Lords was rejected by the Commons. Career after politics Immediately after he ceased be a minister in 1979, Melchett was appointed part-time Chairman of Community Industry, a government funded scheme run by the National Association of Youth Clubs, which employed 8,000 young people in particularly deprived areas in England, Scotland and Wales. Community Industry aimed to give the experience of working in a real job, with a wage, to young people who were unable to get a job because of severe disadvantage. People were employed in groups of around 10, under the supervision of an experienced craftsperson, to learn basic skills and to get used to the routine of regular work. Melchett left Community Industry in 1986. From 1979 to 1985, Melchett worked in a voluntary capacity for a number of wildlife groups and for the Ramblers' Association as President from 1981 to 1984 and Vice President from 1984. He also served for a spell on the Ramblers’ Council, which he claimed was his only elected office. In that period, he was also a Council member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and help found and chaired (1980–1987) the national liaison body for wildlife and environment groups, Wildlife Link (now Wildlife and Countryside Link), which brought together around 30 NGOs, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, which had been excluded from previous liaison arrangements. He was a Trustee of WWF UK from 1977 to 1984 and an advisor to Friends of the Earth and the RSPCA. In 1985, he took part in peaceful protest organised by the Snowball movement, at the Sculthorpe US nuclear air force base close to the farm in Norfolk. Along with many other protesters, he and his partner, Cassandra Wedd, made a symbolic cut to the fence around the air base, and they were arrested and convicted of attempted criminal damage. Having announced himself sick of the 'lying game' of Westminster politics, and partly on the strength of his antinuclear campaigning and direct action, Lord Melchett was appointed to the Board of Greenpeace UK in 1985, and then took up position of Executive Director of Greenpeace UK in 1989.[4] Greenpeace UK grew from an organisation with a turnover of £1.4m, 12 staff and 25,000 supporters in 1985, to a turnover of £7.5m, 80 staff and over 200,000 supporters in 2001. Greenpeace UK's financial contribution to Greenpeace International increased from £166,000 to £2m,