Meet the team
Gill Erskine
+ Co-founder & Director
Gill founded, scaled and sold a food production business in Thailand. Prior to that she was Managing Director of a locally grown baby food company in Sierra Leone. During her early career Gill worked in communications for environmental NGOs in Belgium and the UK.
Gill was brought up mostly outside in the east neuk of Fife and passionate about making the outdoors and movement accessible to all.
In 2023, Gill was recognised as one of the UK’s most inspirational and dynamic female entrepreneurs by the f:Entrepreneur ‘#ialso100’ campaign. Within WildStrong, Gill is your first point of contact as she helps grow the groups from the very beginning of the process.
In her own words: “I just love watching all of our members’ journeys. They start out full of doubt and are fairly convinced that they can’t do anything. Within weeks they are up at the front, helping other members and making new friends and trying to jump over a log. It makes my heart sing when I see all the support networks that are created through one group.”
Andrew Telfer MPH
+ Head Coach
Andrew is a public health professional and is passionate about health promotion and creating achievable movement for longevity. Andrew has been with us from the very early days and is the mastermind behind our Movements for Life and Peer Coaching Philosophy and is responsible for training our coaches.
Andrew holds a Master in Public Health and has over 15 year’s experience of coaching, personal training and course development. Andrew holds a lot of sports science certificates, here are some of his favourites: NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist; Crossfit Level 2; ACE Certified Personal Training qualifications; USAW Olympic Weightlifting; Columbus Weightlifting.
In his own words: “I think the fitness industry took a wrong turn when it adopted a top down model of fitness education. I also feel there is too much emphasis on working out alone and the collection of arbitrary data. WildStrong is the opportunity to embed movement in a community setting, with tangible benefits, creating a peer-lead, distributed model of health practice.”
Megan Badger
+ Co - founder
In January 2023 Megan chose to step back as Director to continue her career as a teacher.
She remains a valuable member of our WildStrong Pangbourne group.
In her own words: “For me it is all about bringing people together, having fun and getting stronger as we go! I love seeing people’s progress week on week and their confidence grow with it. The camaraderie and support during each session is what keeps us all going even on the coldest and wettest days - exercise is best done with friends after all!”
Lauren Sans
+ WildStrong Enfield
Lauren runs the Enfield pod at the gorgeous Woodcroft Wildspace!
Lauren really wanted to get fitter and stronger, spend more time outdoors and build/be part of a new community but couldn't find anything in Enfield that quite ticked all those boxes. For Lauren, To WildStrong did tick those boxes so she did what she's been doing a lot of lately and jumped right in!
*"The ethos of WildStrong is wonderful and I’m already doing things that would never have occurred to me before (16kg Kettlebell swing or tossing a caber anyone?).
I’m really blown away by the level of support I’ve received from Gill and her partners in crime, Megan and Andrew and the West Berkshire coaches, throughout this process.”*
Sarah Langridge
+ WildStrong Berkhamsted
Sarah has always enjoyed spending time outside, being active and having an adventure, although it’s only in the past few years she has realised how important this is to her.
To manage the stresses of daily life with 2 young daughters and a demanding job, as well as pressures coming from Covid, Sarah turned to regular outdoor activity again. Now looking back, she can see this has been a thread throughout her life and she gains both energy and calmness from it. So she has jumped in for an adventure to set up our Berkhamsted group!
*‘From the moment I found out about WildStrong something sparked within me. The ethos really resonates with me and I am excited to explore what this can bring to people in our area and spend more time doing what I enjoy. I’m looking forward to helping people find the space to find their inner strengths and have fun in the process.
I believe in the power of moving in nature for our whole wellbeing. I know how much benefit I get from this and the WildStrong approach works on so many levels. I love the element of ‘play’ (who doesn’t need that in our full-on adult lives?!) and how it’s balanced with exploring and learning more about how we move whilst getting stronger. I’m learning a great deal about how I move that, despite being pretty active for years, I have never fully understood, and as I get older, I suspect will become even more important!’*
Lynne Ogilvie-Niven
+ WildStrong Falkland
Lynne had an on-off relationship with activity over the years - sometimes just a bit of fun flirting, other-times diving in too quickly and not lasting the distance. Add into the mix a busy life of full-time work and 2 kids, the result is that time for friends, physical activity and getting into the great outdoors are limited.
*"Doing WildStrong lets me be outside, build relationships with people in the local community, use my background in sports development, exercise and wellness, and helps me to move well now and for life.
Like so many of the people who are new to the session, anxieties about not being fit enough to do WildStrong have niggled my head. And yes, the sessions definitely get your heart pumping; but the care and attention that goes into developing the session content, the scaling and alternative movements to accommodate for different abilities, is what has captured my heart. I am wild, I am strong; and you can be too. I look forward to WildStrong-ing with you"*
Katherine Jacques
+ Marketing advisor
Katherine worked in marketing in London for twenty years with steadily increasing levels of anxiety. She finally ripped herself from the city and moved to West Berkshire where she was one of the first friends to join Gill at MomGym (as it was once known). After her first session, throwing logs and dragging tyre on a dark, rainy January evening, she was hooked. Although most of the time, it was enough to just turn up and have some fun outdoors with likeminded people, slowly she started to push herself and has, almost accidentally, got fitter. Even better, her long term anxiety is definitely improving. While she has never been a gym goer and would avoid all things ‘sporty’, she now finds herself providing marketing advice to a burgeoning fitness community.
Sarah Strang
+ Financial advisor
Sarah has 14 years' experience in professional services, initially focussing on financial and then operational restructuring. Over the last 7 years she has specialised in finance raising for mid market PE-backed and privately owned corporates.
She started working out with the WildStrong team in the very early days, having recently moved to the area. What started out as a simple way to get out of the house and meet some new people soon became a way of life and she has not looked back since.
Mary Erskine
+ Copy editor & social media
A freelance musician, writer and teacher, Mary performs and tours as a singer-songwriter under the name Me for Queen and also writes childrens musicals with Goblin Theatre.
Mary is Gill's sister, she is the witty voice behind our social media posts and the poet behind our manifesto.
When she's not writing or playing music, she can sometimes be found practicing her chin-ups in the woods and coaching WildStrong sessions!