Anne Holst - President

Anne joined the committee of The Wooden Boat Centre in September 2021 and was elected to the role of President in June 2022.  Anne has worked on enhancing the governance of the organisation and establish a business structure that is sustainable and community focused.  Her passion is for the preservation of traditional wooden boatbuilding skills to grow the community of wooden boat builders and preserve the craft.  Her vision is of Franklin, Tasmania as the capital of Australian wooden boatbuilding.  Anne has worked in politics, natural resource management, vocational education and libraries in management, coordination, project management, teaching and facilitation roles.  She has worked extensively in Western NSW’s arid zone. She is a sheep farmer at heart and has been building up a small holding in the hills west of Franklin for the past 9 years.

Dr Sonia Shimeld – Treasurer

Sonia is an accountant (FCPA) with a PhD in governance in not-for-profits. She retired from a lifetime in academia lecturing in accounting and corporate governance. Sonia strongly values a mission to help others, over profits to improve one’s own wealth, and the sense of community that is activated through volunteering. For the past 20 years Sonia has been actively involved (as Chair or Treasurer) in a diverse range of not-for-profit boards from dancing groups, community legal centres, festival groups and the peak body for volunteering. She became Treasurer of the Wooden Boat Centre when she moved to Franklin (2014), shortly after it was purchased by the community. She returned in 2022 as Treasurer, shop, and volunteer guide after a three-year break with a strong sense of purpose in supporting the financial stability of the organisation and building the local community through sharing the passion that lies within the wooden boat culture.

Tim Blumfield - Secretary

Tim currently is a Senior Research Fellow at an Australian university, who has since 2007 led forestry-based development projects in the Solomon Islands. At other times, he volunteers two days per week at the Wooden Boat Centre to improve the technical skills of students. His background includes working for 11 years as a bench joiner, as workshop manager for a UK based charity which sends refurbished hand tools to developing countries, and five years running a skills workshop in PNG. Tim was elected as Secretary in October 2023. 

Scott-Bradley Pearce - Board Member

Scott is a highly experienced digital native with deep experience across all disciplines including, content, technology, marketing and automation, team management and talent development. Over the past twenty five plus years he has worked in and co-owned some of Australia’s leading digital agencies. And he has worked client-side for global content businesses as well as led tenders and re-platforming projects for government and commercial brands. Scott has additionally detailed, hands on, experience with start-ups and start-up validation and commercial implementation and fundraising. 

Graham Rankin - Board Member

As a child of the sixties Graham grew up helping his father "fix" things around the house and one of his best memories is of holding the dolly while his father refastened planks in a clinker dinghy he was restoring. That's where Graham’s interest in boats began, some years later he discovered the Swallows and Amazons series at his local library and was hooked on having fun on the water. He started sailing at the age of twelve, firstly in a Manly Junior, which he soon outgrew, then many years sailing and competing in Herons and NS14's. At seventeen he got the need for speed and built a fourteen foot Paper Tiger catamaran. It took him twelve months, the result was great although his High School Certificate results suffered slightly! Then came the reality of work and family and boats took a back seat for quite a few years, until 1988 when he signed on as a trainee crew aboard the First Fleet tall ship Our Svanen. A couple of weeks at sea and his passion for boats and traditional sail, in particular was re-ignited. His working life consisted of several years in banking followed by twenty years Local Government experience in Payroll Administration. In 1996 an opportunity arose and he started a Modular Storage business which he ran for fifteen years and sold prior to moving to the Huon Valley in 2011. Since retiring to Tassie Graham indulged his love of boats by becoming involved in both the Living Boat Trust and the Wooden Boat Centre, having served on both committees for a number of years. He is currently restoring a Tamar River cod boat built in 1885 as well as finishing an Ian Oughtred Wee Seal double ender. The Wooden Boat Centre is one of the gems in Tasmania's tourism crown and Graham feels privileged to be able to share its story with so many enthusiastic visitors.  Outside of the Centre, he and his son are busy developing their 28 acre small holding in Glendevie.

Neil Purdom - Board member

Neil has worked for Telstra in Adelaide, initially as an IT Business and Systems Analyst and then as Instructional Designer and Training Operations Manager.  Opportunities in mining and construction led to contract work throughout Australia designing, managing and facilitating training in areas such as Project Management and WH&S as well as continuing instructional design projects covering a wide range of topics and industries.  Neil lives in the beautiful Huon Valley restoring a circa 1885 homestead and volunteers at the Wooden Boat Centre as a tour guide and board member.