Governors

Governor Dates for 2013

About the Board

The Board may have between 15 and 21 members of whom at least 50% must be members of the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends (Quakers). New governors are appoin­ted by the General Meet­ing (FSSWGM), the body which over­sees the school on behalf of Britain Yearly Meet­ing of the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends (BYM).

Governors serve an initial 4 year term and may be nomin­ated to serve for a second such period. In excep­tional circum­stances a governor may serve a further 2 years but never beyond this maximum of 10 years. Sugges­ted names of people to join the Board may come from a vari­ety of sources; from constitu­ent Area Meet­ings of the General Meet­ing, from Old Schol­ars, parents and any other inter­ested parties.

The full Board meets once a term as do the three main subcom­mit­tees Educa­tion Commit­tee, Finance Commit­tee, and Stra­tegic Devel­op­ment Commit­tee. An Exec­ut­ive Commit­tee compris­ing clerks of commit­tees plus the Bursar and the Heads of both schools keeps things tick­ing over between meet­ings of the full Board. A Search & Governance Commit­tee (3 or 4 strong) is respons­ible for over­see­ing Board train­ing, induc­tion of new members and close liaison with the GM Nomin­a­tions Commit­tee to main­tain Board numbers and spread of skills.

In addi­tion to these commit­tees there are several small work­ing groups as needed - at present these are the Asset Manage­ment Group, the Busi­ness Work­ing Group, the Risk Assess­ment Group and the Bursar­ies Scru­tiny Group. Indi­vidual governors attend meet­ings of the Health and Safety Commit­tee, and the Senior School Council.

Governors are encour­aged, indeed expec­ted, to play as full a part in the life of the school as other commit­ments and living at a distance permit. The Board is commit­ted to foster­ing an under­stand­ing of Quaker values and prac­tice among staff and pupils, as well as making the work of the school known to the wider Quaker community.

The Board of Governors: Janu­ary 2013

The Chair/Clerk of the Board of Governors is Sue Collins. If you wish to corres­pond with Sue Collins then please use the School address.

Richard Bloom­field
Richard is a retired profes­sional elec­trical engin­eer and worked for 35 years on signalling and train control, work­ing for Brit­ish Rail and its successors. He is a Quaker and his local Meet­ing is Saffron Walden where he is Treas­urer. He also regu­larly attends Cork Meet­ing in Ireland, where his wife, Denise, lives. He serves on Britain Yearly Meet­ing Finance and Prop­erty Cent­ral Commit­tee and the Board of Friends Trusts, and has interests in envir­on­mental issues and work­ing with Quakers in Bolivia.

Richard’s connec­tion with Friends’ School Saffron Walden goes back to 1963 when he entered the first form as a day pupil, stay­ing until the end of the sixth form in 1970. Subsequently, both his chil­dren have atten­ded the senior school.

Richard joined the Board in Janu­ary 2011, and is Clerk of the Stra­tegic Devel­op­ment Commit­tee, Assist­ant Clerk of the Board, and on the Risk Assess­ment Group.

Richard Braun.
Richard is a soli­citor who has recently retired from a career in Local Govern­ment in Manchester and Cambridge, having previ­ously been involved in refugee reset­tle­ment, race rela­tions and community work in Fiji, Berkshire, London and Southamp­ton. He was born in New York and has lived in the UK since 1972. He has been an attender at Quaker meet­ings since 1988 in Chester, Eccles and most recently Cambridge Jesus Lane. His daugh­ter atten­ded Ackworth (Quaker) School as a boarder from year 8 until complet­ing her A-levels. At Cambridge Jesus Lane Meet­ing Richard is Notices Clerk and joint Records Officer and serves on the Nomin­a­tions and Hospit­al­ity Commit­tees as well as co-ordinating the Meeting’s regu­lar Peace Vigil.

Richard joined the Board in Janu­ary 2013 and serves on the Educa­tion Commit­tee and the Search and Governance Committee.

Richard Clunes
Richard is currently ‘Quaker in Resid­ence’ at Hamp­stead Meet­ing. He also served on the Board of Sidcot (Quaker) School for seven years. Richard ran a success­ful train­ing busi­ness for many years and has a strong interest in marketing.

Richard is a former pupil of the school and joined the Board in Janu­ary 2011. He is on the Finance Commit­tee, and Stra­tegic Devel­op­ment Committee.

Sue Collins
Sue has been involved with FSSW for almost 40 years as staff wife, parent, part time piano teacher, and a member of the Junior School staff for 4 years from 1998. She trained as a Primary School teacher and also worked for 10 years as Children’s Work Secret­ary with Quaker Home Service (now Quaker Life).

Sue is Clerk (Chair­man) of the Board and seeks to promote Quaker values through­out both schools. Sue joined the Board in 2006 and in her capa­city as Clerk attends all commit­tees “ex officio”.

