sit on the Board as representatives of these groups of stakeholders. We give all stakeholder groups the opportunity to raise their hopes and fears for organic standards through our formal consultation processes. You will need to be able to commit some time to the post. The Standards Board meets around three times a year and we have the occasional conference call and email discussion. If you would like more information about the post, please email Amanda Woodman-Hardy at awoodmanhardy@soilassociation.org If you are interested in this opportunity to assist in our vital standards work, please send your CV including details of what you can contribute to awoodmanhardy@soilassociation.org by 11th April 2008.