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Andy Berry (Chair)

Andy is self-employed as a computer consultant writing & developing complex software for the banking, financial service & electrical industries. His voluntary interests include being a board member of SCOPE (formerly The Spastics Society) from 1985 to the present. SCOPE is a national charity with a turnover of £80 million. Andy has been vice-chairman of the charity (1992) and chairman of marketing committee (1992-1994). Major achievements include: significant involvement in the process of changing the name to SCOPE; ensuring that all regional offices and the new head office are accessible to people with disabilities; producing the concept behind Fasttrack (a scheme to provide management opportunities for people with disabilities). Andy is also on the committee for RADAR advising on access issues. In the past he has advised the New Millennium Experience Co. Ltd. on disability issues with particular emphasis on staff training and access. Member of Central Transport Consultative Committee (rail industry watchdog) from 1990 to 1993, responsible for representing the interests of people with disabilities major achievements included: checking access of new trains and suggesting improvements; meetings with Government ministers and senior rail industry managers.

Jean Marshall (Company Secretary)

Jean is a Forester who started work at the Home Office as an Executive Officer. After successfully completing a law degree & the Solicitors’ Finals, she obtained Articles with Gloucestershire County Council & qualified as a solicitor in 1990. She was then employed as an Assistant Solicitor with the West Midlands Probation Service in Birmingham for five & a half years, before leaving for health reasons. During her employment, she was engaged in a general practice role, providing legal advice & assistance relative to the work of a large probation authority, including court procedure, decisions to prosecute/prosecutions, sentencing, employment law, including sex/race discrimination, landlord & tenant, social services matters, including child care, mental health & housing & some commercial work, including company law & intellectual property rights. Following this, she completed a Masters’ Degree in the Philosophy & Ethics of Mental Health, & also commenced a Masters’ Degree in Employment Law, but was unable to complete this for reasons connected with her partner’s health. Jean has been a carer for several years &, when health permits, provides unpaid legal advice to her partner’s small company & to small charities, such as GDOSS & Alert, when assistance is required, although she no longer has a practising certificate.

Chris Swindells BA

Chris is currently Development Co-ordinator for the GUIDE Information Service. She joined GUIDE in its launch year, 1992, and has been the organisation’s Development Co-ordinator since 1995. GUIDE was established originally as a disability information service for the county, but has extended over the years to become Gloucestershire’s health, social care and disability information service, core funded by the Gloucestershire Health Authority & the county council’s Social Services & Education Departments. She has been individually responsible for the service’s inter-agency working over the years and for supporting the establishment of the Families’ & Children’s information Service (FACS) at GUIDE, and The Key (specialised information service for families in Gloucestershire with a disabled child), which has been based at GUIDE since April 2000. She is responsible for GUIDE’s day to day operations and its enquiry service.  Previously, from 1987 – 1992, she worked in public relations (Wolverhampton Polytechnic and Rote Communications Ltd) in the West Midlands.
She has lived in the centre of Gloucester (Brunswick Square), close to the Hampden Way site, from 1992 to the present day.

Emily Long

Emily has long experience of many charities and other voluntary organisations.  She is Chairperson of the Friends of Gloucester Shopmobility.

Special Advisor
Richard Trelfa BSc., C(Eng), MIMechE

Richard spent 30 years in the electricity supply industry finishing as a Senior Engineer with the Generation Development and Construction Division of the Central Electricity Generating Board, based in Gloucester. By this time he had worked on the operation, and construction, of power stations all over the country, and abroad.  On retirement, he spent two years as a volunteer at Headway Cotswold Trust, which is a day centre for people with brain injury, and the National Waterways Museum, in Gloucester.
In 1990 he became the co-ordinator of the Gloucester city council’s Shopmobility, and set up the scheme from scratch.