If you would like to contact a specific member of staff by e-mail, please click on the relevant name or telephone the main Plunkett number on 01993 810730.
Peter Couchman - Chief Executive
Peter is Chief Executive of the Plunkett Foundation. As part of this role, he is the Director of Making Local Food Work, the BIG Lottery funded programme. He came to the post after spending his career so far in the Co-operative Movement, where he was best known for helping to make Oxford, Swindon & Gloucester Co-op an internationally recognised example for engaging members and marketing its co-operative identity. He serves the Social Enterprise Coalition Council, Defra’s Civil Society Advisory Board, Defra's Social Enterprise Strategic Partnership and Community Retail Network Board in Scotland.. He is a fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). He writes a regular blog called Plunkett Perspectives (www.plunkettfoundation.blogspot.com) and tweets @PeterCouchman
Kathryn Morrison – Company Secretary and Operations Manager
Kathryn comes from a farming family and has a background in corporate banking. She joined Plunkett Foundation in 2002 and as the Company Secretary she acts as the confidential clerk to the Board of Trustees and is the keeper of essential books and records. As Operations Manager she works with the Head of Finance and Accounting on the day-to-day management of the financial operations of the Foundation. She has sole responsibility for the Foundations HR function and also for Plunkett’s facilities and office environment. She is currently studying for a Masters in Human Resource Management.
kathryn.morrison@plunkett.co.uk
Denise Ault – Projects Manager
Denise Ault has a life-long interest in food, farming and the countryside, which she has now developed into a career as a consultant, working part-time for the Plunkett Foundation, as well as pursuing independent research projects. After a successful career in publishing, Denise returned to education in 2000 to study for an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) at Oxford Brookes University. She graduated in 2003, having completed a dissertation on "Supply Chain Management in the UK Organic Meat Sector: the SME Producer Perspective". The dissertation was awarded a mark of 88 percent, and won the Business School Prize for the best dissertation of 2002-3. The MBA at Oxford Brookes has a special focus on small and medium-sized businesses, and some modules are based at the Business School's Entrepreneurship Centre, which supports small business development throughout the UK. She joined the Plunkett Foundation in 2004 as a Projects Manager and currently leads the Making Local Food Work programme strand supporting farmers' markets.
Mike Perry – Head of Information and Communication
Mike joined the Plunkett Foundation in May 2006. Mike previously worked for Oxford University Press before joining the Plunkett Foundation. He is a graduate in BA (Hons) Business Administration and grew up in a family run farm in Worcestershire. Mike leads on Plunkett communications and policy work. Mike is also an associate board member of the Community Land Trust Network. You can follow Mike on Twitter by following @Mike_Plunkett
Jennifer Smith – Head of Programme Management, Making Local Food Work
Jennifer joined Plunkett in September 2004, initially managing Rural Revival, a grant programme providing support to rural social enterprises. Since this time she has worked on a number of grant programmes. Her projects have focused on social inclusion, rural issues, social enterprise, community development, community asset development and local food. In September 2007, Jennifer was promoted to manage the Making Local Food Work programme; this programme focuses on supporting social enterprises that are enabling access to local food in their communities.
Gill Withers – Project Development
Gill currently leads on consultancy and also develops projects for the Plunkett Foundation. She joined the organisation in 2005 as the Community Retail Manager responsible for supporting and developing community-owned village shops. She is a graduate BA (Cantab) in Natural Sciences and prior to joining the Plunkett Foundation worked in industry and the NHS. Since 2000 she has been actively involved in the set up and running of the Tackley All-in-One Centre with its community-owned shop and cafe in the village hall.
Donna Smith – Projects Manager, Community Retailing
Donna joined the Plunkett Foundation in September 2004 as Projects Assistant in the Consultancy and Training Division. She is now taking on the role of assisting Plunkett in its support towards community-owned village shops. Prior to this she worked for 15 years for West Oxfordshire District Council dealing with statistics and subsidies, and then went on to study for an HND at Oxford Brookes University in Business and Finance. Donna's role within the Plunkett Foundation is to manage projects relating to community-owned shops.
