TC’s trustees are elected at the General Meeting. Their role is to support and advise the Core Group of Transition Chichester and to take responsibility for the activities of the Company Limited by Guarantee.
The current trustees are:
Anna
I moved to Chichester in 2021 after living in Havant, London and Petersfield, where I was also busy with community and environmental activities. I am now a Trustee of Transition Town Chichester, where I help write funding bids, run a community café (the Earth Café) every week, volunteer at the Chichester community garden in the Bishop’s Palace garden, and get involved in many other environmental activities.
I am also on the board of Meadow Blue Community Energy http://meadowblue-energy.org where I attend Zoom meetings as a token female who asks awkward questions!
Cate
I have lived in Chichester since the 1960s. My interests since a young age have been in ecology, wildlife and the environment, then communication and education, and for the past thirty years climate change, … and now rewilding. I have been proudly involved with Extinction Rebellion locally and nationally.
I started a career in publishing and design, balancing child care with a business in graphics. I was a founder member of what became the largest home-educators’ self-help group in the south (based between Southampton and Brighton). I was involved with that for over fifteen years. Through the natural evolution of a close family life, my child caring role waned as my elder-family caring role became the greater demand. I found I had a natural affinity with this work and decided to continue in that role, beyond family, and for the next few years made unexpected and special relationships that I treasure to this day. Having now retired I volunteer a lot of my time with what I love: community and communication.
Debbie
I am a retired nurse and have lived in Chichester since 2003. I retired through ill health in 2014 when I became more involved with Transition Chichester, first working in the Community Garden and also involved in the eco-cinema and the many talks given at the Quaker Meeting House.
A couple of years ago I was elected as a Green city councillor where I am involved in many community projects. Sarah Sharp my colleague and friend and I have been trying to get Community Hub in Chichester. This is something I know that Transition Chichester is very interested in trying to achieve too. We decided it would be good to have things all under one roof. We are hiring the Newell Centre in St Pancras regularly, and we hope to make this a delightful place for a drop-in, offering all sorts of activities.
We plan to include a Swap Shop, Swap Rail, Café, Toy Swap, and many other projects and produce from the Community Garden. UK Harvest and other charities hopefully will be involved offering re skilling and food workshops. We hope to offer a space for people to reconnect and just enjoy being together in a safe environment.
Jenny
Following a career in engineering in Birmingham, I worked for national Friends of the Earth on sourcing a new database. Parallel to this, I was supporting active travel solutions. We moved to Chichester in 2010 partly to join Transition Chichester and also Chicycle. A group of us planted the Whyke Community Orchard with Transition’s support for like-minded projects. I initiated Sew Don’t Throw which led to setting up the Chichester Repair Cafe using the international template for Repair Cafes. I now fundraise for Food For Friends, a refugee cooking project to offer resources and community interaction with some of the newest incomers to our city. This appeals to my Quaker beliefs in peace and social justice. I’m also a volunteer Tree Warden and I am doing my bit for rewilding locally. I’m still cycling, and I have set up Bike Buses across town for primary school children to get to school by bike at least once a week.
Julia
I have a lifelong commitment to education, having been a teacher for 25 years and also writing educational materials for Africa, the Caribbean and Pakistan. I have a lot of experience of voluntary work through my time in The Gambia with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and also working with Gap year volunteers in Ghana.
I first got involved with ‘green’ matters in the 1970s when some friends and I formed a local branch of the Ecology Party. This has been a lasting concern for me, and my husband Jan and I have been actively involved with Transition Town Chichester from when it first started in 2008. I like getting things done and have fulfilled many roles in the organisation. I’m now involved principally with fundraising and the community gardens. I think TTC has an important part to play in raising awareness of environmental issues around the city, and in building resilient community to face the challenges ahead of us.