Grants Administrator
Jackie became a Trustee in 2017 and was the Chair from 2018 until 2025. Having worked as a district nurse in the Stroud locality for 26 years, Jackie then spent 6 years working in the IT department of 2gether mental health Trust before retiring in 2012. She also served as the elected nurse member of the Primary Care Trust and gained valuable experience of working at a strategic level. One of Jackie’s priorities has been to raise awareness of the charity, and it is pleasing that in recent years we have received an increasing number of referrals from across the county. GCNF is completely run by volunteers, who bring a broad spectrum of nursing, planning and financial experience to the Board so that we continue to meet the aims of the Trustees who founded the charity in 1974: to support nurses and the community nursing service, and to provide financial help to vulnerable people in need.
Chair
Neil joined GCNF in 2018. He is a former Mayor of the city of Gloucester. His career included working as a qualified District Nurse, during which time he was seconded to lecture at both the University of the West of England and Cardiff University in their schools of Health and Social Care. Later his career moved into clinical audit. After achieving a post graduate degree in clinical audit he became the Clinical Audit and Effectiveness Manager for a large NHS trust. More recently he achieved a Master’s degree studying at the University of Birmingham, researching alternative models for the delivery of social care in the community. Neil has extensive knowledge of the voluntary sector. He has been volunteering for just over 50 years. He was a school governor for over 20 years at four different schools. He served as Chair of Governors at two of these schools. Neil is and has been a trustee of several other charitable organisations covering health and social care, hospice care, supporting homeless veterans, sports and wellbeing, and protecting historical buildings. He brings all this experience to support the work at GCNF.
Safeguarding Lead
Maggie worked as a Community Nurse in Gloucestershire until retiring in 2021. During her nursing career, she developed and provided healthy living initiatives in an area of deprivation in Gloucester; provided clinical support for homeless people in Gloucestershire and delivered clinical education for nurses (community and student) and health care staff. Maggie is Safeguarding lead for GCNF and sits on the charity’s Governance group.
Treasurer
Not all of the trustees have a nursing background. Richard has brought us financial skills, from his career as an Actuary. He has an extensive knowledge of governance built up through his advice to a wide range of pension schemes. After retirement, Richard decided he wanted to share his knowledge by volunteering to be a trustee for several charities. One of Richard‘s first actions after he joined us in 2019 was the facilitation of a debate about GCNF’s future. The key outcome was a unanimous decision that GCNF should continue indefinitely. Richard then designed a financial policy in keeping with this objective, to control our annual expenditure on grants and administration.
Vice Chair / Secretary
Elles became a trustee of GCNF in 2022. She was born in Holland and moved to Gloucestershire in 1982 where she has lived ever since, apart from a few years in the USA in the mid-80s, where she worked as the PA to the Government Commissioner for Broadcasting. Returning to the UK, she worked as a PA in architectural administration. Both these roles have furnished her with vital administration skills. Elles has spent many years volunteering in the charitable sector including several years at her son’s school PTA and more recently supporting a number charities in various roles. Elles is the current secretary of GCNF and was elected Vice-Chair in 2025.