ASCEND 2022 Final accounts (signed)
Margaret Gallagher (Chair of Trustees)
Margaret has worked in the NHS as an Occupational Therapist and later lectured in Health Studies at Brunel University. She has been a school governor in Croxley Green and in retirement volunteers with the RVS and the Rickmansworth Food Bank. Her interests are in fostering community relationships in order to assist individuals and their families.
Marie-Louise Nolan (Deputy Chair of Trustees)
Marie-Louise taught for 17 years in primary, secondary and further education, specialising in special educational needs, and also worked in local government, Parliament and trade unions. She has extensive experience working in the local community and as a board member in the voluntary sector. Until recently, she was a National Leader of Governance supporting schools across North West London and a Director of two multi-academy trusts.
Frederick Martin Waldron (Trustee)
Martin worked in IT research for the Canadian Government, assisted US Technology companies to enter Europe, and set up his own consultancy company which he ran for 25 years specialising in Corporate Information Management. Martin was also a visiting professor at the US University Richmond College and helped develop their MBA course. In a voluntary capacity, Martin worked for the Probation Service to assist ex-offenders to get back into the community, as a mentor for repeat offenders and for those wanting to start up their own business. He set up and ran youth clubs in Bristol and Slough and developed IT courses in Canada for government employees with limited education.
Jose Tamayo (Trustee)
Jose has been working as an IT and R&D engineer for more than 20 years. He fell in love with the British Values and decided to move to the UK with his wife and three children. He is passionate about giving back to the community, so has got involved in different community roles, such as a school Governor and Churchwarden in South Oxhey as well as being a Parent Ambassador at Northwood School.
Annette Davis (Trustee)
Annette is a supported housing professional working for the young person’s homeless charity, Centrepoint. She has 20 years experience working in the homeless sector. She is passionate about service user involvement and service users having a voice. Annette was one of ASCENDs first ever clients and is now using her experience in the social care field to give something back.
Ashwin Tirodkar
A mathematician by training, Ashwin has worked in Investment Banking and Financial Services for over 20 years. He is passionate about social justice and innovation/entrepreneurship in the third sector. In his spare time he works with social impact accelerator programs and mentors several impact-focussed start-ups.
Janet Lofthouse
After a career of 15 years in international insurance broking in the City of London, Janet spent more than 20 years designing and delivering both group and one-to-one English language and business language skills courses, mainly to executives in the financial sector on secondment in the UK. She also devised cross-cultural business briefings to promote better understanding of business/social practice, and administered an online training platform for the staff of small insurance broking firms for compliance with new regulatory requirements
She had always envisaged giving something back in retirement by volunteering in the field of adult literacy – an issue she felt strongly about – and has been able to achieve this ambition in her local community with ASCEND. She is currently involved with group classes as a teaching assistant and with an individual mentorship programme. She also could not resist the opportunity to support the teacher/clients in ASCEND’s ESOL classes.