Army veteran and ex business owner now leads disaster response charity in the North

REACT Disaster Response, a UK national charity dedicated to providing aid in times of crisis, has appointed Tim Brear, a former Army veteran and Yorkshire business owner, as its new leader for the northern region. 

After serving in what is now the Royal Yorkshire Regiment, Tim embarked on a career in financial services, setting up and running two joint ventures with regional Yorkshire accountancy practices. He then co-founded a lifestyle financial planning firm in Harrogate, catering for the complex planning needs of CFOs and CEOs of businesses such as Asda, ASOS, Sainsburys, Yorkshire Building Society, Matalan, Iceland, Doc Martins, Levi Strauss and owner-managers of regional SMEs and their families.

Leaving the profession in 2017, Tim embarked on a life of volunteering, fitted round a role of  Chief of Staff for a London based intelligence agency, Othrys. Initially the volunteering involved using rugby as a means to inspire kids in Africa with Bhubesi Pride Foundation and then with what was the UK arm of a US veterans charity, Team Rubicon, but is now a fully-fledged UK national charity in its own right, REACT Disaster Response.

After volunteering for six years, Tim is now employed to grow the presence of the charity in Yorkshire and the North. As a volunteer Tim deployed to the aftermath of tropical cyclone Idai in Mozambique in 2019, followed by hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, to Sierra Leone in a resilience development project, to the Ukraine/Poland border at the start of the Russian invasion and also to some floods at home, notably the 2019 floods in Fishlake and the response and recovery of a violent flash flood in Arkengarthdale, Reeth and surrounding areas.

Initially formed with military veterans as volunteers, the charity’s volunteer base has diversified and grown to include women and men from a range of ages and backgrounds, all sharing the humanitarian drive to help others in their time of real need. REACT is becoming “known, trusted and used” by the “blue lights” and Local Resilience Forums (LRF) around the country, alongside voluntary sector organisations such as British Red Cross (BRC) Mountain Rescue and others.

Tim is tasked with growing volunteer numbers in the region and would love to hear from anyone who might have an interest in giving back some time, either in our own home region, or further afield – especially as hurricane season is being turbo-charged globally by our warming planet. No volunteer is deployed without successfully completing training courses and deployments are funded by donations so volunteers are not out of pocket.

REACT receives no Government (or central) funding. All funding is from personal or corporate donations, from people wanting to help make a difference to the lives of the hardest to reach in their real moments of need.

In retirement this has become a real passion and a purpose for Tim. He says that he gets so much from his involvement. Get involved by e-mailing Tim.brear@re-act.org.uk