That’s what NFU Skelmersdale members have become accustomed to with John Graves, Hedley Roberts and David Shove. They’ve been great friends and business partners since 1994 – sadly at the end of June though Graves, Roberts and Shove was confined to history.
Hedley, Dave and John
John Graves, leader of the trio, turned 60 and decided to retire. A farmer’s son from Nottinghamshire, John has been a familiar face to NFU members in Lancashire since becoming a single agent group secretary at the Golborne office back on the first of November 1983.
A graduate of Reading University where he read agriculture, John came to the NFU from York based Rank Hovis McDougall who were agricultural merchants specialising in seed, corn and fertiliser.
Having started his NFU career at the age of 25, the partnership which was to define his career came together in 1994 when the Ormskirk Group Secretary David Malley retired. It was decided that the Golborne and Ormskirk offices should merge and become a bigger branch called Skelmersdale with three group secretaries – John being the lead one.
John recruited both Hedley and Dave and has never looked back since. The trio have grown the turnover of the business five-fold in 24 years.
John said: “For all three of us our biggest success is undoubtedly growing the business to five times the size it was when we started. We have won the NFU Mutual Challenge twice in 2009 and 2010, an event we’ve attended 14 times. Establishing our satellite office in Southport is another thing we are immensely proud of.”
For four years John also had the honour of being the General Secretary of NAGS – the National Association of Group Secretaries.
Married to wife Sue for 32 years, John is a father to a daughter and son - 27-year-old Katy and 25-year-old Tom.
John added: “The NFU membership has changed dramatically throughout my time with the organisation. If you measure the growth of the NFU Skelmersdale branch as a percentage of the farmers in the area who are in membership, then absolutely yes we have grown.
“The number of farms and farmers in membership will naturally have diminished though as farming has changed. The industry today is completely different to the one I started in back in 1983.”
Working alongside John for the majority of both their careers was the NFU’s former business development manager and county secretary Andy Williams.
Talking about John, Andy said: “I can’t ever remember John losing his cool or temper once. He has always had a wonderful rapport with his staff, partners and above all NFU members. He was canny and took full advantage of being the nearest NFU group to the regional office. With more arable, crops growing under glass and horticulture than any other group in the county, John was expert at influencing high ranking headquarters staff to attend his meetings and share their considerable knowledge with his membership.
“I think it’s fair to say John was one of the first to embrace a new way of bringing NFU members into the fold. Never a one for meetings for meetings sake he would instead address their issues and concerns on a case by case basis using the best advice available.
“Always there or there about with his recruitment and retention targets it was obvious that John’s far sighted common sense approach worked. I don’t think I’m going too far in stating John has shown the NFU and NFU Mutual what the unique group secretary role should be and that for me is his legacy.”