Many, many people have had input into the creation of The Great Collaboration and its Toolkit. Here are some of the people currently involved.
Andrew Maliphant
After 8 years as a parish and town clerk and 3 years as a parish councillor, Andrew has brought his experience of chairing a community library to the delivery and sharing of good practice in voluntary climate action. He is currently Environmental & Sustainability Advisor for the Society of Local Council Clerks (SLCC) and deputy chair of the Climate Emergency Network being run by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), as well as being NALC’s representative on the Government’s Local Net Zero Forum.
Belinda Bawden
After a career in transport policy, international shipping and marketing research, Belinda worked in education, youth services and the voluntary sector. Frustrated by the lack of political action on the climate and biodiversity crises, she was elected to Lyme Regis Town Council and co-founded the Dorset Climate Action Network in 2019. She delivers Carbon Literacy training to town and parish councillors and staff and was elected to the new unitary Dorset Council for the Green Party in a by-election in 2022.
Claudine Pearson
Claudine is a Support Officer with a climate lens for Warwickshire and West Midlands Association of Local Councils. She has 8 years’ experience as a Parish Councillor with special responsibility for flood mitigation and has worked at District Council level in Conservation and Landscape and Building Control. She puts her sales, networking and communication skills developed in her career prior to family to good use, as a community fundraiser and trustee of a litter picking charity.
Graham Stoddart-Stones
Not content with being a councillor in just one village, Graham became a parish councillor and chair of the Finance & Governance Committee on moving to Bembridge (Isle of Wight) in 2023, whilst retaining his seat at Long Sutton in Somerset through a work connection. A passionate believer in the power of digital mapping, (he runs training classes in Parish Online), he has used it to determine the best places to install public electric vehicle charging points in Bembridge. His earlier careers in the Royal Navy, and then taking an IT start-up company from 2 employees to 102, with clients on every continent except Antarctica, have given him the experience of working with a fast-moving, fast-growing business in a volatile world.
Joolz Thompson
Joolz is a Parish Councillor in Hopton cum Knettishall, Suffolk. He has spent 25 years in the private sector working on software development and mapping applications, and now works for the Suffolk Farming and Wildlife Group as a Business Development Consultant – helping farmers transition to more sustainable agriculture and connecting communities with those who grow their food. Joolz is a founder of the Community Benefit Society iFarm and managing director of Community Climate Action UK, working to support local climate action around the country.