Federation Board Members (Trustees)

Martin Davies OBE - Chair
Martin has been Chair of the Emmaus UK Trustees since March 2005 and is Chair of Emmaus Sheffield Trustees. He retired in September 2002 as Deputy Chief Constable of South Yorkshire after 38 years as a police officer. His work has given him an understanding of diversity and disadvantage in the community and he has committed much of his retirement to these issues.

Hilary Armstrong
The Rt. Hon. Hilary Armstrong MP for North West Durham joined the Emmaus UK Trustee board in May 2008.She was first elected to parliament in 1987. In 1992 she was made Parliamentary Private Secretary to the late John Smith MP. After Labour's 1997 general election victory she was appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions with responsibility for Local Government and Housing. In 2001 Hilary was given the cabinet position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and Government Chief Whip. In May 2006, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, appointed Hilary to the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Social Exclusion. In June 2007, Hilary announced her decision to step down from the Government and return to the backbenches after 18 years as a Party spokesperson and Government Minister.

David Bex
David has been Community Leader of Emmaus St. Albans since 2004. Before that he worked as an estate manager, ran several businesses, and, following a year as a volunteer running self-development courses for 16-25 year olds for the Princes' Trust, was appointed Area Co-ordinator for the programme in Devon.

Raja Gomez
Raja's skills lie in the fields of Strategic Planning, Human Resource Development and Training. After serving as a Director in the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association until 2003, he now works as a researcher and consultant, carrying out assignments for such organisations as the World Bank and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London. Raja also advises on the Youth Ministry at his local Church and is a Trustee at Emmaus Greenwich.

John Grieves
John was a corporate lawyer with Freshfields, now one of the largest law firms in the world, for 33 years, eventually becoming Senior Partner. Since retiring in 1996 he has had a collection of appointments including as a non-executive director and chairman of various public companies. He has served on his parochial church council and as a Governor of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, a theological college. He has a long standing interest in homelessness and was involved at Board level with the Church Housing Trust. John is a Trustee of Emmaus South Lambeth.

Clive Hewitt
Clive's professional background was in educational media and his career included a period in the USA, and posts at the University of Leeds and Brighton Polytechnic. He has considerable experience in the voluntary sector and was a founder Trustee of Sussex Emmaus and the Brighton Community. He remains on the Sussex Emmaus Board and is Assistant Treasurer. Retired in 1991, he now lives in Wellington Somerset and is involved in several other voluntary actions.

Iain Mackechnie-Jarvis
Iain has been involved in Emmaus since its earliest days in Britain. He was one of the first trustees of Emmaus UK and the Cambridge legal practice of which he was a partner provided the fledgling Emmaus UK with pro bono work. Iain personally oversaw the acquisition of the properties for the first four Communities, Cambridge, Coventry, Greenwich and Dover. He was appointed the first Director of Emmaus UK in 1994, and was responsible for the taking Emmaus UK through a restructuring process to create the current federal organisation.

John Noble
John has been a trustee of Emmaus Gloucestershire since May 2002 and the Chair since 2003. After reading economics at LSE and becoming a Chartered Accountant, his career has included advising and running companies with subsidiaries around the world and since 1992, advising Governments in Africa and Eastern Europe on restructuring, privatisation and regulation of public enterprises. John is married to Anne and has three daughters and three grandchildren. He is a school governor and serves on his parochial church council.

Richard Pendlebury
Richard has been involved in Emmaus for over 8 years, having joined to raise the money to set up Emmaus Bristol. Since the Community opened in 2004 he has been its Director. He is also heavily involved in other charities including Changing Tunes, which brings music to prisons to help rehabilitation, and a project to help deprived people in Sofia, Bulgaria.

David Perry
David has been Community Manager at Emmaus Bristol since the Community opened in 2004. Before this, he spent 24 years in the Avon Ambulance Service NHS Trust, retiring as a Paramedic Station Officer due to knee injuries at work, and just over a year working as a Project Worker in one of the three main hostels for homeless people in Bristol. He is also the UK's national delegate to Emmaus International.

Maureen Porter
Maureen has been involved in Emmaus Coventry and Warwickshire from the Community's formation in 1993 and she became a local Trustee in 2003. A retired Chartered Surveyor, she has particular responsibility for the Community's property and vehicles. Her other voluntary commitments include guiding in historic houses, reading for the blind, Chair of School Admission Appeal Panels throughout the Midlands, Coventry Association of International Friendship and local church and ecumenical activities.

Don Simpson
Don Simpson is Chair of Emmaus Mossley, having been a local Trustee for 12 years. He is a committee member of the Emmaus North West Partnership and Secretary of the Emmaus Group in Salford. Don was a trustee of Shelter for many years. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing, and has degrees in Electronic Engineering and Operational Research. His career was mainly in the local authority housing service, with spells as a university lecturer and as a housing consultant. He retired in 2005.

Willy Slavin
Willy Slavin is a retired psychologist and active catholic priest in Glasgow who dates his interest in Emmaus from his studies in Rome where he first heard of Abbe Pierre in the late 1950s. When he learned of the intention to set up the first Scottish Community in Glasgow he indulged in his favourite leisure activity by fundraising for it cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats with his friend Rev John Miller, later Moderator of the Church of Scotland. Willy followed up 5 years in Bangladesh with 10 years in HMP Barlinnie, Scotland's largest prison, which he opined was more health threatening than the Third World. He also serves on the board of Age Concern Scotland and is Treasurer of the Glasgow branch of the Christian Socialist Movement. Willy joined The Emmaus UK Board in April 2008 and has been the Chair of Emmaus Glasgow since 2001.

"Emmaus has helped me look at myself. It's given me a purpose, stability and shelter. Before I came here I never quite knew where I was staying for a night, where I could go."