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Alice Wade

Deputy Director of Operations & Business Development

Alice Wade

Deputy Director of Operations & Business Development

I am an experienced Administrator, Manager and Fundraiser – passionate about supporting communities to improve their lives. With a background in performing arts, I started my career at Arts Council England working within administration, finance, and grant management roles. I joined DanceEast in 2014, as their Development Manager – developing fundraising strategies and securing vital funds for the charity. I feel privileged to now work at Community Action Suffolk the ‘go to’ organisation for the voluntary sector in Suffolk. I joined in late August 2022, to develop my leadership skills and to continue supporting communities through heading up the VCFSE Organisation Development Team – helping to support a diverse VCFSE sector to build capacity, efficiency, and sustainability.

Belinda Couldridge

EA to Chief Executive and Executive Team

Belinda Couldridge

EA to Chief Executive and Executive Team

Belinda has worked in the VCFSE sector for some years, previously gaining valuable experience in the statutory sector and before that starting her career in banking with Barclays in Bury St Edmunds.
Belinda provides support to the Chief Executive, Executive Team and Trustees ensuring good governance and smooth running of meetings. She also supports the VCFSE Health & Wellbeing Network and the VCFSE Sector Leaders Group.

Over the summer months she leads the preparation for the Suffolk Community Awards on behalf of Community Action Suffolk, which culminates in a celebration evening in September, a showcase for the great work being done in the voluntary sector.
Suffolk born and bred, she enjoys travelling the world but always calls Suffolk home.

Caroline Keep

Finance Admin Assistant

Caroline Keep

Finance Admin Assistant

After a successful career in the City Caroline took a career break to raise her family during which time she became involved in various Suffolk and national charities as a Trustee, volunteer and, more latterly, an employee when she set up the finance and administration operation for a children’s wrap-around care provision in Nayland.
In 2016 Caroline fulfilled a long held desire to formalise her accounting knowledge and became a full time student completing her AAT Professional Diploma in 2018. Caroline joined the finance team at CAS in early 2019 and is really enjoying the opportunity to utilise her accounting qualifications and experience working in the VCSE sector.

Clare Lamb

Interim Community Action Manager

Clare Lamb

Interim Community Action Manager

Having been a dancer and dance teacher for over 20 years, Clare has worked closely alongside children and young adults from all walks of life. During this time Clare also worked in the school environment as a LSA and TA. She is people focused, energised, engaged and personable individual who has proven her ability to take on any challenge and turn it into a success. Her bubbly personality helps her to engage with others and form professional relationships to enable her to work collaboratively with others. Having recently moved back from Adelaide, South Australia where Clare and her family had been living for the past 18 months, she is thrilled to be working at Community Action Suffolk.

Danny Austin

Danny Austin

IT Support & Development Officer

Danny Austin

IT Support & Development Officer

Danny is the IT Support & Development Officer at CAS. Previous to CAS Danny worked in a variety of roles across the private sector including BT, where he provided a first line IT Support role for systems and internal staff.

At CAS, Danny’s role is to provide a support and development resource for CAS’s IT requirements including day to day IT support of its internal systems. Danny is also a massive part of IT Services at CAS Ltd, where he supports the IT manager in delivering it’s suite of IT products, including being the primary website developer, and developing all of it’s websites. Danny has a real passion towards developing new web systems that can assist in an organisation meeting it’s objectives.

Deb Gibson

Volunteer Development Manager

Deb Gibson

Volunteer Development Manager

Having spent nearly 4 years as a Programme Coordinator at Suffolk County Council, I was overseeing Suffolk for a European Social Funded joint Norfolk and Suffolk project. This was to empower employed individuals working in the health and social care sector to gain training, qualifications and progression with the support of a bespoke mentoring team to develop themselves and to enhance and support their learning and progression. I oversaw a team of Career Mentors and that was designed and developed to support individuals with quality career information, advice and guidance was available to all participants. Plus, the usual working with ESF guidelines and specifications.

Before that, I was at a Community Interest Company where I was the Career and Progression Manager. I developed and managed a peer support project as well as implementing careers information, advice and guidance offers across the county for those with learning disabilities and autism. I am a fully trained mentor, life coach, Adult careers adviser and facilitator. I enjoy supporting people and working in the community, so when the opportunity came about to join CAS, this was a great way to continue to serve the community again.

