Village Water Unpaid Trustees 

David Dixon	Guy Hudson	John Irwin
Chris Morley	Jane Turnell-Read	Hugh Boam Woodhouse

 

David John Dixon:

David is the founder of Village Water and is a chartered civil engineer with degrees in hydraulics and hydrology. Most recently he was self-employed in construction waste and property development in Britain and Italy.  David's Telford-based waste company won the West Midlands Innovation Award. He has twice been a guest at a Royal Garden Party, firstly when he was invited to represent business and then through his service as a Mentor to candidates of the Princes Trust. Recently, David and his wife Annice won the Achievements Awards in the UK's Landlord Of The Year Show 2009 for their work in housing large and vulnerable, low-income families.

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Guy Hudson:

Guy Hudson has a degree in Physics with Economics. His career has spanned vehicle engineering and IT management and consulting. He has been CIO and programme manager for a large international  software developments and implementations. He is the founder chair and active member of the UK Dowsing Research Group and has served as a trustee of the British Society of Dowsers. He is an experienced water utility and health dowser and was a  founder trustee of Village Water. His project management and engineering experience has been useful in assisting Village Water, particularly as his knowledge and understanding of  Zambian society has grown. His special interests are in getting the programmes ever more effective with tight cost controls. For the longer term Guy is also focussing on improving the costs and effectiveness of health and sanitation education, water point provision and maintenance, and local capacities, so that eventually villagers can be independent of Village water. He sees the teaching of Heath & Sanitation trainers and use of cost-efficient, appropriate water point technology as key enablers. Guy served 6 months as a part-time CEO before we recruited our full time Director. Professionally he is a consultant to the water sector solving water supply problems in the UK and overseas.

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John Irwin:

John was one of the founding members of Canning, the international training and development company, based in London.   Dealing with every aspect of the management of a people-based business from its inception was a tough, thorough and practical training. While still maintaining a close relationship with Canning and being a founder and active member of its charitable trust, John has been an independent consultant since 1995.

With a lifelong interest in exploring human potential,  he took up dowsing and joined the British Society of Dowsers. He eventually served on their Council for seven years to then be awarded an Honorary Life Vice-Presidency of the Society. Through the BSD, John met David Dixon as he was developing the concept of Village Water.  John first went out to Zambia to see the work of Village Water in 2005. Since then he has been very actively involved and is now the Chair of Trustees. 

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Chris Morley:

Chris has worked for a number of the UKs largest and best known companies (Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Virgin Atlantic) in marketing, operational and IT roles. More recently he has switched to working in the third sector and is currently the Marketing Communications Manager for the National Gardens Scheme (NGS). Chris has a degree in Geography and a Masters in Agricultural Economics (Marketing) which, when coupled with his work experience, has resulted in Chris gaining a wide range of knowledge and experiences of benefit to the team at Village Water. His association with Village Water started in 2001 by shaking buckets to collect money at one of the very first Virgin Music Festivals. Since then he has become an integral part of the team who have turned the annual event into Village Water's main fundraiser. Chris sees his role as a trustee as being twofold: to ensure that as much of each £ donated is spent on improving the water and sanitation provision of rural communities in Zambia, and, secondly, to bring the experience he has gained in both the commercial and charity sectors to Village Water, blending these with the knowledge and wisdom of his fellow trustees.

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Jane Thurnell-Read:

Jane Thurnell-Read is a former university lecturer in sociology and management studies. She worked as a volunteer English teacher at a teacher training college in Botswana from 1969 to 1971.For over 20 years she worked as a complementary therapy practitioner. She also taught students and therapists in USA, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Russia, as well as the UK. She has published 7 books and written numerous articles on health and therapies, as well as being interviewed on the radio and television. She has a very successful online business selling testing kits to therapists worldwide. She has been a committed supporter of water charities for many years. Within Village Water she seeks to represent the views of individual donors rather than larger organisations and charitable trusts. She is also closely involved with the development and improvement of the Village Water web site.

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Hugh Boam Woodhouse:

Hugh was born in County Down,  Northern Ireland. After studying at  Dublin University he worked as a UN volunteer in the Sudan, then moved to Canada and qualified as a Chartered Accountant.  On his return to the UK he worked in public accounting before moving to the Commonwealth Development Corporation where  he worked as a financial analyst for Loan and Investment Officers.  He moved to Standard Chartered Merchant Bank as Deputy Chief Accountant and, following a merger with another bank, transferred internally to the Project Advisory Group. Following redundancy he joined the Bank of Nova Scotia working as a Financial Analyst and Advisor in their European & Asian Treasury support group in London. He was transferred to  Singapore to set up the Scotia Capital’s Regional Treasury Risk Management and latterly adding the trading aspect of the Asian regional branch network. On completion of that assignment he returned to London to continue monitoring each Asian groups’ trading risk from London. Since then he has worked in several London charities in a programme finance role.  Hugh is responsible for finance and accounting within the charity.

 

 

There are also two paid UK staff.