Members
The Members of a charitable company, such as an Academy Trust, are the equivalent of shareholders in a commercial company.
This means they:
- are the subscribers to the trust’s memorandum of association (where they are founding members);
- may amend the articles of association (the articles include a definition of the trust’s charitable objects and governance structure) subject to any restrictions in the articles or in the trust’s funding agreement or charity law;
- have the power to appoint and remove the Trustees and hold those Trustees to account for the way that the Academy Trust is operated
- appoint external auditors to ensure that the accounts are independently interrogated.
- guarantee the debts of the Academy Trust – the extent of the guarantee is ten pounds per member if the company goes into insolvent liquidation.
Responsibility to conduct the business of the trust in accordance with company and charity law sits with the Trustees and so Members are ‘eyes on and hands off’ to avoid compromising the board’s discretion in exercising its responsibilities.
Members are kept fully informed regarding trust business. There is regular dialogue between the Trust Board and Members throughout the year to ensure this can be achieved, and Members meet twice per year.
Jane Sowerby
Jane is the Assistant Director for Early Help and Schools in Rochdale, having previously been Assistant Director for Education in Tameside. She has held various Head of Primary and Secondary School Improvement roles across Greater Manchester and Yorkshire. Jane has worked in local authority education and SEND leadership roles for over 20 years across several different local authorities but mostly in Greater Manchester. She co-chaired the Greater Manchester Early Education Leaders group and is the lead education director for Greater Manchester’s Balanced System transformation programme which aims at changing the focus of speech and language support for children. Jane has a primary education background; trained and worked in London initially and lives in Stockport. Jane is passionate about inclusion and practises relational-based leadership values.
Damien Dallimore
Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit – Director and interim Assistant Director (Police, Crime, Fire and Criminal Justice)
Damian is Interim Director for Police, Crime, Fire and Criminal Justice at Greater Manchester Combined Authority, leading on a range of GM-wide programmes including Violence Reduction, Serious / Organised Crime and Child and Adolescent safeguarding. Damian has worked in a variety of local government roles across his career, primarily focused on community safety and crime reduction areas of policy, with a particular interest in community-led approaches and working with children and families to address all forms of abuse and exploitation. Damian has a strong connection with the community and voluntary sector across GM and has pioneered community-led programmes to tackle knife crime, violence and their root causes in a range of locations across GM. Damian was previously a Trustee of the Healthy Learning Multi-Academy Trust.
Dr Luke Roberts
Director of Resolve
Luke has over twenty years’ experience working children and young people in conflict. This work has been across the school-to-prison pipeline, from addressing children affected by bullying, to working with young people in custody to address the issues of violence, trauma and poor educational experiences. He has also worked with communities that have been marginalised from the educational system and see how parental experiences of poor educational experiences leave a residual distrust and require a nurturing experience for the family as well as the child.
Diarmuid O’Neill
Deputy Director Scottish Government Head of Marine Scotland Science with a team of over 300, two research vessels and a science campus.
Several senior policy roles over the last five years in UK Government and Scottish Government on topics covering: International Development, Safeguarding, Brexit and Climate Change. Within these roles managing budgets from £32m to £300m. Chief executive officer for a decade of an international charity working with thousands of street children in nine countries across Africa and South America. Trustee and Chair of several Boards in the UK and USA. Consultant for several Boards of Trustees on the new code of Governance for charities. Co-author of the Bond Safeguarding for Trustees. Operations manager of charity working with marginalized young people through sport and education in inner cities and England. Research scientist for a decade, part of a team that invented technology to measure natural emissions of greenhouse gases.
Diarmuid Currid
Diarmuid is a veterinary surgeon by profession. He has been a vet for 27 years, and has worked in Manchester, specifically the Tameside area, for 24 of those years. His role is that of clinical director of a companion animal veterinary clinic, which he co-founded in 2000. He is responsible for the day to day running of the practice, involving clinical care, clinical governance, and the promotion of evidence-based medicine in veterinary care. He is also responsible for the delivery of high levels of customer service and ensuring a customer focused culture within the team. He is responsible for the financial performance of the business and is involved in developing strategies for business development. To enhance his understanding of this aspect of his role, he obtained an MBA from the Manchester Alliance Business School at the University of Manchester in 2022. Alongside the business and management aspect to his role, he also has an interest in clinical work, the focus of which is in veterinary dentistry, and he has recently completed a postgraduate qualification in this field.