Meet our amazing team
We’re lucky to have a passionate and dedicated team who all share a love of our wonderful county. Together, we work tirelessly to raise vital funds and get them to a diverse range of groups so that our local communities can drive change and realise their dreams.
Leadership team
Our highly experienced Senior Leadership Team work together to deliver our ambitious strategy, leading our team to ensure expert delivery of our grant-making, finance and operations, and communications and philanthropy.
Programmes team
Our friendly Programmes Team manage our grants and funding programmes, carry out research and gathering community insight. Whether you run a small charity, community group or social enterprise, or are an individual looking for funding, our team can give you advice and support with your application.
Philanthropy team
Our knowledgeable and friendly Philanthropy Team work to inspire more local giving through SCF. They also provide expert, impartial advice on philanthropy and charitable giving and a range of simple, rewarding and impactful ways to give locally.
Marketing team
Our talented and creative team help raise our profile, grow our income and reach more fantastic groups across Somerset. They create our publications, newsletter, and impact stories and run our social media platforms and website.
Operations team
Our operations team make sure everything within our organisation runs smoothly – from our finances, to HR, our office, administration and our technology.
Trustees
Michael Samuel MBE, Chair
Michael built up the Mayborn Group, which specialises in baby products, over the course of thirty years. Michael is also a committed philanthropist and has supported charities through his family foundations for several decades. He is Chair of the Anna Freud Centre, a charity focusing on research and advocacy about mental health of young people, founded and Chairs Civic, a not-for-profit initiative seeking to increase the impact of charities in the UK and abroad, and is co-founder and Chair of Full Fact, a charity set up to check and correct facts reported in the news.
Along with his wife and four children and grandchildren, he has developed a strong affinity and attachment to Somerset since acquiring a dairy farm and settling in the county more than twenty years ago. Michael has been a supporter of SCF for more than 10 years.
Michelle Ferris, Treasurer
Michelle is the Director of Charities and Not-for-Profit at Albert Goodman LLP, a large regional accountancy firm based in Taunton. She was brought up in Somerset, and after spending some time away she returned to the county where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Albert Goodman, specialising in charities for the last 8 years. Michelle is also currently a trustee at Refugee Aid from Taunton, and in her spare time – outside spending time with her two young children – she is an international basketball official.
Chris Bishop
Chris is a Chartered Public Finance Accountant and a former Business Services Director of Wessex Water plc. The majority of his career has been spent in the UK but he has worked in North, Central and South America and been the Chief Financial Officer of the global technology company Achillies Group. He is a former Chairman of Somerset College of Art and Technology and board member and trustee of BIBIC the Somerset based brain injury charity. He is currently advising Pixieme.org a community marketplace for independent businesses and is a trustee of a number of local charities.
Amanda Ellingworth
Amanda’s earlier career was in social work, based in London local authorities. More recently, she has held a portfolio of directorships in health and social care and humanitarian sectors. Among her current appointments, she is Deputy Chair of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Deputy Chair of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency. She is especially interested in issues of equality and social justice, and safe cultures.
Helen Gulvin
Helen has worked with children and families all her career, first as a social worker and then as Assistant Director for Children’s Social Care. Helen has run services in Education and Health and has spent 5 years as a Peer Reviewer for the Local Government leading on Early Years Reviews and taking part in safeguarding and Special Educational Needs Reviews.
Helen has run a range of community groups and served as a committee member for Home-Start.
Angela Kerr
Angela is CEO of Citizens Advice Somerset and has over 30 years of experience leading and managing independent charities and not for profit companies. She has a master’s degree in Voluntary Sector Management from the CASS Business School and has represented the UK as a charity leader through the British Council’s Active Citizens programme and a Department for International Development programme based on St Helena, which is a small UK overseas territory in the South Atlantic.
Angela is a qualified adult tutor and coach and a passionate advocate of learning and personal development for those working in the voluntary and community sector.
She is a very keen crafter and a huge fan of international films and both of her interests are inspired by a love of stories from around the world.
Kokila Lane
Kokila currently facilitates activities with learning disabled adults, having spent nine years supporting adults with autism. Kokila has taught a broad range of subjects and ages for over 30 years. Kokila is a qualified mediator (excepting family and children).
