REAL Ltd - Social Enterprise Works

REAL Trustee Board

Cath Sisson – Senior Manager
A former Senior NHS Manager, Cath took early retirement in 2007. She has extensive experience in community involvement and patient engagement and of leading successful change processes, which deliver radical new ways of working. Cath started her career as a nurse, becoming a Ward Sister and Health Visitor. Her career has progressed into senior management roles. As Lead Manager for Patient and Public Involvement for the Burnley Pendle & Rossendale Primary Care Trust (PCT) Cath developed a PCT Patient & Public Involvement Strategy and Volunteer Strategy. Developed & managed the Burnley Pendle & Rossendale Patient Advice & Liaison Service – which is one of the few which offers one service to patients across both primary and secondary care, so providing simple and easy access for patients and the public. Founder of the North West Community Involvement Network, which aims to inspire, to share best practice, to support and to encourage innovation in the field. Developed a Public Involvement Audit Tool for Trusts in East Lancashire. Developed ‘Speakeasy’, a project to enable Older People to act as peer interviewers in order to increase confidence and to enable Health and Social Services organisations to access views and ideas of people who do not normally come forward. The project received an award for excellence from the Strategic Health Authority April 2005.

Hazel Harding – Chair
	Hazel was born and bred in Lancashire and has lived in Crawshawbooth for more than 30 years. A trained journalist, she worked on newspapers in Lancashire and Devon. She was a member of the County Council, representing Rossendale, for 24 years and served eight years on Rossendale Council. On the County Council she chaired the Council itself in 1997/8 and then went on to become Chair of the Education and Cultural Services Committee. She was elected Leader of the Council in 2001, a position she held until June 2001 From 1997 to 2001 she was a non-executive member of the Burnley Healthcare (NHS) Trust and since September last year has chaired the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust which provides acute healthcare for 500,000 people in the east of the County.
Locally, Hazel is chair of the Crawshawbooth Youth and Community Association, based at the Village Centre which she helped to campaign for more than 20 years ago. She has four daughters and three grandchildren. Hazel said: "I am delighted to become more involved with REAL because I have been privileged over the years to watch it develop into astrong social enterprise, providing valuable services to the people of Rossendale and support and help to the voluntary and community sectors in the Valley."

Dorothy Mitchell MBE
	REAL’s ex Founder chair was awarded an MBE for her community activities in setting up and developing a number of community projects. Dorothy describes herself as a professional pensioner with a low boredom threshold. A nurse by profession she diverted to business when, as provider for five children the salary was inadequate. She retired as Managing Director of E. Sunter Ltd. (Musbury Fabrics) though remaining a director, she now works full time in a voluntary capacity for her charitable interests. The founder Chairman of Rossendale Hospice, director of Haslingden Community Link and People Encouraging Enterprise in Rossendale (PEER), Vice-Chair of the Rossendale Community Network and Chair of the Community Network Health and Well-being Group, and a member of Bacup & Stacksteads Community Partnership Challenge Fund. She believes that partnership working and community enterprise is what will make Rossendale a healthier place to live and work. In Rossendale there is much to do that will only be done by an involved and active community doing what needs to be done and she believes that volunteers giving back can take us forward. She has no serious intention of ever participating in coffee mornings or retired lunches. Her hobbies are Sudoku, reading, and avoiding all activities culinary and domestic with flurries of activity in granny mode. As a workaholic she has so far worked full time voluntarily, but going forward will try to restrict her time to half a week but staff are not convinced! She will continue to represent REAL at the VCFS Consortium and East Lancashire Hub. She will run the VCFS ChangeUp social enterprise project.

