Danny Dorling

Since 2003 Danny has been a Professor of Human Geography in the University of Sheffield. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, NZ, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, UK.

In 2003 Danny was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for outstanding scholarship and was appointed an Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, and in 2004 he was awarded an Erskine Fellowship to undertake a sabbatical at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, in spring 2005.

In 2006 he was awarded a British Academy Research Leave Fellowship, to study the transformation of social inequality in the United Kingdom: 1945-2005. Danny is a partner on the Hoodie, goodie, buddy project.

Dave is a social enterprise specialist and career social entrepreneur, spending the last 17 years within the sector. Twelve of these years were spent at Sheffield Community Enterprise Development Unit, the last five of which as Chief Executive, devising and running business support and strategic development services.

Dave Thornett

Dave is a social enterprise specialist and career social entrepreneur. He spent 12 years at Sheffield Community Enterprise Development Unit, the last five of which as Chief Executive, devising and running business support and strategic development services.

Over the years this work has brought him into contact with hundreds of different enterprises and a developed a keen understanding of their needs and potential. As a founder director and former Chair of Social Enterprise Yorkshire and The Humber work has also extended to regional and national strategy and policy development working with the NHS, Regional Development Agency and the Office of the Third Sector.

Dave is a director of Key Fund Yorkshire and ZEST Development Trust.

Brian Holmshaw 

Brian is an experienced museum and heritage education consultant, working mainly in Yorkshire and the Northwest of England. Projects have ranged from establishing community archives to delivering national curriculum training in museums and setting up cultural diversity partnerships with the Kashmiri and Yemeni communities in South Yorkshire. His portfolio includes audience development plans, evaluation and monitoring, capital and revenue fundraising, education strategies, site interpretation, developing family and schools learning resources and event management.

He has frontline heritage management experience including working as the Heritage Cemetery Manager at Sheffield General Cemetery Trust and managing a year round events programme and volunteer team. He has a masters degree in heritage studies from Nottingham Trent University where he specialised in heritage interpretation and education policy.

John Adams

John is a freelance researcher, based in Gateshead, Tyneside. He is a former Special Advisor in Whitehall, a former Director of Research at ippr north and a Board member of Sustaine, the sustainability champion for North East England.

In recent years he has worked with the Improvement Partnership for North East local authorities, to help produce their strategy to work in collaboration with the local authorities to improve partnership working at a local level; and has worked with the Bevan Foundation in South Wales to help bring forward a strategy for neighbourhood regeneration in the deprived Afan valley. 

Mike Hyde

Mike is a Chartered Town Planner with over 18 years experience. He has worked across the UK for National Park Authorities, Councils and the private sector. Mike also has experience in structural and civil engineering, historic buildings and nature conservation, surveying and architecture. Recently he has lead on service improvement, e-Planning and delivering innovative communication Strategies.

He is currently establishing mh planning as an independent planning consultancy based in Helensburgh, Scotland. As an associate of Trevor Roberts Associates Mike presents an established workshop on planning enforcement, and is expanding his training portfolio to include workshops on other aspects of the planning process.

Gordon Macnair

Gordon is an experienced policy analyst and deliverer of projects, working as economist, manager and deliverer in central government. He has set up and run complex evaluation projects, delivered UK wide, grant-driven change initiatives for Higher Education as well as running a nationwide organisation providing employment support services for disabled people, and nationwide risk management programmes.

He was a founder Board member of a unique public/private partnership company, Working Links, which gets long term unemployed people into sustained work and now has a turnover of over £60m annually. He also uses his experience to develop Governance in schools, and - as a life long mountaineer - with young people's Duke of Edinburgh Expeditions.

Gordon provides Cadence with business support.

Paul Greatorex

Paul runs the Scottish-based arm of Leisure and the Environment. With a background in Youth Work and Local Authority management, he has extensive practical experience in the planning and delivery of play and recreation services along with the policy and strategy issues associated with this. He was a co-author of Planning for Play, the Children's Play Council's good practice guide to local Play Strategies.

Judith originally qualified as an Architect but has had a varied working life in both the public and private sectors, particularly in the field of housing, as Development Manager for two Housing Associations in the North and Midlands and in Housing Strategy for Birmingham City Council. Most recently she has had the post of Business Development Manager across the North for a national Mental Health charity. Judith's key interests are the provision of good housing, social care and other services which reflect the interests and needs of the user. 

He is currently working as a Play Enabler for Play England providing expert support for local authorities in preparing their Play Strategies and BIG lottery applications. Recent collaborations with Paul include an evaluation of the NPFA's project "Developing support for community provision of high quality accessible recreational and play facilities".