Andrew Deller
Andrew has a back­ground in Finan­cial Services. He spent 16 years work­ing in commer­cial and retail bank­ing, running Change Manage­ment and Human Resources teams and projects, includ­ing 4 years living and work­ing in sub-Saharan Africa: Lusaka and Johannesburg.

For the last seven years Andrew has been work­ing as an inde­pend­ent consult­ant special­ising in Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment, Exec­ut­ive Coach­ing and Human Resources, across a wide range of industry sectors, with exper­i­ence in the Middle East, Europe and the UK. Being ‘self-employed’ allows Andrew to achieve the life-work balance he values so highly. Andrew is father to three chil­dren at Friends’, currently in years 6, 8 and 10.

Andrew joined the Board in Janu­ary 2012 and is a member of the Finance Commit­tee and Stra­tegic Devel­op­ment Committee.

Sue Fellows
Is a Quaker and has been on the Board since 2006. She is a librar­ian at North London’s Middle­sex Univer­sity. Her partic­u­lar area of interest vis à vis the school lies in ensur­ing that it offers a safe, stim­u­lat­ing & support­ive envir­on­ment for pupils to succeed in, using the most up to date equip­ment, soft­ware and resources avail­able (afford­able within budget), within the frame­work of a Quaker ethos.

Sue joined the Board in 2006 and is on the Educa­tion, Stra­tegic Devel­op­ment, and Search and Governance Committees.

Jo Fisher
Jo is an active member of Hunt­ing­don Local Quaker Meet­ing and has been in member­ship for over 25 years.

She has always had a keen interest in the needs and aspir­a­tions of chil­dren: This through volun­tary work when her chil­dren were young, as part of team in an Out of School Unit, in her work in Hunt­ing­don as a Social Worker and Foster­ing Officer, through to her work with young musi­cians as an Alex­an­der Tech­nique Teacher at Oundle School Music Depart­ment. With her husband she totally enjoys her five wonder­ful grandchildren.

Jo believes that our future as a coun­try and for the world is about chil­dren. “We demon­strate this by the way we invest in, respect and love our children”.

Jo joined the board in Janu­ary 2013 and is on the Educa­tion Commit­tee, with special interest in the Junior School.

Susan Garratt
Susan is an active Quaker, with a vari­ety of Quaker respons­ib­il­it­ies, from a Quaker family. Her profes­sional back­ground is in educa­tion, and having recently retired from full-time teach­ing in the state sector, now works as an educa­tion consult­ant, tutor­ing and assess­ing teacher train­ees. Her commit­ment to both educa­tion and the Quaker ethos under­pin her service as a governor of FSSW.

Susan joined the Board in 2011, and serves on the Educa­tion Commit­tee, and the Bursary Group, and is also our Safe­guard­ing and Child Protec­tion governor.

Celia James
Celia James came from an arts back­ground, study­ing paint­ing at Camber­well Art School before focus­sing on sculp­ture.  She trained as an infant teacher, work­ing with Recep­tion for 8 years and later as an Art Ther­ap­ist, work­ing with young offend­ers, people on proba­tion and adults with severe learn­ing disab­il­ity. She has been a Quaker since 1981.

Celia joined the Board in Janu­ary 2010 and is Clerk on the Educa­tion Commit­tee, and Search and Governance Commit­tee. Celia also reports to the Board on Early Years Found­a­tion Stage matters.

Douglas Kent
Douglas is a chartered surveyor special­ising in build­ing conser­va­tion and is currently a director and the company secret­ary at the Soci­ety for the Protec­tion of Ancient Build­ings - the largest, oldest and most tech­nic­ally expert char­ity campaign­ing across the UK to save old build­ings from decay, demoli­tion and damage. He publishes regu­larly, lectures and broad­casts on the conser­va­tion of build­ings. He also serves on many commit­tees for organ­isa­tions devoted to sustain­ing the historic built envir­on­ment and recently became chair­man of the Hundred Parishes Soci­ety. In addi­tion to his char­ity exper­i­ence, he has worked in the public and private sectors.

A former pupil, he is partic­u­larly inter­ested in help­ing the school with matters to do with its build­ing fabric and main­tain­ing a high-quality envir­on­ment that bene­fits teach­ing and learning.

Douglas joined the Board in Janu­ary 2008 and serves on the Finance Commit­tee, Asset Manage­ment Group, and Bursar­ies Group.

Jenny Marks
Follow­ing several years work­ing with school governors in the public sector and a period of three years as Governors’ Secret­ary at Friends’ School, Jenny joined the Board as a (non-Quaker) governor in 2007. Her original train­ing was in medi­cine and phar­ma­ceut­ic­als, but she brings her more recent exper­i­ence of market­ing, public rela­tions, writ­ing and edit­ing, and an ongo­ing commit­ment as Company Secret­ary of her family’s busi­ness to the service of the Board.

