Board of Trustees
Trustees are ultimately accountable for the organisation and their governance responsibilities include developing strategy together with the Chief Executive Officer, ensuring compliance with the law and maintaining proper financial oversight.
Our trustees are recruited for a term of three years and can serve a maximum of two terms. Board meetings take place quarterly, currently on a weekday evening, and usually last about four hours. You would also need to attend the AGM and Conference, as well as the occasional event or training.
We are looking for three new trustees, including a treasurer.
Find out more or apply:
To find out more, or to apply to be a trustee, please download the application pack and forms at the bottom of this page.
Board members
James Roberts – Chair
James is communications professional with a background in journalism, publications, universities and membership/employee engagement. He has been involved in the LGB&T voluntary sector for a number of years, ranging from volunteering with various LGB&T organisations and networking groups to project managing Lincolnshire Pride Festival. He currently works for a charity in the sight loss sector and is studying for a Voluntary Sector Management MSc. James’s main focus as chair of trustees is to develop the board and bring in the key skills needed to support the Consortium in taking a strategic lead for the LGB&T voluntary sector; and with this developing the idea of a shared sector vision.
Kirsten Hearn – Vice chair
Kirsten is an Independent member of the Metropolitan Police Authority and is the chair of its Equality and Diversity sub-committee. She is a non executive member of the Office for Disability Issues Disability Delivery board and is a member of Equality 2025, the UK Advisory Network on Disability Equality, which provides disability equality advice at the heart of government. She is the chair of Inclusion London, the Deaf and Disabled People’s organisations community interest company. She is a trustee of the consortium of LGBT Community and Voluntary organisations and the chair of its Human Resources sub-committee. She is also a member of the Arts Council England Independent Disability Equality Advisory Group.
For eight years, Kirsten was a member of the Transport for London Board where she championed social inclusion. For sixteen years, she was an Equality specialist and senior manager in local government before escaping the day job to create and run Whole World Design, a successful empowerment coaching and training consultancy, specialising in evolutionary change with a smile.
Kirsten has two fine art degrees, is a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Master Practitioner and NLP coach. She is also a stand-up comic, singer, musician, writer, sculptor, broadcaster, tree-lover and bird-fancier.
Kirsten is a blind lesbian and campaigner for peace, human rights and justice and is a supporter of non-violent direct action. Her mission in life is to celebrate the lives of and promote the rights of disadvantaged people at every opportunity.
Sarah Carr
Sarah Carr is a Senior Research Analyst at the Social Care Institute for Excellence who is managing a major workstream on the personalisation of adult social care services. She has worked for the National Institute for Social Work, Oxleas NHS Trust and at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health as well as in voluntary sector provider services. Sarah is an Honorary Fellow at the Faculty of Health, Staffordshire University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Sarah is a trustee of the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi) and a founder member of the Personalised Care in Mental Health Research Group, based at the Institute of Psychiatry. She has also been a trustee at PACE and a Member of INVOLVE, the national advisory Group, funded by the Department of Health, which aims to promote and support active public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research. Sarah is a long-term user of mental health services and has written, presented and advised on her own experiences as well as general mental health practice and policy, service user empowerment and participation and LGB equality issues, both nationally and internationally.
Tim Bennett-Goodman
Tim has worked almost exclusively in the field of arts and culture in a community setting over the past thirty years, both in the voluntary sector and in a local government context - with experience of London and Westminster government. Throughout this time he has had strong and active involvement with the LGBT community and its issues.
Tim lives in Waltham Forest, where he has liaised with ELOP (East London Out Project) and is currently working with the local Council and Met Police on issues such as Hate Crime Reduction and the Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNT) LGBT Forum. In 2010 he participated as a 'key informant' in the Council’s ‘LGBT Matters’ research (conducted by Sigma: www.sigmaresearch.org.uk). Tim is a member of Waltham Forest’s Voluntary Sector Forum (VSF) and of its LGBT Advisory Group. He is also a trustee/director of Voluntary Action Waltham Forest (VAWF), the local Council for Voluntary Services (CVS). Tim has recently been working with River Cultures co-ordinating ‘Walking Proud in East London’, an LGBT oral history project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and launched in Waltham Forest.
Kevin Poulter
Kevin has been a specialist employment solicitor since 2003. He has worked principally in the Yorkshire region with medium and large size commercial firms offering legal advice and support across the full spectrum of employment law and human resources management. Kevin writes for several professional and mainstream media on employment law issues and appears regularly on Gaydar Radio news offering commentary on legal developments.
Kevin has been a Board Member and spokesperson for the Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society for many years and was actively involved in its establishment and launch in 2007. The organisation now has in excess of 80,000 members. He has been a supporter of Stonewall and Pride London for several years and has recently focused on developing the national Gay Employment Lawyers network.
Robert Cookson
Rob has over ten years of experience of working within the voluntary sector, including at chief executive level for two Council for Voluntary Services. His main passion concerns the fight for true equality and reducing the social isolation and stigma faced by isolated communities.
Currently Rob is the director of operations for the Lesbian & Gay Foundation, providing leadership around service delivery and development. As lead director for measuring outcomes he also has a passion for demonstrating the impact voluntary organisations make on peoples lives. He is currently studying for a Masters in Community Practice. Rob lives in Manchester with his partner Richard.
