Meet the Team
Meet the Team
Mike Jolley
Co-Chairman & Director
Mike is a Chartered Engineer and Manager at Copella Fruit Juices in Boxford, Suffolk. His business experience includes organisational design & strategy, project management and leading & motivating teams of people. He won the North of England Business Plan of the Year award in 2003 while starting a Biomedical Design Company; having completed his master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Business Management. He has been involved in various social outreaches, church projects and soup kitchens including Kings Care in Norwich.
Mike was strongly impressed by the ethos of Emmaus Communities to help companions create an independent future and looks forward to the challenge of creating a sustainable social enterprise business to provide support for an Emmaus community in Ipswich.
Julia Jolley
Co-Chairman & Director
Julia is married to Mike and is a commercial litigation solicitor, though currently enjoying being a full time mum. She has a long track record in supporting charitable organisations; has been involved in homelessness / rehabilitation projects in London and Norwich and was a formerly a trustee of Norwich and Central Norfolk Mind.
Julia became involved in Emmaus after hearing the stories of companions who had been able to rebuild their lives through the support and opportunities they received from Emmaus Communities.
Laura Stafford
Trustee, Director & Committee Secretary
Laura is a Compliance Manager with a large financial services firm. Before this she worked as an IT project manager and a management consultant. Laura is also a "Town Pastor" so she is familiar with the homeless on the streets of Ipswich. (Town Pastors are volunteers from local churches who provide support and help to keep young night clubbers safe on the streets of Ipswich late on Friday and Saturday nights). Laura helps with the Soup Kitchen with her local church. Her team used a wheelbarrow to transport hot potatoes and sandwiches down to the town centre to keep this vital service going when severe weather conditions meant the roads were closed.
She has been an Emmaus supporter for many years before becoming a trustee of Ipswich Emmaus and the Committee Secretary.
James Hall
Company Secretary
James is solicitor and Partner at Birketts LLP, a local firm of solicitors, where he has worked for over 30 years. James advises a range of charities and voluntary bodies on all aspects of charity law. He is the Diocesan Registrar for the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and is a lay reader in his local church.
He learnt about Emmaus some 10 years ago from a mailshot and a chance meeting with Terry Waite aroused further interest. Recent visits to other communities are now the inspiration to make Emmaus real for those in sleeping bags in the shop doorways of Ipswich.
Colin Howe
Trustee & Director
Colin is a local accountant and has worked for and supported numerous charities locally and in London.
Roger Fern
Trustee & Director
Roger is a local Councillor, retired Ipswich head teacher and is Chair of the Ipswich Umbrella Trust (IUT), which provides a first point of contact for homeless and marginalised people. Roger brings to Emmaus a strong network of relationships within Ipswich and a proven understanding of the local council and the needs of homeless people and those chaotic lifestyles within the area.
He feels strongly that both the opportunity for work and access to an Emmaus community in Ipswich would be a major step forward for some of the IUT users.
Sarah Pasteur
Trustee and Director
Sarah has been an editorial assistant in an educational books company and was a secondary school teacher specialising in Learning Support. She was chairman of a board of primary school governors for 8 years.
Sarah joined the Ipswich group in 2009 after acting on the suggestion of a mail shot to volunteers and is a long standing supporter and volunteer for Emmaus and other local causes.
Tim Mason
Trustee and Director
Tim is passionate about the importance of community and home, and hence the need to provide somewhere that can become “Home - that place or space where we can let go of our defences and be free… to be ourselves” (Henri Nouwen) with those who are marginalised or excluded. He was closely involved in founding the L’Arche community in Ipswich, where people with and without learning disabilities live together and share their lives in a mix of friendship and professional support. He joined the Ipswich Emmaus group in 2010 having first encountered Emmaus while living in a L’Arche community in France fifteen years earlier.
He has also worked for housing authorities locally, planning and developing supported housing, and is currently a part time Independent Mental Capacity Advocate. He has also trained for ministry in the church but remains firmly part of the laity.
Richard Day
Trustee and Director
Richard’s past experience includes 20 years as an independent financial advisor and asset manager. He is currently partnering with Good Earth Power Europe developing zero carbon communities and clean energy technologies, a strategic partner with Czero and a sustainable community developer focusing on the delivery of affordable housing in the UK.
He has a passion for community development with a high social impact. A personal interest in homelessness resulted from a meeting with Terry Waite several years ago and a commitment to building an Emmaus centre in Ipswich.
Rechenda Smith
Head of Marketing and Communications
Rechenda is head of email marketing at Ipswich-based digital agency, little green plane. Former silver winner of the young communicator of the year for East Anglia Chartered Institute of Public Relations award, Rechenda has ten years' PR and marketing experience and a postgraduate diploma in PR from the London Metropolitan University. She is currently vice chair of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Essex, and a member of the events and communications hub of the email marketing council at the Direct Marketing Association.
Her former experience in the fundraising and marketing department with St Matthew Housing spurred on an interest in helping homeless people rebuild their lives in a positive way.