Harriet English - Campaigns and Events Officer
Harriet joined the Plunkett Foundation in December 2008 as support to the Rural Community Shops Projects. Having been brought up in rural West Oxfordshire she has always had a keen interest in the countryside. Harriet graduated from the University of Exeter in 2006 with a BA in Human Geography. Before joining the Plunkett Foundation, Harriet spent 18 months with the Performance Improvement Team with the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust. In May 2010 Harriet became our Campaigns and Events Officer, leading on developing a range of campaigns and events across the Plunkett Foundation and Making Local Food Work.
harriet.english@plunkett.co.uk
James Alcock – Community Retail Manager
James is the Community Retail Manager at the Plunkett Foundation leading on our range of projects and services supporting the development of community-owned village shops. James joined the Plunkett Foundation in August 2007 to project manage Regional support programmes. Among these was Strengthening Rural Communities across the Northwest – a programme which provided grant and specialist enterprise support to rural community owned services – ranging from rural retail, health, leisure and financial services. James has managed a mentoring programme for community owned food enterprises, Skillshare, funded through the Making Local Food Work Programme, and Rural Retail Skills, a programme which aims to up-skill those supporting and working with community owned retail enterprises. Prior to working for the Plunkett Foundation, James worked at Oxfordshire Rural Community Council as a Rural Housing Enabler. James is a BA (Hons) and MSc by Research graduate in Human Geography, both of which focused on rural community issues.
Katherine Darling - Media and Communications Officer
Katherine joined the Plunkett Foundation in August 2010 as Media and Communications Officer. She holds a BA (Hons) in English Language from the University of Huddersfield, where she also worked as PR Officer prior to joining the Foundation. Having had the benefit of a rural Yorkshire upbringing, Katherine has a deep-rooted knowledge of the countryside and its people and is passionate about raising awareness of the issues facing communities today. Her role involves ensuring the work of the Plunkett Foundation and Making Local Food Work is communicated successfully to as wide an audience as possible.
katherine.darling@plunkett.co.uk
Peter Stimpson – Head of Finance and Accounting
Peter has been with the Plunkett Foundation since 2007 joining from the private sector to work initially on the Making Local Food Work programme and, as a qualified management accountant, heading up the Finance function within the organisation. More recently he has led on developing Plunkett’s role in Village SOS and now leads both Plunkett’s Village SOS Events and Advice Teams in addition to his Finance role.
Eileen Keenan – Projects Administrator, Making Local Food Work
Eileen joined in March 2008 as Central Support Administrator within the projects team. She currently supports the Making Local Food Work team. Eileen previously worked for the NFU and now lives in rural Oxfordshire.
Ceinwen Lally – Project Officer – Farmers' Markets, Making Local Food Work
Ceinwen joined the Plunkett Foundation in March 2008 to work on the farmers' market strand of the Making Local Food Work Programme. Ceinwen has previous experience of the local food sector having worked as a business manager for a farmers' market co-operative. She has also worked for a disability charity, 3M UK and as a free-lance marketing consultant. She has an MBA from Warwick Business School. She will be responsible for helping to set up collaborative farmers' markets groups throughout England.
Nicole Hamilton – Project Officer – Local Food and Local Shops, Making Local Food Work
Nicole joined the Plunkett Foundation in May 2009 and leads our work supporting community-run shops to stock and sell more locally produced food, thereby also creating valuable retail outlets for small-scale producers. She is a graduate BA (Hons) in Hospitality Management and prior to joining Plunkett Nicole spent 14 years working with foods including roles in food procurement for 3663 and Intercontinental Hotels.
nicole.hamilton@plunkett.co.uk
Olivia Gardner - Projects Assistant, Making Local Food Work
Olivia joined the Plunkett Foundation in July 2010 as a Project Assistant for Making Local Food Work. She currently supports the Local Food and Local Shops and Enterprise Support projects. Prior to joining Plunkett, Olivia worked for four years at the Midcounties Co-operative as a Membership Development Co-ordinator, organising and managing membership engagement and events.
Richard Snow, Enterprise Support, Making Local Food Work
Richard is project manager for Enterprise Support, responsible for brokering business support and mentoring to clients throughout England for the Making Local Food Work Programme at Plunkett. Richard has a background in commercial business and social enterprise support, and joined Plunkett from Co-operative Futures, where he spent 3 years helping co-operatives and social enterprises in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire with start up and ongoing business issues. Richard is also chief executive of Oxford Wood Recycling, a social firm, voted European Social Firm of 2010 at Social Firms UK’s conference in Cambridge, July 2010.
Nina Dales, Field Officer - Local Food Systems, Making Local Food Work
Nina joined the Plunkett Foundation in January 2011 as the field officer for the Local Food Systems Project. Before joining the Plunkett Foundation she developed, delivered and facilitated various community and environmental regeneration projects including community food enterprise. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Applied Ecology and a postgraduate certificate in Social Enterprise Management. Nina is based in the North West and for the past 10 years, much of her work focused on deprived urban areas. She has a keen interest in rural development having been brought up in the countryside. Her role at Plunkett is to support and facilitate six communities across England to develop a sustainable local food system, in their geographic area, through collaborative activities.
