From volunteer to director, Julie Form reveals her passion for a job that has become a vocation to Stuart Mackintosh.

ARMED with wellies and the enthusiasm of youth, Julie Form returned to her native North-East determined to protect and enhance its natural beauty.

Twenty years on, her passion for the environment remains as strong as ever and as a newly appointed director in an emerging regional force she intends to push green issues up the agenda.

Julie’s interest in ecology began even before she took an environmental studies degree at Sheffield Polytechnic in 1988. Her father was a farmer and her formative years would frequently involve summer holidays running wild in the woods at her grandfather’s home at High Spen, near Rowlands Gill, in the Tyne Valley.

“When I left the North-East to study, I realised how much I missed the place,” she says. “There were areas of beautiful woodlands and stunning coastline. I loved the culture and the people, but this was the mid-1980s and I had a hard time convincing others that the area was anything other than grim.”

Returning to the region after her studies, she was determined to make a difference and instil in others the passion she had for protecting and enhancing the region.

Seeking summer work, she took up a volunteering post with environmental regeneration charity Groundwork, then a little-known organisation battling to get across the importance of its green message to the wider world.

And so began a 21-year career that has taken Julie from “bulb bonanzas”

in Seaham to a directorial role overseeing a £7m programme of work dedicated to revitalising communities throughout County Durham.

In that time, Groundwork has grown into an environmental giant, transforming landscapes, encouraging children to consider their impact on the planet, getting people back into work and persuading businesses to operate in a greener fashion.

For Julie, Groundwork was a match made in heaven. “I wanted to raise the profile of the North-East and highlight its many positive aspects, rather than going along with the national image of the time that it was dirty, grey and run-down,” she says.

Becoming a project officer with Groundwork gave her that opportunity and it was while she was working in Seaham that Julie’s efforts started to bear fruit. “We went publicity- crazy,” she says. “We had bulb bonanzas, we had a whole programme called global gardening, we got local schoolchildren involved – anything we could think of to raise our profile.”

The early Nineties, however, presented new challenges for Julie and for Groundwork as a whole.

“People seemed to suddenly go behind closed doors and onto their new computers,” she recalls. “There was this image of green groups as being full of people in their wellies, with their strange beards, but I still had the same passion and could see what Groundwork could offer the North- East.”

By 1995, she had become a senior project officer in Seaham and was instrumental in engaging the community in thinking harder than ever about green issues.

In one year alone, local people helped to plant some 40,000 bulbs in the town – giving them a sense of pride and ownership in seeing the area flourish.

With a management course under her belt, Julie moved away from the more hands-on activities to become project manager for the Groundwork- backed Acorn Trust in the Consett area. It was a move that would change her life, both professionally and personally.

“I met Joolz, who would eventually become my husband, after he came to us as a volunteer. He proposed to me after three weeks and we have just celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary,” says Julie.

The couple have two children – Josh, ten, and Georgia, nine – but such was her commitment to the nature of her work that Julie took just eight weeks off after each was born.

Today, after holding several senior positions within Groundwork, Julie has been given the title of Director of Durham.

It is a busy time, with the organisation having recently been restructured to form one overall North-East body, and new challenges constantly presenting themselves.

For Julie, it is the culmination of a remarkable rise through the ranks, all the while following the same guiding principles. “There are big challenges ahead,” she says. “There is a new unitary council in Durham, so a lot of effort will be made in building relationships there.

“There is a £7m programme of work to deliver – in 2002, that figure was just £2m – so it helps tremendously that we’re staffed by people who have great passion for their work. I’ve never lost the enthusiasm I had when I had first started out as a volunteer and I’m hoping that will stand me in good stead as a director.”