Ronnie Barker
	Ronnie retired as Managing Director of a footwear manufacturer in Bacup in 2005 starting the first fifteen years of his working life in Accountancy before becoming deeply involved in the ‘Human’ aspects need to create a successful and sustainable business. Ronnie’s first full commitment to Community involvement began with his daughter’s desire to be involved in Gymnastics, which led him into a Coaching Qualification Career Path in 1978 and ended his twenty-year active participation in Amateur Football. He became Club Coach in Olympic Gymnastics soon moving on to becoming a National Coach and then running his own Club specialising in Tumbling and Sports Acrobatics producing National and International Medal Winners. This chapter in his life ended in 1998 and through his Business Expertise evolved into regeneration initiatives to help a wider section of the local community particularly in the area of his birthplace of Bacup and Stacksteads. He is Chair and a founder member of People Encouraging Enterprise in Rossendale (PEER) which started in 2003 to practice ‘Enterprise Facilitation’ throughout the Borough of Rossendale. Its aim is to help any Individuals who have dreams or aspirations of starting our Expanding Entrepreneurial Activities. It was through his involvement with PEER that he and Dorothy Mitchell realised that further help and support was needed for Community and Voluntary Groups entering into Social Enterprise activities to enable them to become sustainable.
This led to the vision and subsequent birth of REAL with the blessing of the Local Community Groups, the Two-Tier Council and the many Agencies operating in Rossendale and beyond. He is personally involved in many community initiatives Rossendale wide, representing The Rossendale Community as Vice-Chair on the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) Executive. He is also a member of the Rossendale Regeneration Group of the LSP and involved in many of its’ Working Groups. He uses whatever free time he can find to continue his community activities giving his time to act as a Trustee on other local Community Groups, indulging in ‘Hill Walking‘ with his wife Carole, pottering in his garden and spending as much time as he can with his three Grandchildren.

Michaela Francioli
	Michaela known to friends as Kaela, has been in the field of childcare for over 30yrs only having a short break for the births of her children. She started her career as a nursery nurse working in Social Services establishments for Trafford and Manchester councils. Kaela managed the family centre in Rawtenstall for 7 years before her present role managing the Sure Start programme in Bacup. She has gained experience in developing services for families with young children to improve their all round development, building partnerships with a variety of agencies, setting up social enterprises, applications for funding grants, and sharing best practice across new developments in Rossendale. Oh and also run a family kitchen business in Mytholmroyd.

Bill Greenwood
	Bill Greenwood has been married to Gwen for 46 years; they have two daughters and three grandchildren. He has lived and worked across Rossendale and East Lancashire all his life, 22 years in engineering and latterly for the past within various social enterprise initiatives for many years. Bill’s religious affiliation is with the Methodist Church in which he has held office at local, district and national level in areas of particular concern with issues of social responsibility. He was also Chair of governors at Haslingden Primary School for 22 years and a governor and subsequently Chair of governors of Accrington & Rossendale College from 1980 – 1992. An active trade unionist he helped establish and run a centre for the unemployed in Burnley during the 1980’s, out of which came New Era Enterprises Ltd, a social enterprise working with local people across Burnley, Bill is still the Chair of the cooperative. Bill is also a founder member and secretary of HHH Credit Union which was established in 1993 and now covers the old borough of Haslingden and the Borough of Hyndburn. He is Chair of UKCreditUnions Ltd, a national trade association for credit unions and trustee and chair of UKCU Death Benefit Trust.

David Hampson
	David is the Executive Head teacher at Alder Grange Community & Technology School in Rawtenstall, with responsibility for the curriculum, and the quality of teaching & learning. During this time, the school has achieved a number of awards for the quality of its work, and was recently named on HMCI’s “Outstanding Schools” list. He had responsibility for coordinating and writing the school’s Technology College bid which gave specialist school status at the first attempt, and is also responsible for the school’s successful designation as a ‘Leading Edge’ school following approval of a bid and action plan. He lives in Weir (though originally was brought up in Oldham), and has worked in Rossendale for the last 9 years. David’s personal statement to become a director of REAL reads – ‘ I feel that there are a number of local social enterprise groups who could achieve a great deal for the valley. Often, these groups have a desire to improve their area, or help improve life for local people, and know what they want to do but not how they can achieve their goal. Specialist help and advice in these circumstances is invaluable, and essential to the success of many of these projects. Having seen first-hand the positive effects of this support, I am fully behind developing it further.

