I joined Emmaus Hertfordshire as a trustee in May 2024. I live in St Albans and had occasionally donated furniture to the charity. It was the very practical side of Emmaus which first came onto my radar, being an organisation that recycles, upcycles and makes good use of preloved and pre-owned furniture.
When you’ve got a piece of furniture, you don’t want to throw it away, you want to give someone else the benefit, or the love, that it’s enjoyed in your house. It’s really nice to think that someone will take it on and practically use it.
I also loved dropping into the former Out of the Emmaus Workshop shop in town and seeing how furniture had been upcycled to the next stage and made even more beautiful. I come from the era of stripped pine, so the idea of finding old furniture and making it better is very much in my blood.
The third part of the triangle was what I think many people grapple with – seeing the situation of people without homes and worrying about how we as individuals can play a part in helping resolve that issue. It’s something that we in a wealthy society (if that’s what we are) are baffled about; why it still exists, why it can’t be solved, and what we can do about it.
Obviously, there’s the immediate response on a street level of wanting to help a person, but you know that’s not a long-term solution. So, finding an organisation that is working to provide long-term solutions for people experiencing homelessness was very appealing to me.
Helping people in need
I did a little bit of volunteering with Centre 33 (St Albans homelessness charity) which has an association with our church, Spicer Street Church in St Albans. The chairman of Centre 33 is one of my friends at church and there’s a number of volunteers from church at Centre 33. Again, this is an intervention but not an overall solution, so finding Emmaus and seeing how Emmaus spans that range of providing accommodation, but also providing work and a sense of self-worth, and also tackling the underlying issues, whatever they might be, is a wonderfully rounded, great thing to be doing, with a very practical outcome.
When I stepped back from work there was chance to have more time and be more involved, so I thought I’d approach Emmaus. I left paid employment about a couple of years ago and I got involved with another charity; one of my friends at church is the CEO of a charity called ICMDA (International Christian Medical and Dental Association), who was launching an appeal to send medical aid to Ukraine and wanted someone to manage that project. I left work on the Friday and started with them on the Monday.
I spent two years working full time on that project – probably over that time we raised something like £800,000 and sent 150 lorry loads of medical aid, consumables, bandages, catheters, stitches, swabs, as well as anaesthetic machines, mammograms, ultrasounds and paramedic kits too. It was hugely rewarding to manage this project, but also to work on something where there is a huge need for medical aid because the economy was not functioning properly and there was a real shortage of basic materials. We were helping in a practical way, without getting involved in the politics of it, because there was a real need.
The escalation of homelessness
At the same time, I was thinking about working in other areas locally and started to focus on Emmaus. When you go to places like London, Birmingham or other big cities, you meet people without homes who are on the streets and that in itself is quite emotional, but to see it also on your doorstep in your own hometown, unaddressed or unresolved, is hugely concerning.
When I was a child and we would go on holiday abroad and visit European capitals, I would see people on the streets there and say to my dad, “What are these people doing?”, and he’d say, “They’re people who haven’t got a home and are on the street and they’re looking for people to help them. Thank goodness we don’t have that in Britain”, and I have this distinct memory of this as a child. To now be an adult and think that we now have this problem in Britain in a way that we didn’t seem to have before, or was it hidden? We need to know why this is happening, what’s changed and what we can we do about it.
My very last role was with a Christian charity called Keswick Ministries in Cumbria and I was their COO (Chief Operating Officer) helping put on Christian events and also taking over a very large industrial site in the middle of Keswick, an old pencil factory, and converting that to a conference centre. My role involved gaining planning permission and raising money to bring this lovely old art deco factory up to spec. It was a bit like the Hoover building, but a smaller version in this iconic town in the Lake District. Before that I was working in retail in a communications role as Director of Communications for The Big Food Group which is Iceland, as well as working for Yahoo, Halfords, John Lewis and Carphone Warehouse. I was also head of corporate communications for supermarket Tesco. Before my communications work, I had about 15 years in regional TV, first with Anglia TV.
I come from a farming background, but I didn’t want to go into farming as I wanted to be a journalist or writer, and I saw a job advertised with Anglia TV as a researcher, ironically on their farming programme! I applied and that opened a path into the industry. I did news reporting and documentaries, and then producing, so I enjoyed all that sort of stuff. This is my connection with Emmaus as the people who live in the community really speak volumes about what the charity is doing and I think TV journalism empowers the people themselves to tell their stories. I’ve seen that here with the wonderful example of companion Chris and Under One Sky’s film I’m Still Here.
St Albans life
I live with my wife Nicki in St Albans – we’ve lived here about 25 years and we’re very happy here. We have two children, Jonny and Fleur. Fleur is studying medicine at Cambridge and Jonny is studying English and History at Bristol. I also have two boys by my first marriage, Sam and Will, who are running a marvellous pedigree sheep farming business, near Hay on Wye.
I’m getting to know Emmaus and have already visited one of the shops to meet the staff and companions and get a feel for how they work. With my background in retail, this is one area I really enjoy, and we do seem to have a particular niche in the market for pre-owned, pre-loved furniture at Emmaus Hertfordshire. Thinking about how we do the best job we can in that area is something that really interests me. Retail is one of those industries where every day is different, every customer is different, everything on sale is different and markets change all the time, so there are always new opportunities.
The staff team do a fantastic job in quite a complex organisation, considering all the things that Emmaus does, from retailing to companion support and so on. Everyone’s flat-out so supporting the staff team is one of the main things I’d like to get involved with. Fundraising is another particular focus and also awareness-raising is so important. Staff and companions are all so busy running the nuts-and-bolts day-to-day stuff, so it will be good to spend a little bit more time thinking about how we raise more awareness about Emmaus. This will hopefully bring in more volunteers, more fundraising opportunities and enable Emmaus to continue thriving and supporting people out of homelessness towards a much brighter future.