Our Board

Stephanie Maurel – Independent Chair

Stephanie is the current Chief Executive of The Church House Foundation, and previous CEO of Concordia. She is also a trustee of the National Childbirth Trust and lead mentor for The Girls’ Network. Stephanie has previously worked in insight and customer satisfaction for over 15 years - spending five years at Sport England, including her role as Strategic Lead for Clubs & Workforce, with responsible for the visionary strategy for volunteering in sport in England.

Viv Woodcock-Downey

Viv previously worked in Human Resources and Environmental Services, as well as running her own successful business for 15 years working across the public sector. Now retired, Viv has thrown herself into a range of voluntary positions, and is currently Officer of Membership on the board of the Federation of Gay Games. Locally Viv is active in BLAGSS and a keen (improver) golfer. In 2016 she won the BBC South East Unsung Hero Award 2016, for her work advocating LGBT Sport and physical activity issues in Sussex.

Brian Clark

Brian's previous roles included Chief Officer of Sussex Probation and Board Chair of Brighton and East Sussex Mind. He is very keen on sport particularly running, football, badminton and fishing and is a member of Brighton and Hove Athletic club.

Melanie Kinnear

Melanie used to work as a Senior Manager for Albion in the Community – the charitable arm of Brighton & Hove Albion. In this role she established the multi-national award winning employee volunteer programme with American Express & supported wider activity. She is now contracted to support the Premier League's Primary Stars community programme.

Tom Howell

Tom has worked within the health, wellbeing and leisure industry over the last 10 years. He is currently the Activity Coordinator for Arun Wellbeing, a Public Health project designed to combat preventable diseases by improving lifestyles through exercise. His various roles have given him extensive experience working with community, commercial, local government and voluntary organisations.

Darrell Gale

Darrell, is currently the Director for Public Health for East Sussex County Council and is a former Strategic Director of Public Health for Berkshire. Darrell has previously held senior roles in public health including consultancy roles with NHS Wiltshire and Wiltshire Council and Wokingham Borough Council.

Alison Pendlington

Alison is a PR Consultant for Beattie Group (Specsavers) and the regional client lead for Sussex, Kent and Hampshire. She is also an elected Public Governor for Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and Borough Councillor / Shadow Cabinet Member for Wellbeing for Crawley Borough Council Crawley.

Tanya Woodward

Tanya, a former England international badminton player, is currently the National lead for Women & Girls for Badminton England. Since 2001 Tanya has held several senior coaching roles including a national age group coach for England and Head Coach & Director at Horsham Performance Centre.

Tanya is our nominated Safeguarding Board Champion.

Clare Ryan

Clare is a career HR professional who currently works for Rickshaw Travel in Brighton. She has extensive event development and management experience; she set up three different parkruns in Brighton and Hove, was the Swim Director for Paddle Round the Pier events for 5 years and is the Wheelchair Race Director for Brighton Half Marathon.

Alex White

Alex has worked for 15 years in sport and community development and has worked at the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation and the Premier League Charitable Fund. Alex has board experience and is Chair of the charity Street Child United. He is an expert in Governance and his current role also covers measurement and evaluation.

Alex is our nominated Equalities Board Champion.