Amanda Robertson
	Amanda was born in Burnley and came to live in Rossendale in 1973; her 3 children were raised in Water, where she still lives. A church member of St Anne’s, Edgeside and founder member of Mid Rossendale Credit Union and a member of the Labour Party and the Cooperative Party: she was elected councillor for Whitewell ward in 2003, (having been running the Post Office in Lumb for 6 years) and re-elected in 2007. She served on various outside bodies, including Citizens Advice Bureau and East Lancs Into Employment and also Bacup SRB board where she came into contact with other members who wanted to help people live better lives, to do more cooperatively and to improve the management of their finances.

David Taylor
	David is a self-employed kitchen fitter / builder, working within the Rossendale Valley. As a father of 2 the need for a better place to live and work has always been a top priority for him in providing for his children. He took a volunteer course in Youth Work to help build on the excellent relationship he had with his children who were teenagers at that time. He could see that there was very little for the youth to do in the area, unlike when he was growing up in the area. To be able to do more he decided to get involved with the community group, Bacup Consortium and the Community Representative on the newly formed SRB (Single Regeneration Budget) Board. Through his involvement with Bacup Consortium David used his skills in the building trade to identify and make-over old disused shop fronts in Bacup. This was done voluntarily to improve the image of the town for visitors and locals. David was a founder member of the original tourism group which is now part of the larger Culture Theme Group of the LSP to which he attends the Tourism Working Group as a future investor in what he hopes will be the renaissance for the whole of Rossendale. Through his membership of the Rossendale Drug and Alcohol Advisory Group he has begun to identify ways of bringing back members of society who are shunned by society. One person David has supported has now changed his life and is earning £18,500 a year and is well on the way to being a role model to other offenders he met in prison over the years, meeting them again this time as a “Prison In-Reach Worker”.

Barry Payton
	Barry has been a Rossendale resident all his life. Childhood and teenage years were spent in Waterfoot but when he married his wife Kath in his early twenties they moved to Rawtenstall. Since the mid seventies they have lived in Haslingden where he has played an active part in the local community. He considers Rossendale a good place to live and thinks it is going to get better with all the exciting initiatives and plans for improvements in sport and leisure facilities in all parts of the valley. The main part of Barry's working life has been spent with BT where he worked for 30 years until 1995. He then started looking around for a challenge where he could make use of all the skills and knowledge learned whilst working for BT. In 1997 the challenge was identified and he began working with Dorothy Mitchell and others, on the development of Haslingden Community Link. The official project launch was in June 1998 and 10 years on it is still growing and developing as a local Social Enterprise now as Haslingden Community Link and Children's Centre. Barry is keen to see further development of the Social Enterprise Sector in Rossendale.

Martin Kirk
	Martin started working in the NHS in 1973 as a nurse in the field of learning disability services. Involved in the first developments of community based services, he spent several years working at regional level facilitating and championing values based community services across all sectors. At a national level, he was active in the development of the community nursing profession. He served on national nursing advisory bodies and advised Government on community learning disability services. He became the project director for the reprovision of services from a large rural psychiatric hospital and then business development and information director for a community and mental health NHS trust. A career change in 1996 saw Martin leave the NHS and move to a local IT firm P&P (subsequently GE Capital IT Solutions) in Haslingden. During 4 years there his role as a senior services manager involved work with several blue chip companies and an 18 month role as a European project manager. Following the company’s closure of its northern base, Martin left the company, becoming self employed in 2000. Since then, Martin has delivered an eclectic mix of IT, business and consultancy services to small businesses, schools, the NHS, third sector organisations and the business support sector. He developed and led a £1.5m ERDF broadband project and led a successful development bid for a £4m NWDA funded broadband project for Lancashire Digital Development Agency.
A valley resident since 1986, Martin is married with 2 children and 2 grandchildren. He has been a governor at Alder Grange school for many years, currently holding the posts of vice-chair of governors and chair of finance.

