Trustees
On this page...
- Trustee bios
- Ask the board
- Minutes from board meetings
Meet Transition Network’s Trustees
The charity is governed by a small board of trustees who meet every 12 weeks (approx). Here is the smiling band.
Peter Lipman (chair) is policy director at sustainable transport charity Sustrans. He's also chair of trustees of the Centre for Sustainable Energy, and was involved with setting up Transition Bristol.
Every time Pete cycles down a street in Bristol, he sees two scenes - what's there and what's possible. As well as seeing the highway designed for an endless stream of half-tonne machines, he can imagine what it might look like if the people living there redesigned the street for themselves as a liveable neighbourhood. Street furniture, plantings that disrupt line of sight for drivers, different colours, all sorts of things...
Pete has two daughters, Martha and Caitlin, and can often be found wearing shorts in the depths of winter.
Ruth Ben-Tovim has worked as a professional artist and creative consultant for 20 years, using the transformational power of the arts to work creatively with thousands of people in the arts, public, private, education and voluntary sectors. She is now based in Totnes, Devon.
She specialises in participation; devising, delivering and managing participatory arts projects and programmes within community, regeneration, environmental, education, and place-making contexts, that inspire creativity, dialogue and exchange. She is the Creative Director of Encounters-arts, using disused shop spaces to co-author artworks with people and places of all ages and backgrounds, mapping and collecting personal histories and other evidence of everyday life.
She is also work as a freelance artist, lecturer and dramaturg and have recently been part of a national cultural leadership programme called Taking Up Space that advocates for the role of participatory arts in engaging people at a local level, strengthening a sense of belonging and place and building collaboration. I have been involved in Transition since 2008.
William Lana is co-founder and owner of Greenfibres an organic textile company started in 1996. He is Chairman of the Soil Association’s Organic Textile Standards Committee and of the Ethical and Environmental Marketing Group. He is also a trustee of a number of charities including the Environmental Justice Foundation, Transition Network, and the Naturesave Trust as well as an elected member of the Organic Trade Group.
In a previous life William worked in the City and on Wall Street in the 80’s, and in Brussels in the 90’s for the External Relations Directorate of EU Commission. He has 2 kids Megan (13) and Max (11), and lives in Totnes.
G
ary Alexander joined us as a trustee in March 2010. He retired from the Technology Faculty at the Open University after 37 years, where he was a pioneer in putting distance learning on-line, with an emphasis on collaborative learning and on-line support communities.
He is the author of eGaia, Growing a peaceful sustainable Earth through communication. You can find more about it and his positive vision for the future on his website, and learn about his community projects, especially the Diss Community Farm and the Fair Green Neighbourhood Association, and read some of his papers and talks on sustainable communities. 
He is passionate about dancing tango, which he sees as very relevant to his work as a trustee: Staying very much in the present moment, aware of and responsive to your partner, presenting a clear image of who you are and what you stand for, and dancing to the everchanging moods and rhythyms of the music.
He and his wife have 3 children and 4 grandchildren between them.
Sarah Nicholl joined us as a trustee in March 2010. She is one of the organisers of Transition Belsize, in the North London Borough of Camden, where she is a member of the Steering group and currently coordinates the Arts group and co-runs the Food group.
Since leaving Art College in 1997 Sarah has been working within the charitable, educational and environmental sectors, amongst other posts as a Youth worker and Youth Arts Coordinator. In 2007 Sarah joined the Gaia Foundation, an international environmental charity, where she was responsible for developing and running their Learning Centre. She continues to work at the Gaia Foundation as a Consultant.
Sarah grows vegetables and herbs in the front garden, is fascinated and inspired by the optimistic possibilities of permaculture, forages for wild foods on Hampstead Heath, and is passionate about the potential for the arts to offer a transformative, interwoven journey through the transitioning process. She is dedicated to both learning and sharing skills and is working in the local community to promote and deliver practical, hands on workshops and events, including draught busting, local food growing & production, mending & sewing…
Sarah McAdam
Bio to follow...
Clare Pavitt joined the Board in January 2011. With a career spanning central and local government, the voluntary sector, broadcasting, the police service and higher education, Clare has more than twenty five years experience supporting organisations on their equality and diversity journeys and has a passion for removing barriers to access and inclusion.
When she is not doing that you will find her making gardens and baking cakes in the Peak District.
Tony Greenham (Treasurer) is the Head of Finance and Business at nef (the new economics foundation) where he leads work on reform of the financial system.
He was involved in setting up Transition Lostwithiel in Cornwall and was a Trustee of Transition Town Totnes before joining the Board of Transition Network. He currently also sits on the government’s Regional Growth Fund Advisory Panel.
The first half of his career was as a Chartered Accountant and investment banker until he became disillusioned with the absurdities and greed of the dot.com bubble. A moment of truth came when enthusing to a colleague about a book on sustainability and being asked “Tony, why exactly are you an investment banker?” He realised it had all been a horrible mistake and moved to Cornwall to set up an ethical food business with his partner. They have an eight-year old son, and now live in Sussex.
Ex-trustee Brian Goodwin passed away in July 2009. He was a truly inspirational member of the board, frequently providing insightful comments about the patterns of nature and how they might be applied to the organisation Transition Network and to the wider field of transition.
Foxgloves were one of his favorite flowers, and we reckon that Brian was probably one of their favorite people.
Brian, you're missed, never forgotten. It was an honour and privilege to work with you.
"Ask the Board"
If you've got a question that you'd like our board to answer, please email us and we'll deal with your question as soon as we can - we'll try using the forums as a vehicle for this so that the collective wisdom of the trustees (large dollop of poetic license in evidence here) can be shared around.
Transparency: board minutes from 2009
Our board minutes record mainly the actions arising rather than going into all the detail of the discussion that lead to them. We hope it makes them more punchy and readable. The meetings, while being hard work in terms of preparation and resulting actions, are actually a lot of fun, but it's doubtful that the documentation reflects that.