 Judith Webster

Judith originally qualified as an Architect but has had a varied working life in both the public and private sectors, particularly in the field of housing, as Development Manager for two Housing Associations in the North and Midlands and in Housing Strategy for Birmingham City Council. Most recently she has had the post of Business Development Manager across the North for a national Mental Health charity. Judith's key interests are the provision of good housing, social care and other services which reflect the interests and needs of the user.

Jo Sandford 

Jo was formerly with Business in the Community and has recently launched her own consultancy to focusing on developing new partnerships between private, public and voluntary sector organisations. The consultancy builds on Jo's experience of managing the challenges that face the VCS and private sector in identifying and develop ways of working together which enable each partner to achieve more than they would in isolation.  I

In her new role Jo draws on her extensive practical experience which includes, for example, the development of a DTI funded mentoring scheme for social enterprises that matched managers/leaders with senior business managers from the private sector. 

James Rimmer

James is an experienced Healthcare Manager having worked in the NHS for more than ten years; is currently Director of Operations at the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust. James has a breadth of Director level experience having been a member of Boards in the health provider, commissioner and network sectors.

James' strengths lie in organisational change and development; leading the formation of Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust , developing a newly formed PCT and establishing one of the first cancer networks in the UK.  James has a strong track record of programme management and delivery.  He has delivered capital building projects, IM&T implementation initiatives and major change programmes.

James has a strong academic background with over twenty publications to his name, a first degree from the University of Bristol - BSc (Hons) Psychology - and a Masters degree in Evidence Based Health Care from the University of Oxford.  He completed the European Health Leadership Programme at INSEAD in 2006.

Steve Quilley 

Steve is an economic sociologist who has worked at University College Dublin and the ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition in Manchester. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Politics at Keele University. His academic research interests include the historical sociology of Norbert Elias and long term dynamics of human ecology as well as developing policy-related projects relating to sustainability, urban regeneration and landscape ‘re-wilding'.

A long term project is the establishment of a One Planet Institute providing environment-based Masters programmes organised around a residential smallholding.

Graham Jones 

Graham is a qualified planner by training and a leisure planner by experience. Formerly of Sport England, Graham set up Leisure and the Environment 1996. He has considerable experience of: needs assessment for leisure; planning and related issues; production of local standards for sports, play, and youth facilities; production of Supplementary Planning Guidance for sports, play, and youth facilities and sports development. He is a GIS expert.

Recent collaborations with Graham include production of a Play Strategy for Fareham Borough Council and PPG17 Study in Norwich.

Leigh Wharton 

Leigh is a director of enterprise support specialists Partnership WTP who support entrepreneurs start and grow businesses in a range of environments including Manchester Business School Incubator and the Laughing Buddha Bubble Incubator. Leigh is an experienced senior manager skilled in strategy planning and implementation. He has led corporate change programmes and organisation restructuring. His history is one of building and managing teams to resolve short-term problems and establish long-term process improvement to deliver operational and financial targets.

Recent work with Leigh has included the preparation of a Business Plan for CIDS.

Jim Phillips

Jim established JPC Consultants with Philip Chichester. He has over ten years experience in the parks and leisure industry and an honours degree in Environmental Biology and a Masters degree in Business Management. 

Jim is an experienced Project Manager and has been involved in a wide range of green space related projects, including HLF programmes, service development and planning, business planning, green space strategies, green flag assessments and applications, PPG 17 assessments, staff training and parks management plans.  He is also the Author of an ILAM (now ISPAL) publication, ‘Service Planning for Park Rangers'.

Recent work with Jim has included a Play Strategy for Sedgemoor Borough Council.

Bubble Enterprises

Bubble Enterprises is a social enterprise consultancy based in central Manchester. It is a Community Interest Company with particular expertise in working with SME's. It has developed a learning programme and business incubation service tailored to fit the particular needs of entrepreneurs in the Mental Health communities.

Phil Chichester

Phil runs JPC Consultants with Jim Phillips. He has solid experience in the planning and leisure industry, and has an honours degree in Town and Country Planning and a further Bachelor degree in Town planning, focused on Urban Planning.  Phil was previously the strategic planning officer for Bristol City Council, and regional planning advisor to Sport England. He has extensive experience of using GIS and advising on the LDF process and developing Supplementary Planning Documents for contributions to greenspace.

Recent work with Phil has included a Play Strategy for Fareham Borough Council.

Jeremy Cushing

Jeremy is an ex-Lecturer who has an interest in migration and in particular the issues faced by refugees in the UK. In recent years he has done a lot of work with a homeless charity in Exeter called St Petrock's. He is also an 'appropriate adult' volunteer and Panel Member for Referral Orders, both of which give him a direct insight into what he believes are consequences of the growing inequality in society.

He is also an enthusiastic Grandfather and prolific writer of letters to The Guardian and his local MP.