Elizabeth Evans

Community Food Partnership Officer

Elizabeth Evans

Community Food Partnership Officer

Liz joined Community Action Suffolk in 2017 having previously gained 13 years’ experience teaching Music in secondary schools.

Liz started at CAS by working on reception for 3 years and so has a good understanding of CAS’ different services. She has gone on to work as a Community Restart Officer and Ukraine Community Development Co-ordinator, as well as co-ordinating the ABCD network, and has gained a range of experience in community development.

Outside of work Liz is the Chair of Trustees for her son’s scout group and is involved in their fundraising project for a new scout hut.

Hannah Reid

Chief Executive

Hannah Reid

Chief Executive

Hannah is the Chief Executive of Community Action Suffolk with a professional background in Private, Public and VCSE sectors specifically in business management and development.
Hannah has managed and run various businesses including a private training company and a social enterprise supporting young people. Immediately before joining CAS, Hannah was a trouble shooting pub manager working for breweries to problem solve in their Public Houses across East Anglia and the South East.

Hannah Sanford

Insurance Officer

Hannah Sanford

Insurance Officer

Hannah has joined CAS as an Insurance Officer, operating insurance schemes for Parish Councils and Village Halls. She has 9 years of experience within the travel insurance industry. She began her career as a call handler and also handled the complaints for a well-known insurance provider. In her own time, Hannah enjoys spending time with her husband and two children

Horia Azizi

Social Enterprise Support Officer

Horia Azizi

Social Enterprise Support Officer

Horia Azizi comes from a legal background with experience in sales, and community service, holding a Master’s degree in International Trade and Commercial Law from Nottingham Trent University. She has developed organizational skills, provided language services, and has a background in sales and client relationship management. Additionally, she has been involved in community service, particularly supporting refugees and handling inquiries.

Jacqui Wilkinson

Training, Quality Standards and Safeguarding Development Officer

Jacqui Wilkinson

Training, Quality Standards and Safeguarding Development Officer

Jacqui is the Training, Quality Standards and Safeguarding Development Officer at Community Action Suffolk. Jacqui has spent over thirty years in the public and VCSE sectors and has had a varied career ranging from organising national conferences for the judiciary to Training manager to hostel housing manager and volunteer youth worker. Her commitment to the most vulnerable in society has resulted in the recurring themes in her career of: safeguarding, policy development, management, youth work and training. Jacqui has previously set up a voluntary group that supported adults who had mental health support needs. Jacqui is a qualified trainer and youth worker and since moving to Suffolk has spent the last fourteen years supporting the VCSE with safeguarding policies and procedures, training and quality standards.

Jacqui delivers the Equipped to Lead Safeguarding in the VCSE course as well as safeguarding courses and can develop bespoke courses on a range of topics including management and safeguarding.

Jacqui also offers 1 to 1 safeguarding surgeries for VCSE organisations to discuss and develop their own safeguarding policy and procedures.

CAS logo

Joanne Whight

Finance Officer

Joanne Whight

Finance Officer

Jo is the Finance Officer at Community Action Suffolk.
Jo has worked for CAS since 2015 and her role includes day to day financial tasks and assisting with the production of management accounts.

Kareena Chapman

Buildings Manager

Kareena Chapman

Buildings Manager

Kareena Chapman is the manager of the Kirkley Centre and manages the building contracts and tenants at Brightspace. She started working for Waveney Community Forum as the finance administrator in 2009 just before they took over the management of the Kirkley Centre in 2010 (Waveney Community Forum was one of the charities that merged to become Community Action Suffolk in 2013). Once WCF took over the Kirkley Centre, Kareena extended her role to cover centre bookings and administration. She took over as manager of the centre in 2014.

There is a small team at The Kirkley Centre and Kareena covers all aspects of the running of the centre from taking bookings and reception duties to arranging lease and maintenance contracts for the centre. Kareena attends local networking events and works in partnership with other groups to bring community events to The Kirkley Centre. At Brightspace she works with the tenants and contractors to look after the site.

