GREENBELT - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Partnerships and Content Coordinator
Amy Diana Poole has been attending Greenbelt Festival since 2003.
She has volunteered at Greenbelt in the Communion Team, The Orchard Stage and via organisations such as Pure Solutions, Beyond Church and Space to Breathe.
Amy has worked within Arts, Culture, Charity, Community Engagement and Events industries in various roles for over 10 years.
Outside work you can find her wandering around London, cycling, swimming, at a show or gallery.
Ben is the Director and Co-Founder of the charity Empathy Action.
He's worked in the charity sector for over 20 years. He started out by asking companies to give their surplus products for aid work to help developing an online humanitarian ‘eBay'-type portal to broker between business and charities across the world from what one group needs with what another has available.
Whilst working in facilitating partnership he discovered the role of empathy and perspective taking to inspire a new wave of creative partnering and stirring of compassionate action for the needs of the planet.
Ben has also been involved in a number of initiatives including the campaign to ask festival goers to donate, rather than leave behind, their tents for needs; bringing a Haitian earthquake survivor to the London 2012 Paralympic Games and more recently with the End Poverty 2030 group looking to stir up the local church to engage with the UN's The Global Goals.
Ben is a recent Greenbelt goer and loves the space it creates for fellowship, conversation and understanding.
He is propped up by an incredible wife and four boys.
Dave is chaplain to the St Ethelburga's Centre for Peace and Reconciliation and a writer whose books include How to be a Bad Christian and Black Sheep and Prodigals. He is a widely travelled speaker, and regularly broadcasts on Radio 2's ‘Pause for Thought' on the Zoe Ball Show. Dave is also a qualified teacher of the Enneagram, and a passionate Liverpool supporter.
Having trained as a model-maker, Derek spent 12 years making all kinds of things. Then, as one of the founders of Contour886, for 10 years he made a business of making things - establishing Countour886 as a leading provider of custom-made seating for wheelchair users in the UK.
Alongside this, he began to volunteer for Greenbelt Festival, eventually booking the Visual Arts Programme and chairing the Programme Group. In 2013, Derek joined the staff team at Greenbelt, combining his creative and business experience to help make the Festival.
Covering many roles since, he became Managing Director in 2020.
A father of three twenty-somethings he also aspires to be a potter, but never quite seems to find the time these days.
Job Titles:
- Project Officer at Our Partner Christian Aid
A curious, travel loving, former solicitor from Scotland, Gordon found his way to the Divine Fairtrade chocolate fountain at Greenbelt via long spells in the financial services and retail industries as an in-house lawyer and company secretary. A lay leader of worship at his local church, he spent 8 years as a trustee with a pioneering furniture reuse/recycling charity and has been a scout leader for over 10 years. He is looking forward to new experiences of camping, faith and recycling at Greenbelt with wife and family, but sadly not his ageing springer spaniel, Archie.
Graham Wilson is Greenbelt's Finance Chair.
Graham has been a Director of Finance within the social housing sector for 20 years, involved in corporate strategy, private financing and business planning. Prior to this, he held senior positions within local authorities and the private sector. After studying Maths at Nottingham University, he qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He subsequently achieved an MBA from Manchester Business School and is part way through studying for a Theology degree.
In his spare time, Graham is a Lay Reader in the Church of England and has previously been a School Governor and a Finance Committee Chair. He lives in the Lake District in Cumbria and loves walking in the fells. He is also a keen runner and has run 8 marathons in the last two years.
Graham and his family have been enthusiastic Greenbelters for the past 9 years and this year Graham is delighted to contribute to the running of the festival as Trustee.
Job Titles:
- Stakeholder and Commercial Coordinator
Hannah started at Greenbelt in 2017. She is inspired by cats and musicals, but not the musical Cats as that's terrible.
Jess studied Peace and Development and Bradford Uni, and discovered a love for creating events. Organising everything from student trips abroad, gigs, protests and more. She's been organising events in both a professional and voluntary capacity since.
This led her to Greenbelt, where she not only found a place where she could offer her skills in events, but a place that felt like home for her activism, faith, people passion and love of debate.
She lives at home with her husband, Will and collie dog Juno; who loves nothing more to ramble over Yorkshire countryside and play fetch at every opportunity.
Joanna studied Music at the University of Sheffield where she developed a fascination with performing arts across a range of cultures, researching the role they play in our lives and societies.
Since then she's been exploring her love of live events working across the music, film and TV, and charity sectors. Outside of work she's been exploring her love of wandering round bookshops and drinking coffee.
Katherine has worked within the arts industry in various roles for 13 years. With passion and experience in both the arts and music sector she joined Greenbelt in 2014 and has been working on booking the programme ever since.
Katherine is on the board of the Association of Independent Festivals and a vocal advocate for keeping a strong, independent arts sector alive in the UK.
Katie's background is in international development and environmental sustainability and she currently works for Christian Aid as the Head of Strategy and Development, a role that combines the development of people and the organisation alongside strategic programmes like Christian Aid's new decarbonisation strategy. Prior to this she led church engagement teams across the south of England mobilising people to prayer and action for social justice. She is passionate about empowering and releasing the potential of others, particularly those who are often overlooked or misrepresented.
