Board of Directors
NFTC is led by a group of dedicated volunteers.
Meet the members of the board of directors below.
Scott Berry
Treasurer
The Treasurer provides oversight of the organization’s legal and financial dealings, working directly with the Chair and the Secretary.Scott is a full-time wilderness guide for the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel and the founder and owner of Original Path Coaching and Guiding. He brings over 25 years of coaching/counseling, leadership, and guiding experience to the table. He is a certified Coach (CC), Nature and Forest Therapy Guide (ANFT), Professional Interpretive Guide (IGA), and certified in Advanced Wilderness First Aid. He co-founded one of the early heli-hiking businesses in Canada (Alberta Alpine Adventures). He’s honored and fortunate to have had the opportunity to guide several hundred people on various adventures in locations all over Canada. Over 25 years, he has built and led several private-sector organizations (up to $2M budgets and over a hundred employees) and held several governance roles of public and private organizations. Scott offers the NFTC/SINC board his combination of broad experience in leadership, coaching, and guiding along with dozens of years of hands-on experience as an entrepreneur and business executive.
Beth Foster
Member
At large Board Members contribute ideas and energy to Board activities and policy development and help build the Guide community through holding space or facilitating community calls and webinars.Having wandered in the woods, waterways and tundra all her life, Beth has learned that, sometimes, you can go further by being quietly in one place and listening, smelling, touching, tasting and watching the wonder unfold. Beth believes that, in order to restore balance to our planetary and emotional health, we must reignite a deeper and sustainable connection between humans and the earth. As an ANFT Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and Trail Certification Consultant trained in 2018, she delights in guiding others to an awareness, understanding and deeper appreciation of the healing power of nature as a tool for peace and prosperity. Though Beth loves to guide in all seasons in the woods near her home in Barrie Ontario Canada, she especially embraces winter. As a Trail Consultant, she has designed self-guided trails at Scandinave Spa, Blue Mountains, and YMCA Geneva Park Conference Centre, Orillia. Pivoting to remote guiding, Beth meets with clients from all around the world, including students of Nature, Place and Restoration in the Recreation and Leisure Studies Department at Brock University, staff and volunteers at Simcoe Muskoka Palliative Health Network, students and staff at the Simcoe County Board of Education, and stakeholders at the Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust. Most recently Beth has become very involved in protecting the Catchacoma Old Growth forest, north of Peterborough, Ontario, and in delivering Forest Bathing staff retreats to various Mental Health and Wellness organizations.
Beth loves time on the water as much as time near it. Her favourite place to paddle locally is the Minesing wetlands, though her chapter in Paddling Pathways: Reflections from a Changing Landscape, tells the tale of a surprising paddling adventure on Hudson Bay.
Beth holds a Master of Education and is a member of the Ontario College of Teachers.
Monique Giroux
Member
At large Board Members contribute ideas and energy to Board activities and policy development and help build the Guide community through holding space or facilitating community calls and webinars.After a 30-year corporate career in financial services, Monique took an early retirement, traded in her business suits for hiking boots, sold her possessions to pursue a slower-paced, minimalist, nomadic life. In 2019, she made a commitment to herself to live an anxiety-free life by finding calm and peace of mind after an enlightening experience in Bali. Immersing herself in study and becoming a certified Forest Therapy Guide with the Global Institute of Forest Therapy, Reiki Master, meditation and yoga teacher, she is now breathing deeply. Today, she works with clients to help them slow down and reconnect with their inner voice and intuition through nature connection, coaching and energy healing. Founder of Flourish with Monique, The Forest Guide Circle (a free global community of Forest Therapy Guides), Flourishment Collective, and climate change start up, Homes to Zero, Monique travels the world sharing stories along the way and published her bestselling in 2024, Lost Intentionally: The Inner and Outer Journey of a Spiritual Nomad.
Kelly Hutchison
British Columbia Guides Representative
Regional guide representatives facilitate community in their region through calls, gatherings and communications activities and act as a voice of their region in Board discussions.For as long as Kelly can remember she has had a deep connection to trees. In the summer of 2018, she travelled to California to pursue her forest therapy certification through the ANFT. Since then, she has had an active guiding practice through her business Salish Sea Nature Connections. Based on Salt Spring Island, Kelly offers guided walks there as well as Vancouver Island. This summer she is looking forward to relocating to the Greater Victoria area to further expand her forest therapy practice and pursue creative outlets.
Kelly’s practice (both for self and others) has brought deep personal healing and for this reason she is passionate about sharing it with others. She is excited about being a part of NFTC and connecting with fellow nature lovers. With a background in nutrition as a Registered Holistic Nutritionist (RHN), Kelly had a wellness practice in Burnaby before moving to Salt Spring Island in 2015. She is grateful to forest therapy for reigniting her creativity and is now a re-emerging visual artist and writer. Her first book (co-authored with her husband Dave Hutchison) will be published fall 2024.
