Meet the Team

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Libby Henson

Libby is co-director and co-founder of Grassroots Systems Ltd.  She has been involved in pedigree livestock breeding and the conservation of rare breeds of farm livestock all her life. Her dad was the founder chairman of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust in the UK and her family are well known and well respected in the livestock world. She set up and ran an equivalent to the RBST in the USA, worked for the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, ran a number of pedigree breed societies and was a member of the UK and Devolved Governments committee on Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR).

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Margaret Hargreaves

Margaret is co-director and co-founder of Grassroots Systems Ltd. She has been a software developer all her working life, specialising mainly in ‘Vertical Market’ software where many customers with slightly different requirements use the same system.  Having worked in the electricity and then insurance industries she has revolutionised the way breed societies manage and interact with their data through Grassroots.

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Terry Hulme

Terry joined the IT team in 2020,  working closely with Margaret on the major re-write of our legacy software, and the planning and development of our new software tools.  An experienced software developer, Terry has worked previously in IT development for the dairy industry.

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Saffron Murphy

Saffron is a professional software programmer who joined the Grassroots IT team in 2021, working with Margaret and Terry on the exciting new software developments. 

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Helen Brooks

Helen came from an Accounts / Finance background, joined Grassroots in 2020 and heads up the agency team.  She takes primary responsibility for the Blue Texel Sheep Society, the Jacob Sheep Society and the Charmoise Sheep registries and assists in financial processing and project work.

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Carolyn Day

Carolyn came to Grassroots after working for the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) for a number of years and is especially familiar with our work with rare breed conservation.  She is primarily responsible for managing the registries for the eight Combined Flock Book breeds for the RBST.

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Sally Cooke

Sally joined Grassroots in Spring 2022.  She has  farming background and worked previously in the livestock office at the Devon Country show, and has taken on primary responsibility for the Valais Blacknose sheep registry.  

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Christine Broom

Christine joined Grassroots in April 2023.  She has taken primary responsibility for the Alpaca Registry.

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Freya Archard

Freya originally worked for Grassroots as a graduate trainee in 2020, and has rejoined Grassroots in August 2023 to work on communications and software support.