Margot Clarke – Professional Associate
	Margot has spent a lifetime in education! She has taught all abilities and all levels, up to and including, postgraduate but teaching 6 year olds for 6 months was by far the hardest work she has ever done! She has been fortunate to be able to do lots of different things in education when it was possible to give up your job one day …. because you fancied doing something different…. and be offered another the next. What a privilege. Margot taught in Ireland and Germany returning to England to Accrington and Rossendale College where she became Director of Curriculum, with an overview of all departments in the college and special responsibility for 14-19 year olds and Higher Education. She is totally committed to education for the disadvantaged and her particular personal achievements include the development of a successful access programme, validated by the University of Lancaster , for adults who had missed out on education and who, for domestic and financial reasons, could not travel out of area; and for similar reasons, a Higher Education offer of 6 Honours Degree programmes, validated by the University of Sheffield, all delivered locally at the college.

Diane van Ruitenbeek – Professional Associate
	Diane is a highly qualified and experienced organisational psychologist, coach and OD consultant. She works with public and voluntary sector organisations to help them to identify ways to improve the quality, impact and cost-effectiveness of public services and local regeneration initiatives; through creative thinking, strategic business planning, staff and community involvement and multi-agency/partnership working. She specialises in strategic business planning, service improvement and efficiency; transformational change and team and executive coaching. Diane also works as visiting lecturer at Manchester Business School and she is a Director and Trustee of the Bacup Consortium, a local Development Trust in Rossendale, East Lancashire, where she lives.

Barbara Ashworth – Professional Associate
	Married for 29 years to John who was born and bred in Bacup and whom I met whilst we were both studying at Liverpool University. I moved to Bacup from Formby in 1977 and have been involved/worked in various local agencies since then. I was a volunteer at the CAB on Bacup for many years and was involved in fundraising for the NSPCC. I was also Chair of St Joseph’s Stacksteads PTA for 3 years. I was the first Development Officer for Age Concern in Rossendale. Recently I have been a founder member of the Bacup Consortium, where I have been Vice-Chair and represented the Consortium on the SRB Board. My husband was made redundant in 1981 and vowed never to work for anyone else ever again – he set up his own business and is still going strong, having now got 2 companies employing 10 people. It isn’t easy at the start and there was no one to support him but with the Sirolli approach, this will be different. There have been too many quick fix schemes in the past. What we want is sustainable businesses both for the benefit of the people concerned and for the prosperity of the Valley. Through my work with CAB I see many frustrated people who desperately want to get off benefits but find themselves trapped and who eventually lose their confidence to try and venture in the field of self-employment. Unfortunately, I also see many people who are suffering as a result of failed businesses.
I strongly believe that if they had only received enough information about their responsibilities in running a business, (e.g. with regard to taking on leases, paying business rates, tax, VAT etc.) as well as help and support at the outset, then they could have avoided substantial debts and misery.

Jerry Smith – Professional Associate
	Jerry works for Lancashire County Council as the District Partnership Officer (DPO) in Rossendale, one of the twelve Lancashire districts. The job of the DPO is, essentially, to ensure that the county council is fully engaged at the district level, especially with the district council and the LSP, and to support county councillors as local representatives and leaders. He has also recently worked temporarily as Programme Director for Team Lancashire, the sub-regional improvement and efficiency partnership for local government. Jerry’s early background was in neighbourhood community development, first as a fieldworker and later as a regional manager for two national voluntary organisations, during which time he was also engaged in consultancy and training work with local authorities and other public bodies. He joined local government relatively late in his career, working as Principal Policy Officer with Burnley Borough Council before taking up his present post in 2002.

Mike Riley – Professional Associate
	Having previously worked for both Blackburn with Darwen and Bury Council Mike joined Rossendale Borough Council as the Communities Manager in January 2008. Mike manages a Communities Team that has extensive, wide and varied experience in areas as diverse as Neighbourhood Working, Enforcement, Market Management, Culture, Pest Control, Emergency Planning, Community Engagement, Research and Consultation, Dog Wardens, Community Safety and strategic support to the Local Strategic Partnership. The Team act as the interface between elected members, the public, community groups, and partners across the public, private and voluntary sector to help shape, support and deliver the priorities identified by local people. A key focus for the team is to support the Borough’s four Neighbourhood Forums by working in collaboration with Councillors, public and private sector organisations like the Police, Health Sector, Fire & Rescue Service, Greenvale Homes, Schools, Business, and the many and varied voluntary sector organisations and groups in the valley.

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