Chris Jenik
Prairies Guides Representative
Regional guide representatives facilitate community in their region through calls, gatherings and communications activities and act as a voice of their region in Board discussions.Chris retired 2 years ago from the Calgary Public Board of Education, where she enjoyed working as a teacher and school administrator for over 34 years. Prior to working full-time in schools, Chris worked at an Outdoor School where she piloted and facilitated outdoor environmental programs for schools in Canada and the United States. She has been involved with developing curriculum and facilitating professional development opportunities for teachers and schools. Chris believes that nature continuously provides lessons, inspiration and support, which she has witnessed first hand through her work on the Crisis Team supporting families and students in trauma.
After retiring she did the training with ANFT to become a certified Forest Therapy Guide. She has been bringing Forest Therapy walks into schools for staff and students and has created partnerships with regional consortiums and a local Conservation Centre. Facilitating experiences that foster deeper connections with nature and enrich the well-being of others continues to be a privilege and passion for Chris. She looks forward to supporting and learning with other guides as the Prairie Rep.
Stana Luxford Oddie
Board Member at Large
At large Board Members contribute ideas and energy to Board activities and policy development and help build the Guide community through holding space or facilitating community calls and webinars.Stana Luxford Oddie (she/her) trained with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs (ANFT) and became a certified Forest Therapy Guide in 2016. Stana has been training and mentoring guides around the world since 2018. Stana is a certified teacher (OCT) and Queen’s University Outdoor and Experiential Education (OEE) grad from 1999. Since 1999, she has been in her “dream job” as the Senior Conservation Educator with Cataraqui Conservation. Her passion is to support people to experience wellness and to build their relationship with nature with their head, heart and hands. She is grateful for her continued embodiment practices along with wild swimming and exercise, yoga and mindfulness practices. You will most likely find her running and or sitting spotting in the forest or by a lake with her adventurous Cockapoo pup, Theo or adventuring in the good company of her partner, Lachlan and their teenaged son, Asher.
Susan Reid
Secretary
The Secretary oversees the scheduling, conduct and recording of Board meetings as well as facilitating communications amongst Board members between meetings.Susan brings over 20 years experience working with not-for-profit, environmental education organizations in Ontario and is excited to grow the community of guides and offer support to forest therapy guides across Canada. As a teenager she worked as a Junior Forest Ranger, stationed outside a small northern Ontario town near Thunder Bay, working in the forest, planting trees, clearing trails in Quetico park, paddling through nature in a canoe. After studying Forestry at Lakehead University, she worked in environmental education focused on water, and then back to the forest, where she worked with a team to develop a forest festival education program for youth in southern Ontario. Sensing the call of the forest, she took the opportunity to help people take time for themselves in a positive natural environment as a Certified Forest Therapy Guide with ANFT (Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides & Trainers).
Ronna Schneberger
Chair
The Chair of the Board of Directors provides leadership to the Board, oversees our legal and organization commitments, and leads efforts in strategy, advocacy, and partnerships.Ronna been a professional guide and naturalist in Banff National Park for over 25 years. She became a forest therapy guide in 2016 and is now a Trainer with the ANFT. For the past 15 years she has been delivering leadership development programs for private groups and through the Leadership Development program at the Banff Centre. Along with colleagues she developed leadership programs using the ANFT model which is turning out to be not only restorative but very powerful for today’s exhausted leaders. Recently, she pursued a long-time goal of becoming a professional coach with CTI. Today she brings all her talents together by taking groups and individuals out into the beautiful areas of Banff to re-calibrate, recharge, and tap into the gifts they bring to the world.
Ruth Silver
Vice Chair
The Vice Chair works with the Chair to plan Board meetings and projects, helps execute the strategic plan, and chairs meetings in the Chair’s absence.Ruth has spent 20 years using design as a creative lens through which to engage in deep listening with diverse communities. In 2014 she founded Groundswell, a boutique design and strategy firm for mavericks and innovators challenging the status quo in pursuit of meaningful change. The firm works across sectors on long-term systems change projects that deconstruct structural and institutional barriers and fundamentally shift the way people believe what’s possible. She holds a BA in Fine Art & Indigenous Studies from McMaster, Master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and has held teaching positions at the Universities of Toronto and Waterloo, the Chang School, OCADU and Harvard. She has been a DiverseCity Fellow and served on the board of community organization Greenest City for 5 years. Ruth recently became a Girl Guide Volunteer, Forest Therapy Guide, Climate Reality Leader and is pleased as punch to join the NFTC/SINC board.
Sally Staples
Ontario Guides Representative
Regional guide representatives facilitate community in their region through calls, gatherings and communications activities and act as a voice of their region in Board discussions.Growing up on a remote farm in rural Ontario I came to know the healing power of nature early in life. After a long career in health and wellness, I became interested in the concept of Forest Bathing and consequently found ANFT. I did my certification with Cohort 28, and our in-person intensive in Sonoma was a game changer – I was hooked! I am very excited to be a part of this community and look forward to doing all that I can to nurture and support it.