About Us All
Ring Managers

Steve & Sandi Ackrill
We both come from farming families, Sandi (nee Crockford) from arable/beef and Steve from dairy/arable/game rearing. We have formed our own Ltd Management Company and through this manage the Machinery Ring, ongoing amenity maintenance contracts and some farm secretarial and HR contracts (outside the Ring). We met through Berkshire Young Farmers, and have lived in the village of Great Shefford, for the past 22 years and have three children. Steve is still involved with Young Farmers, serving on the Advisory committee of our local club and also sitting on the Berkshire Executive committee. Steve is a Parish Councillor in Great Shefford and Sandi ex parish clerk of several years. Sandi’s background was initially in the hotel/hospitality/ conference/wedding sector followed by 10 years in telecommunications industry, she was working part time for the Ring for two years before becoming Manager. Steve has been working in the agricultural industry for the past 30 years and has experience in dairy, arable, game farming, amenity work and agricultural HGV low loader work and enjoys shooting and land rovers & has recently become Chairman for the Machinery Ring Association of England (MRA). Sandi is also Secretary to the Berkshire Branch of the RABI.

Camilla West – Assistant Manager
Camilla graduated from the Royal Agricultural College with a degree in Property Agency and Marketing and went straight into Estate Agency. She has worked for a few agents over the last 10 years, the latest being Humberts, which she left in 2013, to have a baby. She is married to Andrew West, who is an agricultural farm contractor and have two sons. She joined TKMR in 2015 to help with the administration on a part time basis. Outside the Ring she enjoys cookery, sport and travelling and is involved with Shefford Young Farmers sitting on the Advisory Committee & Berkshire RABI.
Ring Directors
Geoff Elliott (Chairman)
Geoff has been a Machinery Ring member for some twenty-five years & a Director since 2004. After a career change in his twenties, Geoff worked his way through tractor driving, farm & estate management & then farming in partnership, before starting his own company in 1999. For the next twenty years, he operated a contract farming business, cropping up to 4000 acres for nine landowners across North Hampshire & into Berkshire, on a mixture of Farm Business Tenancies, contract arrangements & stubble to stubble agreements. Geoff ‘retired’ in 2019, selling all his equipment. He now has a part time job ‘just’ looking after a couple of thousand acres for a non-resident landowner & mentoring a recently recruited farm manager. He was the founding Chairman & remains a Director of Hampshire Training Providers. He & Sheila have two daughters, and currently three grandchildren.
Ben Butler
Ben farms with his father at Avebury, near Marlborough on a 1000-acre mixed unit, comprising of arable & finishing 100 Aberdeen Angus and Hereford cattle and sheep. In addition, 1000 acres are contract farmed and rented under four different agreements. Before returning to the farm, Ben worked as an Agricultural Business Consultant for Savills in Salisbury.
Tom Martin
Tom joined the Board of TKMR in 1999 and became Chairman in 2005, but has decided to stand down as Chairman in 2020. Tom comes from a farming/farm management background. In the early 1990’s Tom was given the opportunity to start his own largely agricultural related services business, which over the last 20 years has diversified to cover a wide range of activities. Three years ago, Tom took the opportunity to sell part of the business & now concentrates on the vermin control & fumigation. Tom lives in Micheldever with his wife & 2 children.
Stephen Doble
Stephen is a fourth generation tenant farmer and farms 1,300 acres of rented, contracted and owned land near Henley. A beef finishing enterprise is run alongside the main arable business. Before returning home to join the family partnership in 2009, he worked as a farm manager for the Co-op Farms in Yorkshire. Stephen joined the Board of Directors in 2014, continuing a long family involvement with TKMR and he is keen to create further opportunities for our members.
Derek Cheriton
Derek comes from three generations of farmers who farmed in Fawley, Nr Henley-on-Thames for over one hundred years. On leaving school at fifteen years of age, Derek was employed by the owners of Fawley Estate as a trainee caring for a herd of pedigree Aberdeen Angus cattle. Derek soon learned that this was not the route for him & moved onto operating farm machinery. By the time he left, some twenty years later, he was farm manager. In 1995 Derek started his own business DRC Contracting & began crop spraying and spreading across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire. Derek has been a ring member for the past twenty two years.
Kevin Smith
Kevin lives in Oxfordshire with his partner Louise. He attended Berkshire College of Agriculture where he studied agriculture. Over 15 years ago Kevin established Pasture Care which he owns and manages. Pasture Care was originally established to look after the needs of the small equestrian establishment and despite expansion into other areas, this still forms a valuable part of the business. The business has progressed naturally into agriculture, which has now become the mainstay of the business. Whole farm contracting is something he is very passionate about, but he also offers general contracting services including drilling, tree shearing, hedge cutting and hay making, to make but a few. Outside work Kevin enjoys shooting.