Chair
Jackie became a Trustee in 2017 and was appointed the Chair in 2018. Having worked as a district nurse in the Stroud locality for 26 years, Jackie then spent 6 years working in the IT department of 2gether mental health Trust before retiring in 2012. She also served as the elected nurse member of the Primary Care Trust and gained valuable experience of working at a strategic level. One of Jackie’s priorities has been to raise awareness of the charity, and it is pleasing that in recent years we have received an increasing number of referrals from across the county. GCNF is completely run by volunteers, who bring a broad spectrum of nursing, planning and financial experience to the Board so that we continue to meet the aims of the Trustees who founded the charity in 1974: to support nurses and the community nursing service, and to provide financial help to vulnerable people in need.
Vice-Chair
Neil is a former Mayor of the city of Gloucester. He is a qualified District Nurse and at present is studying for his PhD at Birmingham University, researching alternative models for the delivery of social care in the community. He was a school governor for over 20 years at four of the city’s schools. He served as Chair of Governors at two of these schools. Neil is also a trustee of several other charitable organisations and is an ambassador for Alabare (homes for veterans). Neil is also actively involved with Charlies in Gloucester supporting people and their families who have experienced serious health conditions. He brings all this experience to support the work at GCNF.
Safeguarding Lead
Maggie worked as a Community Nurse in Gloucestershire until retiring in 2021. During her nursing career, she developed and provided healthy living initiatives in an area of deprivation in Gloucester; provided clinical support for homeless people in Gloucestershire and delivered clinical education for nurses (community and student) and health care staff. Maggie is Safeguarding lead for GCNF and sits on the charity’s Governance group.
Treasurer
Not all of the trustees have a nursing background. Richard has brought us financial skills, from his career as an Actuary. He has an extensive knowledge of governance built up through his advice to a wide range of pension schemes. After retirement, Richard decided he wanted to share his knowledge by volunteering to be a trustee for several charities. One of Richard‘s first actions after he joined us in 2019 was the facilitation of a debate about GCNF’s future. The key outcome was a unanimous decision that GCNF should continue indefinitely. Richard then designed a financial policy in keeping with this objective, to control our annual expenditure on grants and administration. Richard also helped us make the transition to an ethical approach for our investments. We are now invested in an “Environmental, Social and Governance” (ESG) equity fund, which is a more appropriate strategy for a charity established by community nurses.