Meet The Team

Cairngorms Trust Manager

Rachel Dominy

Ms Dominy spent her career working in the charity sector, leading a number of arts charities in the Chief Executive or equivalent role, and most recently was Director of Operations for the Landscape Research Group. She and her husband moved to the Cairngorms two years ago. Before that they owned a small croft in Shetland, where Ms Dominy worked for Shetland Arts.

Community Grants Manager

Bridget Trussell

Bridget leads a busy team supporting the Cairngorms Trust in its management of a Scottish Government Community-Led Vision Fund.  She also manages funds across the Park Authority. Bridget lives in the National Park and has a background in community and youth development.

Community Grants Officer

Samantha Masson

I have lived and worked in the Cairngorms for the last 20 years but have been holidaying up in this beautiful place since I was born. Working in Community Led Local Development allows me to give something back to the National Park.

Board Member

Cattie Anderson

Cattie is a longstanding fan of LEADER and has served on a succession of LAGs. She is an Area Officer for Scottish Natural Heritage and works currently on the Scottish Rural Development Programme, outdoor access, health inequalities and business planning. She is also a member of the North Scotland branch of the Institute of Chartered Foresters. She has lived in Badenoch and Strathspey for almost 40 years and loves being outdoors. She is also keen on exploring how inhabitants of mountain regions throughout the world make the most of their environment.

Vice Chair & Board Member

David Cameron

David is a qualified accountant through the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) since 1992. David is also an experienced Human Resources practitioner and works in a range of other fields including Organisational Development and Corporate Governance. He is currently employed by the Cairngorms National Park Authority, a Non Departmental Government Body funded through Scottish Government. David also serves on the Board of sportscotland and is the current Chair of sportscotland Audit and Risk Committee. His other charity work includes Trustee and Chair of Addiction Counselling Service based in Inverness and Trustee of the Outdoor Access Trust for Scotland.

Board Member

Brian Wood

Retired following a 38-year career in secondary education. Brian initially taught physics at George Heriot’s School, Edinburgh and Mackie Academy, Stonehaven. He was then appointed Rector of Mearns Academy, Laurencekirk and for 16 years was Rector of Hazlehead Academy, Aberdeen. For the past 30 years, Brian has been a Justice of the Peace and honorary Sheriff for Grampian, Highland and Islands regularly presiding in the JP courts in Stonehaven and Aberdeen. He was for eight years a Ministerial Appointee to the Board of the Cairngorms National Park Authority and was latterly its Deputy Convenor. Brian is heavily involved in two major restoration projects in Braemar, namely Braemar Castle and the A listed St Margaret’s Church building.

Board Member

Eric Baird

Eric has previous experience with the LAG, both as a Board member and a recipient (at different times!). He is currently Head Ranger in Glen Tanar, on Royal Deeside, occasionally guest lectures on ‘Managing Community Projects’, and sits on the Scottish Wildlife Forum Executive Committee. As a past recipient of LEADER funding, he is familiar with the benefits of the programme, but also able to see the difficulties which groups might experience in accessing support. He has a particular role on the LAG- ‘Equalities Champion’, which, he says, is evidence of the LAG’s commitment to being socially inclusive.

Chair & Board Member

Karen Derrick

Karen has spent the last 25 years working with communities in the Cairngorms National Park and across Scotland. In March 2025, she retired as Chief Officer of Voluntary Action in Badenoch and Strathspey, which promotes volunteering and supports a wide range of enterprising third sector organisations and projects in the area.

Since then, she is continuing her work in community development which includes advising on governance, community asset transfer and funding, often around social enterprise and trading subsidiaries, strategic / business planning and project management, as well as facilitating ‘health checks’ and skills audits for community organisations. She also works with voluntary committees, third sector managers, trustees and directors to support them in fulfilling their roles and responsibilities.

She has much on the ground experience in community engagement and advises on methodology in this field and the tools that are available to enable and ensure best practice.

Karen has lived in the Cairngorms National Park since 2005 and currently resides in Grantown on Spey. She is an active volunteer director on several Community Development Companies and is also a Facilitator for Social Enterprise Academy and Just Enterprise, as well as a Director of CAB Inverness, Badenoch & Strathspey. She joined the Cairngorms Trust board as a trustee in 2019 and became Chair in November 2025.

Board Member - CNPA board representative

Eleanor Mackintosh

Eleanor Mackintosh is our CNPA Board representative who sits on the Cairngorms Trust Board.  She was born and brought up in Glenlivet and continues to live there. Eleanor and husband ran a family farm on Glenlivet Estate which has now been taken over by their son. She spent 25 years working with the Clydesdale Bank latterly as a Financial Advisor. She serves on various community groups including the Tomintoul and Glenlivet Heritage Lottery Landscape Project Board.

Board Member

Rachel Avery

Rachel has a lifelong passion for social justice, sustainability and supporting community engagement in our natural world.  She works directly with children and young people as a Founder Director of Roots and Shoots Highland, an outdoor learning and nature connection social enterprise. She also delivers training to teachers across the North of Scotland to support global citizenship education and Learning for Sustainability for the education charity Highland One World. Her voluntary commitments include practical conversation volunteering in Kingussie and chairing the community group Badenoch Climate Action.

Board Member

Scott Sangster

Scott has been involved in Youth and Community Development locally and Nationally for the past 30 years.

Working alongside Children and Young people from all walks of life, Scott; as an Artist ,and Associate Facilitator for the Social Enterprise Academy, draws quite literally at times from the environment and experiences ‘in the room’.

Connecting with individuals, organisations and communities on both a personal and professional level, Scott uses both his charisma and skills in facilitation to explore the hopes and expectations of his groups.  As an Outdoor Instructor Scott facilitates experiences on and off the water that support Green Health and Well being for all ages and abilities. Engaging and empowering individual contributions through creating safe spaces for people to learn and grow in confidence and control of their own futures.

With 10 years as  a Youth Development Officer, Scott played an integral part in ensuring that young people were recognised as a priority group at the onset of the National Park. A responsibility that the Cairngorms Youth LAG has upheld, grown and developed from strength to strength over the past few years.

Working in partnership with Young People, Community Planning, the Park Authority, and VABS on ‘Our Community A Way Forward’, local Youth Forums and the Voice of Young People has grown stronger and is continuing to be heard through structures that enable Action. Scott continues to encourage Young People to participate and highlight the changes they want to see in the world.

Scott has worked between Public, Private and Third Sector services  to reach further into the fields of support to encourage participation from those deemed ‘Harder to Reach’ and is keen to become involved in supporting the inclusion of those voices in all projects and our collective Park Communities as a whole.

Board Member

Alice Fogg

Alice joined the Cairngorms Trust in spring 2025. She is the Chief Officer of Voluntary Action in Badenoch and Strathspey (VABS). Alice is incredibly passionate about enabling our rural communities to thrive and empowering communities to shape their futures. She is passionate about the Cairngorms Trust’s work, in supporting communities to access funding that can support sustainable activity as well as transformational change for the benefit of communities in the area.

Alice studied Geography at Durham University and moved to the Cairngorms in 2021. She is part of the Cairngorms Orchestra, plays tennis and volleyball locally, volunteers in nature conservation, and enjoys hiking and wild swimming.