Having spent time in Kenya and Belize on eco-development programmes, Katie spent eight years in the charity Trees for Cities working across areas of London with high deprivation creating community-designed gardens and open spaces alongside vocational training for young people in long-term unemployment.
Katie's journey with Greenbelt started from the tender age of seven months and she's not missed many since then! Greenbelt has been the inspiration for creating her own local faith and environment festivals and has fuelled both the resilience of her faith and the curiosity of her theology. She is absolutely thrilled to be able to serve the organisation as a trustee.
Liz was born and raised in London, before the back pages of the NME inspired the live music lover to move to Manchester in her late teens. She never looked back.
Liz is the UK Design Director for a major global consultancy that specialises in design solutions that serve the communities they work in. A Chartered Civil Engineer, she specialises in water and environmental improvement programmes and is passionate about helping creative thinkers (from all sections of society) fulfil their potential and help find technical solutions to the major challenges facing our world.
Her interests in water, engineering, regenerating urban environments and wild rural landscapes, combine in her favourite pastime of cycling along the canal networks of the north-west with her partner .
Having first discovered Greenbelt with a group of friends as a teenager, Liz has been a long term part of the volunteer community and is one of the Festival Operations Managers.
Job Titles:
- Gifts and Community Engagement Officer
Lois has been coming to Greenbelt since 2006 (Redemption Songs, for those who track the years by theme) and did a lot of her growing up in fields over August bank holidays amongst friends, family and miles of colourful bunting. A journey through a Politics undergrad, an internship at CAP and four years at Tearfund now brings Lois to work at Greenbelt. Outside of work, you can find Lois in one of London's many museums, theatres or parks, and knitting whenever she finds a moment.
Louise Jones is a former frontline child protection Social Worker who now works as a Service Manager for Cafcass, advising the family courts about the welfare of children. She's also Chair of the Cafcass faith network, supporting staff from different faiths and spiritualities, and shaping the way the organisation works with children and families of different faith backgrounds.
Louise first attended Greenbelt over 20 years ago, volunteering in the kids tent at Cheltenham. She loves that Greenbelt is a place to hear new ideas and new music, and, after so many years, that it feels like coming home - an anchor point in the year.
Away from all that, Louise enjoys reading, spending time with friends, and if she's completely honest, watching the telly. She also spends a lot of time volunteering at her church, Oasis Church Waterloo, where's she part of the kids team, the pastoral team, and the making-Sunday-services-happen team.
Nick works is finance, tech and governance, helping businesses and charities make an impact. He's a big supporter of the real living wage, and is also a foster carer, cyclist and parkrunner.
He leads greenbeltrun, the festival's very own 5k event.
Nick loves Greenbelt's vision of arts, faith and justice - challenging society to look upwards and outwards, whilst enabling people of faith to think bigger and better.
Paul has variously made his living from being in a band, working for a church, writing marketing copy, and then as a staffer at Greenbelt. He's had a lifelong passion for all things cultural and theological (studying English and theology at different points along the way).
First coming to Greenbelt as a conflicted 18 year-old, he felt instantly at home, realising for the first time that his village chapel upbringing could belong together with his love of the arts after all. Having the opportunity to work for Greenbelt all these years later still feels like some sort of dream.
He's dad to four teenage boys and married to his artist wife Chantal. When not consumed with the festival, he has, together with Chantal, been working hard on building a sustainable family home from scratch as well as running as much as possible.
Saga is a Royal College of Art trained artist and designer with a passion for place making. With an ace team of volunteers she's created the site decor for Greenbelt since 2008.
Sam has been coming to the festival for over 30 years and is passionate about Greenbelt and what it stands for; a place to explore and relax, to be challenged and share our journeys, a place to belong and be accepted as a unique expression of God's love. Sam is definitely proud to describe herself as a Greenbelter.
Sam has had a wide-ranging career focused on delivering transformational change programmes in the public (NHS, central and local government), private (digital transformation) and charity/voluntary sectors. She describes her role as delivering transformation through working with people to tackle complex problems and co-design solutions that deliver positive outcomes.
Her current role is as Director of Transformation for Norfolk County Council, where's she enjoying working near to her home in Norwich, which she shares with her partner and cat.
Sam is a person of faith and pursues personal transformation through deeper understanding of God's love for us all and what it means to live it. She is very happy to call St Luke's in Norwich her church.
Sam also enjoys time with family and friends, often over good food and drink. Sam also practices the Korean martial art of Kuk Sool Won. (So don't mess with her!)
Simon is currently a full time Senior Lecturer in Arts & Festivals Management at De Montfort University in Leicester. He has over 20 years' experience working within the cultural sector and previously worked within the local authority as a Senior Festivals and Events Officer directly managing and supporting on a variety of major events for Leicester City Council including the city's celebrations for Leicester City Football Club's remarkable premiership win! He has also worked as Managing Director of Artreach, a cultural development charity and Arts Council National Portfolio organisation, delivering festivals across various cities and towns around the country.
His first festival experience was at 15 when he attended Greenbelt, and this had a big influence on his journey of faith, and he is excited to now be part of the festival's future. He values the positive impact creativity can have in communities, bringing social change, and as an exploration of faith.
Simon lives in Leicester with his wife and two teenagers, and enjoys paddleboarding, long dog walks and playing the occasional DJ set.