Who's Who in Voscur
The Board of Directors and Staff
Chair - Ian Steele
Ian is Chief Executive of the Southmead Development Trust where he is responsible for the management of the community based social enterprise charity across is four business divisions (Community Development, Small Managed Workspace, Training and Leisure).
Ian is also currently the Voscur representative to the Bristol Partnership
Regeneration Group (previously called Regeneration Delivery Group), a role that he has fulfilled since 2005.
Vice Chair - Tara Mistry
Tara is currently Vice Chair of Bristol Primary Care Trust. Since 2002, she has led the Bristol Race Equality Health Partnership (BREHP) involving the NHS partners, Race Equality organisations, Bristol City Council and other community and voluntary groups and bodies representing the minority ethnic population of Bristol. Tara has played a strategic role at board level and as a trustee of the National Cancer Alliance. She is also one of the founder members of the ‘User Involvement Group’ on the Avon, Somerset and Wiltshire Cancer Services, as well as serving at community level as a committee member of the Brislington Neighbourhood Centre and School Governor at the local Primary Schools.
Vice Chair - Paul Hazelden
Paul manages Crisis Centre Ministries, an inner city resource providing support for people with life controlling problems. Paul is also the Voscur Rep on the Housing Delivery Group (part of the Bristol Partnership).
Treasurer - Fran Harrison
Fran manages Fairbridge West, part of a national charity that supports inner city youth with a long term personal development programme. She also represents Fairbridge as a founding member of the Bristol Financial Inclusion Task Force, a partnership of voluntary sector agencies, public sector and banks who are working to improve access to the right products and services for disadvantaged communities. Fran has a background in local authorities and at national level working for Citizens Advice and the National Consumer Council.
Chief Executive - Wendy Stephenson
The Chief Executive is the overall manager for the paid staff team.
It is Wendy's job to manage the paid staff, represent Voscur locally, regionally and nationally, develop policy, apply for funding and so on. She works with the Board of Directors and is the Company Secretary for Voscur.
email: wendy@voscur.org
Development Manager (Equalities) - Ruth Pitter
Ruth is carrying forward Voscur's regeneration and renewal work in the inner city. She is working with equality-led and inner city groups to develop and share good practice in inclusive neighbourhood renewal.
Equalities Network Page
email: ruth@voscur.org
Development Worker (Children and Young People's Organisations) -
Cheryl Wycherley
Cheryl runs Voscur’s C&YP Network; supports Voscur’s reps to Connexions and the Children & Young Peoples Trust Executive; produces a monthly C&YP ebulletin; and offers support and information to C&YP organisations in Bristol.
Children & Young People's Organisations Network Page
email: cheryl@voscur.org
Resources Manager - Rebecca McDougall
Rebecca supports our Chief Executive to manage budgets, prepare accounts and manage spending.
email: rebecca@voscur.org
Development Manager (Participation) - Matthew Symonds
Matthew's role is to carry out work within the Single Community Programme - a government scheme concerned with the voluntary and community sector and residents, involved with Neighbourhood Renewal (NR). This work includes supporting reps from the sector to the Bristol Partnership, Regeneration Delivery Group and other NR related groups. Matthew also facilitates and supports the citywide NR Residents Forum. You can call Matthew for help with any queries you have about NR or the Bristol Partnership.
Bristol Partnership Page
email: matthew@voscur.org
Workforce Development Co-ordinator - Sophie Bayley
Sophie runs our training programmes for voluntary and community sector skills. Areas covered include: Financial Management; Legal issues; Management Committee Issues; Equal Opportunities and other issues related to Bristol City Council's Baseline Standards. Sophie will also be looking into other ways Workforce Development can support Voscur members.
Training Page
email: sophieb@voscur.org
Information Services Officer- Sophie Mellor
Sophie plays a key role in developing the information aspects of Voscur. This includes the newsletter, ebulletin, website, members’ packs and a range of other material. Sophie also publicises Voscur's activities in the local media, and maintains the library and sign-posting service that we offer.
email: sophie@voscur.org
ICT Development Worker - Sean Kenny
Sean's post is funded through the Government's ChangeUp initiative and aims to help improve the ability of Bristol's voluntary and community sector to get the most out of their IT systems, by offering advice and support through a variety of initiatives.
email: sean@voscur.org
Administrator - Polly Stewart
Polly provides administrative support to the Chief Executive, Wendy Stephenson, to the Management Team and also to the Voscur Board of Directors. She is responsible for administering recruitment and also events such as the Annual Conference, Assemblies and some Network Meetings.
email: polly@voscur.org
Administrator (Participation) - Emma Rice
Emma's role is to provide support to the Development Manager (Participation). This includes organising and servicing briefings, meetings, networks and forums of voluntary, community and social enterprise sector groups and residents. Preparing promotional feedback materials relating to the Bristol Partnership, the Community Strategy and the Local Area Agreement. Emma also provides administrative support for the Equalities Network and Children and Young People's Organisations Network.
email: emma@voscur.org
Finance & Membership Administrator - Denise Martin
Denise assists the Resources Manager and is also in charge of the Voscur membership administration.
email: denise@voscur.org
Community Learning Co-ordinator - Hannah Parker
email: hannah@voscur.org
Funding Advice Worker - Sabrina Lee
Sabrina’s role is to provide funding advice to voluntary, community & social enterprise (vcse) organisations in Bristol to help them to access sustainable funding streams. This will include conducting funding health checks with organisations, and designing and delivering training and mentoring to improve fund-raising skills and capacity within the vcse sector.
Sabrina offers Funder Finder sessions, one-to-one and group advice on making applications and developing proposals, finding and researching appropriate funders and liaising with donors.
The role also includes representing the views of the voluntary sector to financers and funders ensuring they are receptive to the sector’s needs.
email: sabrina@voscur.org
Training Support Administrator - Rebekah Hacker
Rebekah assists the Workforce Development Co-ordinator with the organisation and booking of Voscur training events.
email: rebekah@voscur.org
Administrator - Grace Deathridge
Grace provides administrative support to the Development Manager (Equalities) Ruth Pitter, to the Development Worker (Children and Young People's Organisations) Cheryl Wycherley and also provides general administrative support within Voscur.
email: grace@voscur.org
ChangeUp Administrator - Liz Gorman
Liz gives administrative support to the ChangeUp Consortium, a partnership of local voluntary and community sector infrastructure organisations, which includes Voscur, the Black Development Agency, the Care Forum and Volunteering Bristol.
email: liz@voscur.org
Board of Directors
Below is a list of the current Board of Directors:
- Clare Hall (Eco-Adventure Sports)
- Robin Corser-Langford (Global Accessible Holidays)
- Paul Hazelden (Crisis Centre Ministries)
- James Carpenter (Easton Residents Network)
- Fran Harrison (Fairbridge West)
- Ian Steele (Southmead Development Trust)
- John Drowley (Mediation at Work)
- Mobs Timi-Bui (Bristol Partnership Against Racial Harassment)
- Tara Mistry (Bristol Primary Care Trust)
- John Pendlington (Children's Scrapstore)
- Margaret Dunford (Fishponds Area Housing Committee)
Representatives
Voscur was originally set up to represent the interests of the community and voluntary sector at Bristol's Strategic Partnerships. We have proper systems of accountability and an open flow of information and dialogue between members and representatives to important strategic bodies.
Representatives are elected by the members annually. Activists who are interested in this role are nominated by a member organisation.