Keith Shiels

Community Development Officer- Community Buildings

Keith Shiels

Community Development Officer- Community Buildings

Keith first joined CAS in November 2022 taking on the role of a Men’s Sheds Development Officer. He has since changed roles and works part time three days a week as a Community Buildings Development Officer. Keith’s previous career was in the Education Sector. He started out as a Geography and History Teacher at Benjamin Britten High School in 1985 and finally left the sector as Principal of the Lowestoft Sixth Form College in Summer 2022.

Kerry Overton

Volunteering Services Officer (Training and Learning)

Kerry Overton

Volunteering Services Officer (Training and Learning)

Kevin Burke

Kirkley Centre Administrator

Kevin Burke

Kirkley Centre Administrator

Kevin Burke is the Kirkley Centre administrator, he joined us in 2015. Kevin takes bookings and customer enquiries both on the reception desk and over the telephone. He also helps with room set ups and general centre business.

Louise Bradshaw

Louise Bradshaw

Associate Director of People & Cultural Development

Louise Bradshaw

Associate Director of People & Cultural Development

Louise has over 14 years experience in working for the voluntary and community sector across a range of areas including business support, marketing, finance and administration. Louise is now the HR manager and data officer for Community Action Suffolk and also manages the DBS at CAS service.

Louise is a member of the CIPD and is responsible for all aspects of HR from recruitment, selection and induction through to employee casework and maintaining and development of policies and procedures. She also oversees the DBS at CAS service and is the lead countersignatory. She responsible for the compliance of the service and advises customers on complex eligibility queries as well as deal with new customers.

Louise has a degree in business which has led to a particular interest in business and organisation development, and enjoys creating and developing systems and procedures to better the organisation.

Matthew Morling

Matthew Morling

ICT Manager

Matthew Morling

ICT Manager

Matthew is the IT Manager at CAS and has over 18 years experience in the IT industry – 15 of which has been at CAS.

Previous to CAS Matthew worked in a variety of roles in private business focussing on IT Support and website development.

At CAS, Matthew’s role is to provide leadership and management of all of CAS’s internal IT systems, providing day to day IT Support of these but also to head up its subsidiary company IT Services at CAS Ltd, which provides a suite of IT products for the voluntary and community sector. IT Services at CAS Ltd is an income generator for the organisation and this plays it’s part in helping CAS become more self sustainable. Matthew has a real passion for how digital technologies can help all types of organisations become more efficient.

Natalie Lomas

Resources Officer

Natalie Lomas

Resources Officer

Natalie has been with Community Action Suffolk and Suffolk ACRE previously, since 1998. Throughout her time she has worked on various projects and services across the organisation. Currently working in the role of Resources Officer, Natalie is involved with research and mapping for CAS and the VCSE sector, CAS network development, CRM reporting and impact measurement along with supervision of building maintenance for our Brightspace site in Ipswich.

Nellie Kuma

Project Officer (Talking About Cancer Together)

Nellie Kuma

Project Officer (Talking About Cancer Together)

Nellie has joined Community Action Suffolk as part of the VCFSE team to help increase awareness of support and services available, both locally and nationally, to those affected by cancer. Her role will be to facilitate connections, conditions and a setup which allows our communities to talk about cancer together.
She has a varied background and most recently has worked as a primary school teacher. She enjoys spending time with family, going for walks in the countryside, cooking and has recently started playing table tennis in her local community.