Jenny joined the Board in Janu­ary 2007. Jenny is Clerk on the Finance Commit­tee and also serves on the Stra­tegic Devel­op­ment Commit­tee and is a member of the Risk Assess­ment Group. She also reports to Board on Board­ing matters.

Finola O’Sullivan
Finola O’Sullivan is from Ireland and moved here to work for Cambridge Univer­sity Press as a book commis­sion­ing editor in 1997.  Today she co-ordinates their global academic law publish­ing, with a partic­u­lar emphasis on inter­na­tional rela­tions and human rights.

Grow­ing up in a large Cath­olic family in Dublin, she enjoyed both her primary and second­ary schools and the form­at­ive influ­ences of many inspir­ing teach­ers. She stud­ied English language and liter­at­ure at Univer­sity College Dublin.

Finola’s later path into member­ship of the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends was sparked  by her paci­fist beliefs. She worships at her Cambridge Hart­ing­ton Grove Local Meet­ing and also serves as one of the over­seers to attenders and members there.

She sees governor­ship at Friends’ School Saffron Walden both as an exten­sion of her involve­ment in Cambridge Area Meet­ing and a chance to contrib­ute to the prac­tice of Quaker Testi­mon­ies through­out the school.

Finola joined the Board in Janu­ary 2012 and serves on the Stra­tegic Devel­op­ment Commit­tee. She also reports to the Board on Health and Safety matters and attends the school’s Health and Safety Committee.

Tony Penman
Tony grew up in the Hawke’s Bay region of New Zeal­and and began his work­ing life in tax policy at the New Zeal­and Treas­ury. Arriv­ing in Britain in 1988 he has spent most of the last 20 years work­ing in the invest­ment manage­ment industry, with the last 10 as a product devel­op­ment special­ist at Cazen­ove Capital Manage­ment, based in the City of London.

His interests include liberal econom­ics, public policy and history and he is an active sports­man. Tony has four chil­dren, two of whom attend Friends’, and his wife, Sarah, currently works as one of the school’s nurses.

Whilst not a Quaker, Tony iden­ti­fies strongly with Quaker values. He joined the Board in Janu­ary 2011 and currently acts as the Treas­urer and sits on the Finance Commit­tee and Busi­ness Work­ing Group. He also reports to the Board on Regu­lat­ory Compliance.

Stephen Tomkins
Stephen has a profes­sional back­ground in the life sciences and in both second­ary and Univer­sity teach­ing and teacher training. After read­ing Sciences at Cambridge he taught for seven years in Africa. After two teach­ing posts at Village Colleges he became Head  of the Biology Depart­ment at Hills Road Sixth Form College (1978-92) then the  Head of Science Faculty at Homer­ton College (teacher train­ing). He is now retired from his Cambridge Faculty and College posts.

Stephen has a passion for both qual­ity teach­ing and learn­ing espe­cially in life sciences and envir­on­mental educa­tion. He has grand­chil­dren of school age. Married to a Quaker and with relat­ives and personal friends amongst the FSSW Old Schol­ars he is an attender at Jesus Lane Meet­ing in Cambridge, and a strong supporter of the Friend’s ethos - feel­ing that many Quakers express in their lives the most import­ant funda­ment­als of that dogma-free Chris­tian living to which we should all aspire.

Stephen joined the Board in Janu­ary 2013 and is on the Finance Commit­tee and Stra­tegic Devel­op­ment Committee.

Malcolm Whalan
Malcolm moved to Welwyn Garden City from York­shire, where he had been ‘Friend in Resid­ence’ for Gilder­some Local Meet­ing after taking early retire­ment in 2002 as a Hospital Social Worker special­ising in long term disabilities.

Malcolm was a founder member of the “York­shire Quaker Link Group”, a group for 13 - 18 years olds where he planned and ran work­shops on Quaker themes such as the Peace Testi­mony and Conflict Resol­u­tion. He has also organ­ised and facil­it­ated a series of resid­en­tial spir­itual retreats for 14-18 years over the past 18 years. Malcolm was a trustee governor on the Manage­ment Commit­tee of Bootham (Quaker) School from 1999 to 2006.

Malcolm has served as Clerk of Brig­house Monthly Meet­ing, (1995-2000), Clerk to the Trust­ees of Leeds & Settle Monthly Meet­ings’ Joint Build­ings’ Fund, (2000-2008) and Quaker Chap­lain to Leeds Univer­sity (2007- 09). He completed his second trien­nium as a Governor of the Retreat Mental Hospital in 2010, and currently serves as an Elder of Hert­ford & Hitchin Area Meeting.

Malcolm joined the Board in Janu­ary 2011 and is on the Educa­tion Commit­tee and Search and Governance Committee.