Tamara Schiopu, Project Manager - Local Food Systems, Making Local Food Work
Tamara joined the Plunkett Foundation in January 2011 as Project Manager and is leading on the Local Food Systems strand, helping community groups to create resilient food systems in their area. Tamara received her MBA from the University of California in 2002 with an emphasis on Corporate Environmental Management. Since 2003, when she moved to England, Tamara worked as Manager of the Local Food Group for Berks, Bucks and Oxon and developed the food group into a social enterprise as a Community Interest Company. Tamara also runs her private consultancy, organising local food events and festivals. With her husband, a leading organic grower, Tamara has an interest in food, sustainable farming and grassroots organisational issues.
Katie Pittaway – Communities Assistant
Katie joined the Plunkett Foundation in May 2011 as Communities Assistant. Initially Katie will assist the Community Retail Team by providing support to community-owned village shops; however, as her role develops Katie will also provide guidance to a wider range of community owned enterprises. Katie is a graduate in Bsc (Hons) Geography and Environmental Management and is very passionate about helping rural communities take ownership of issues that face them. Prior to working for the Plunkett Foundation Katie worked with rural communities in Gloucestershire as a Community Resilience Liaison Officer for Cotswold District Council.
Alissa Pemberton - Village SOS Active Advice Line Manager
For the last decade Alissa Pemberton has worked in the local food sector, first in the development of farmers markets and then in agriculture with a particular focus on local food systems. She wrote one of the earliest reports on how a city feeds itself for her home of Milton Keynes, which led to the creation of a successful community run farm and the adoption of land use strategies within planning policy to support local food development. Alissa has worked as a food co-ops adviser for Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming and for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Previously for the Plunkett Foundation, Alissa has mentored a number of Country Markets as part of the enterprise support strand of the Making Local Food Work programme. She is an experienced facilitator with a wide knowledge of how to excite people about local food. She joins us to manage the new national Village SOS Active Advice Line.
alissa.pemberton@plunkett.co.uk
Paul Chamberlain – Village SOS Active Advice Line Officer
Paul joined the Plunkett Foundation in July 2011 as an Advice Line Officer for Village SOS Active. Paul has worked in the Voluntary and Community, public and private sectors. He has experience, as both a paid worker and volunteer, in the Voluntary and Community Sector. He has been a volunteer learning mentor, for young people, in a community based organisation and is currently a volunteer Trustee Board member of a local Citizens’ Advice Bureau in the Midlands. Previously, Paul worked for the Dept for Work and Pensions, where he has experience of contract management, procurement, contractor fraud, payment protection and training and development. Paul has a BSC (Hons) in Social Science with Politics. Paul enjoys walking and travel both in the UK and abroad.
paul.chamberlain@plunkett.co.uk
Jonathan Payne - Village SOS Active Advice Line Officer
Jonathan joined the Plunkett Foundation in July 2011 as part of the Village SOS Active Advice Line to provide advice and assistance to community enterprises or people interested in setting up a community enterprise. This involves identifying the support needs for the customer and referring them to the most appropriate partner organization. After graduating from Cardiff University with a Bsc (Hons) in Enviornmental Geoscience, Jonathan has worked for Support and Development for Oxford City Council and as a Technical Energy Advisor for the Carbon Trust. Jonathan now lives in rural Oxfordshire and is passionate about all aspects of sustainable living.
Monica Dolan - Village SOS Active Events Manager
Hannah Barrett - Village SOS Active Events Officer
Coming from a farming family and having lived and worked in Oxfordshire all her life, Hannah has a real passion for rural people, their livelihoods and their communities. After graduating from the University of Nottingham with a Ba (Hons) in Geography, Hannah has subsequently worked as an Events Manager helping to establish and run a successful wedding venue in the Cotswolds. Joining the Plunkett Foundation in August 2011 as part of the Village SOS Active Events Team, Hannah will be involved in the organisation and running of the Village SOS Active Roadshows which will commence on the 6th October in Londonderry.
Clare Stimpson - Village SOS Active Events Officer
Clare joined Plunkett in August 2011 as part of the Village SOS Active events team, helping set up a series of awareness raising road shows. She has come from a position in Reward and Engagement in the private sector where she had a large role in setting up Health and Wellbeing roadshows at the company’s various sites across the country. Clare graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2008 before moving to outback Australia, where she lived for 2 years. Having spent the majority of her time in very remote locations she developed, and has maintained, an interest in all aspects of rural living and rural communities.