Sam Vinyard-Jones

Director of Innovation & Business Development

Sam Vinyard-Jones

Director of Innovation & Business Development

Samantha Vinyard-Jones joined CAS at the start of 2024 as Director of Innovation and Business Development. Her ambition is to accelerate the growth and expansion of our services, and she feels privileged to be supporting the invaluable VCFSE sector. Prior to joining us, she spent seven years at the New Anglia Growth Hub, starting in 2016 as a Business Advisor, supporting SMEs across Suffolk and Norfolk, and then as Manager for the final two and a half years of the European Union funded programme, which helped to create over 6500 jobs in the region and awarded over £47.5m in grants to SMEs during its nine-year duration. Sam originally moved to Suffolk from Manchester in 2006 to work at ICI Imagedata in Manningtree, an R&D centre, manufacturer of specialty coatings on paper and film substrates for a variety of innovative applications. As well as negotiating contracts, she contributed to the development of the Pictaflex digital imaging technology and travelled internationally as part of a small team of engineers to install cutting-edge industrial decoration systems. Outside of work, Sam loves to go on adventures and dog walks in the beautiful Suffolk countryside, which also provides inspiration for her passion for artwork, particularly oil paintings and watercolours of floral and landscape scenes. Sam says ‘it’s an absolute pleasure to be part of the amazing team at CAS, all of whom are so thoroughly dedicated to supporting the VCFSE sector, with the immense and endlessly varied good work the sector does for our communities. By building further on our range of high-quality services and introducing creative and innovative new solutions, I will be constantly motivated by the knowledge that the work I’m doing is benefitting those who do so much to benefit others’.

Sara Azeem

Community Food Partnership Officer

Sara Azeem

Community Food Partnership Officer

Sara is a Community Food Partnership Officer and has been in Ipswich since November 2023. She graduated from the University of Warwick in June 2023 with a BASc in Global Sustainable Development and Economics.

Previously, she has contributed to Coventry City Council’s climate change and sustainability team and worked as a Research Officer for Sustain: The Alliance for Better Food and Farming.

Beyond her professional life, she is a enthusiastic cook with a love for sports, particularly running and Muay Thai. She also finds joy in painting and reading, and spending time outdoors.

Sarah Lungley

Director of Operations

Sarah Lungley

Director of Operations

Hello, I’m Sarah and I have just joined CAS as their Director of Operations. I am thrilled to be joining at such an exciting time and in a new role for both myself and CAS.

My role will support the senior management team with Community and Voluntary Action, VCSFE Organisation Development alongside our VCSFE Engagement Lead and Climate Change Officer. I’ll be working closely with our CEO, Hannah, and the Executive Leadership Team to drive forward with our aims and developing services.

In my spare time I love to read, explore the countryside with our little dog Colin, or start a new DIY project. I very much enjoy being creative and working together to create change and positive impact.

In my working life so far I have been lucky enough to work with a variety of communities, organisations and projects or services in the VCSFE sector, and have a passion for mental health and wellbeing in particular. I believe Suffolk has an incredible amount to offer and I look forward to continuing to getting to know you all across the sector.

Simon Doling

Community Food Partnership Manager

Simon Doling

Community Food Partnership Manager

Simon has over twenty years’ experience of working with young people in both formal and informal settings. He was the officer for a two year county-wide youth music project, has worked offering IAG at Suffolk New College and more recently worked as youth employment coach with Inspire. Prior to that, he worked in a variety of roles in and around the music industry, as an artist manager, tour manager and sound engineer. He also still works as a musical accompanist for contemporary dance, plays in a band and organises the occasional gig too. Simon is committed, driven and equally passionate about assisting young people in achieving their ambitions and discovering their strengths, as he is about music. He comes into the role of Youth Focus Coordinator, hoping to make a significant impact in the development and support of youth work within the county.

Sophie Smith

Apprentice HR Administrator

Sophie Smith

Apprentice HR Administrator

Hi I’m Sophie and have just joined CAS as their Apprentice HR Administrator and am exciting to be joining such a brilliant team. My role within CAS is to assist Louise the Head of HR while learning and working to achieve my Level 3 HR administration qualification. In my free time I enjoy seeing family and friends, I enjoy being creative with crafts or trying out new recipes and baking different things for my partner to try as well as relaxing at home with my dog Polo.

Trevor Smith

Head of Voluntary and Community Action

Trevor Smith

Head of Voluntary and Community Action

An experienced executive who has held roles at director level in both the corporate and private sector for over 25 years. I am target driven individual who has the drive, enthusiasm, experience and expertise to take on any role, a team player and leader with a positive approach to any challenge placed in my path. Following a career in engineering with both British Gas and British Telecom, I retired to become Chairman of a National League Football Club, and then moved into local politics becoming a Parish Councillor and a board member of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils. I joined CAS in August 2022 as the Good Neighbour Network Development Officer before becoming the Head of V&CA in March 2023.