Adrian Ashton

We asked Adrian to design and facilitate our Board away day on understanding Director roles, governance, and how Board can realign to best support achievement of strategic plan. Our Board have a variety of different backgrounds, neurodiversity, lived experience, and length of time with the organisation. The session he led was clear, engaging, and considerate regarding issues we shared in advance of it. We loved the extras he brought into the room, and the way he facilitated the different activities and ensured everyone had a voice. The notes he transcribed from the session were highly detailed and beautifully presented in reflecting the comments and activities as facilitated. The way that the issues and suggestions offered for improvement were expressed was also very helpful in being able to immediately act on them.

We have booked Adrian to deliver multiple training sessions this year, including Social Impact Reporting, Cashflow Forecasts & Budgets and Business Planning. These have been a mix of shorter 'bitesize' online and longer in-person sessions, and we have had consistently excellent feedback for all. Adrian draws from a wealth of knowledge and experience from supporting a diverse range of Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise sector organisations for several decades. Aside from his encyclopedic knowledge, he brings a welcome sense of fun and is extremely engaging as a trainer - getting everyone actively involved, asking questions and keeping sessions interactive, practical and energised. All of our session participants have left enthused by the subject, keen to further develop their knowledge and skills. Adrian has been very flexible and easy to work with - sensitive to the original brief but also willing to make helpful suggestions for possible tweaks and changes to enable a training session to better meet its aims. Highly recommended!

Adrian delivered a brilliant, fun and prop-filled session about imposter syndrome to an online gathering of the member of the CIEP (Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading) Berkshire group in 2024. He was the first person to lead a session with the group and his straightforward, friendly and slightly quirky approach inspired us all and helped us see that imposter syndrome isn't something to be feared – quite the opposite, in fact. His book, Loving your doubt, is well worth a read. Thanks so much, Adrian!

I repeatedly use Adrian as a trainer on our development programme because he is able to translate his huge amount of knowledge (and it is huge) into real world, accessible and entertaining workshops. His ability to share and exchange knowledge is fantastic and he can make the most dense of subject matter feel surmountable, and even fun. He is warm and accommodating with learners and has the most up-to-date knowledge of anyone I’ve met in the field.

Feedback from participants to this course tell the story of how the learners experienced it! “Adrian’s workshop on bookkeeping was like a pea salad – healthy, edifying, and bite sized” “I never thought I’d be able to understand a balance sheet, but now I can – Adrian’s helped take away my fear of accounts!” “Adrian’s session on financial management was like putting on a gym outfit – it’s gotten me active, worked up, and raring to go”