Her Trusteeship with Somerset Community Foundation is Kokila’s second significant role working with a community-focused charity, having previously been President of Bodali Seva Mandal from 2016-2018. Kokila moved from the village of Bodali in Gujrat, India, aged 3 and has since lived in Leicestershire, Essex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey and now resides in Somerset. She has taught as a supply teacher in many places, including Somerset, North Somerset and Bristol.
Her time off is spent swimming, walking, reading and keeping in touch with family and friends.
John Lyon CB
John Lyon CB has spent much of his professional life working in the public sector, mostly in the senior civil service in central government. On leaving the civil service he served the House of Commons overseeing its code of conduct for members of parliament. He also has experience in the charity sector from working as the director of strategy in a research institute in Cambridge and as an elected governance volunteer with the National Trust. He has been connected to the Sedgemoor area for some 30 years, where he currently enjoys been taken for lively walks by his border collie.
Bruce McIntosh
Bruce has over 40 years experience in the investment industry; he worked as an institutional (pension fund) manager at Mercury Asset Management before moving to Perpetual, the retail fund group, where he was a director of the operating company. Following a family move back to the West Country, Bruce became chairman of an Exeter-based wealth management firm and he joined JM Finn following the sale of that business. Bruce has an MA in Modern Languages (Cambridge). Bruce and his wife Sophy have four children and home is a working farm on Exmoor, which consumes pretty much all the family’s free time.
Lucy Nelson DL
Lucy founded Tommy’s, a national charity funding medical research into the reasons why babies are born too soon and too small, stillbirth, miscarriage, poor foetal growth and prematurity. They raise around £4 million each year. She was Tommy’s CEO for 10 years, a Director of Mark Birley Associates for 20 years and a Director of the Catholic Building Society. Lucy was also a Governor for 20 years and finally Chairman of Governors for Port Regis school in Dorset. Lucy was High Sheriff of Somerset 2015-16 and is now a Deputy Lieutenant. She is particularly interested in mental health and raised a fund for four mental health charities in Somerset during her year as High Sheriff. She has lived in Penselwood, Somerset for 20 years and runs a small stud, breeding horses for eventing and dressage.
Louisa Raybould
Louisa was Vice-Chair of the South West Committee for BBC Children in Need where she advised on which projects should receive grants. She has held a number of roles in the public and voluntary sector including Funding Development Officer for the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and Principal Policy Advisor at the South West Regional Assembly. She started her career working with the Somerset Training and Enterprise Council, developing partnerships with local organisations to promote regeneration projects. She has also worked at the European Parliament in Brussels and is a shareholder in a local media research business. She set up and managed a Pre-School and is a qualified hockey coach. She has lived in Somerset for many years, is a member of the Somerset Woodturners and plays the cello.
David Taylor
David worked in Local Government for almost forty years. He qualified as a Social Worker in 1979 and has worked in all aspects of children’s and adults services. He was Director of Children’s services in Somerset until 2010 and then Director of Peoples Services in Shropshire until 2013. David is a Governor at a local school and also Bridgwater and Taunton College. He works as a freelance trainer and teaches English as a foreign language.
Giles Wood
Giles is a trainee Investment Manager at Rathbones Brothers plc, where he supports the discretionary management of investment portfolios on behalf of private clients, trusts and charities. Giles is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment, holds a Diploma in Investment Compliance and is pursuing the Chartered Wealth Manager Qualification. Despite his young age, he already has a wealth of experience spanning across legal, financial and regulatory fields, having graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Law degree and spent over two years in London at a top 5 accountancy and advisory firm, before moving back to his home in Somerset. Giles has lived in Somerset for over 20 years and, during which time, has participated in a plethora of extra-curricular activities and events within the area, giving him first-hand knowledge and experience of Somerset from a more youthful perspective, which he can bring to the Foundation.
Our Patron, President & Vice-Presidents
The support and generosity of our patrons is vital to helping us transform lives across Somerset. Our patrons use their position and spheres of influence to support our work.
Patron
Lady Elizabeth Gass DCVO JP
President
HM Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset, Mohammed Saddiq
Vice-Presidents
Jane Barrie OBE DL
Rt Revd Michael Beasley, The Bishop of Bath and Wells
Lord Cameron of Dillington DL
John Cullum DL
Rob Beckley QPM (The High Sheriff of Somerset 2024/25)
Michael Fiennes
Annie Maw CVO
Maureen Whitmore
Peter Wyman CBE DL
Angela Yeoman OBE
