The PEDAL Board

PEDAL’s Board of Directors meet on a monthly basis to mon­itor the company’s fin­ances, determ­ine com­pany policy, and provide over­sight of the pro­jects. There are 12 spaces on the PEDAL Board, and up to nine of these are open to ordin­ary mem­bers of PEDAL who are elec­ted at Annual General Meetings. The remain­ing three spaces are for Directors co-opted by the Board – these can be PEDAL mem­bers or other people who have rel­ev­ant skills and experience.

Our cur­rent Board mem­bers are lis­ted alpha­bet­ic­ally below, along with a short pro­file of their skills, exper­i­ence and interests.

Bob Barnham (Co-opted)

Bob trained as an archi­tect and has worked in the pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary sec­tors.  His under­gradu­ate and post-graduate research focused on self-build hous­ing in a devel­op­ing con­text in Kenya, where he worked with squat­ter groups. Following this, Bob ran tech­nical aid centres in Liverpool and Dundee, includ­ing the first community-based energy effi­ciency pro­ject in Scotland. He was also Director of Energy Action Scotland for three years, and a mem­ber of the Consultancy Group for the then Department of the Environment. Bob has worked for Changeworks, a local sus­tain­able devel­op­ment organ­isa­tion, for the past 19 years, deliv­er­ing energy effi­ciency improve­ments and the City of Edinburgh Council’s Home Energy Conservation Act strategy.  Part of his cur­rent remit relates to design­ing and deliv­er­ing train­ing. This has included devel­op­ing and pilot­ing an award-winning train­ing resource for local author­it­ies and hous­ing asso­ci­ations, and train­ing organ­isa­tions for com­munity engage­ment initiatives.

Diana Cairns

Diana worked for two blue chip com­pan­ies, in the energy and fin­ance sec­tors, for over 20 years.  Her back­ground is in train­ing and organ­isa­tional devel­op­ment, with exper­i­ence in design­ing, deliv­er­ing and eval­u­at­ing train­ing, design­ing organ­isa­tional level devel­op­ment strategies and pro­ject man­age­ment. She has been involved in a num­ber of suc­cess­ful high pro­file local cam­paigns for envir­on­mental justice, includ­ing Portobello Campaign Against the Superstore and Portobello Opposes New Garbage Site. Diana has lots of exper­i­enced in organ­ising and run­ning events and fun­drais­ing. She is a mem­ber of Portobello Community Council and involved in a num­ber of other local groups.

Ian Cooke

Ian was born and raised in Portobello. He worked for 27 years in com­munity devel­op­ment roles in Edinburgh and Greater Glasgow, and through suc­cess­ive local gov­ern­ment re-organisations. Ian is author of Radical Community Work: Perspectives from prac­tice in Scotland, wit­ten with Mae Shaw. He is cur­rently Director of Development Trusts Association Scotland, the community-led regen­er­a­tion net­work and national trade asso­ci­ation for com­munity devel­op­ment trusts. In addi­tion to his com­munity devel­op­ment exper­i­ence, Ian brings skills in stra­tegic plan­ning, organ­isa­tional devel­op­ment and fin­an­cial management.

Stephen Hawkins (Treasurer)

Stephen is a Chartered Building Surveyor with extens­ive exper­i­ence of work­ing in local gov­ern­ment, hous­ing asso­ci­ations and the health ser­vice. He is also a part time lec­turer in hous­ing main­ten­ance at Heriot Watt University, and one of three Councillors for the Portobello/Craigmillar ward on City of Edinburgh Council. Stephen is a mem­ber of Portobello Community Council and has a long involve­ment in local affairs, includ­ing sev­eral suc­cess­ful local cam­paigns and pro­jects. He has skills and exper­i­ence in prob­lem solv­ing, pro­ject man­age­ment,
budget­ing and con­trol of expendit­ure. He also holds a Master in Business Administration degree from Edinburgh University, and is an asso­ci­ate of the Chartered Institute of Housing. Stephen’s par­tic­u­lar interest is in integ­rated energy man­age­ment and reduc­tion in urban areas.

Justin Kenrick

Justin chaired PEDAL from its incep­tion in 2005 until 2010 when he decided to focus on other PEDAL pro­jects, and other com­munity cli­mate change work. In 2009 he stopped lec­tur­ing in social anthro­po­logy at Glasgow University to focus on sup­port­ing com­munity responses to cli­mate change. He is devel­op­ing a strategy for Fife Council to sup­port com­munity car­bon reduc­tion ini­ti­at­ives; works with ini­ti­at­ives across Scotland to build com­munity resi­li­ence Holyrood 350; and sup­ports forest peoples in Central Africa to respond to cli­mate change. He has lived in Portobello since 1998 with Eva and their 3 boys (with brief peri­ods liv­ing on Eigg and in Falkland), and is inter­ested in how ‘local to local’ con­nec­tions — across Scotland, and across the Global North/South divide – could rad­ic­ally re-energize national and inter­na­tional action for sustainability.

Mandy Lawson

Mandy works in Economic Development at City of Edinburgh Council, run­ning a European pro­ject to pro­mote col­lab­or­a­tion and innov­a­tion between busi­ness, research and the wider com­munity. She brings 2 dec­ades of pro­fes­sional exper­i­ence in com­munity devel­op­ment, adult learn­ing and pro­ject man­age­ment. Mandy has volun­teered with PEDAL for sev­eral years and has a strong per­sonal interest in sus­tain­able liv­ing. She has under­taken a one week eco-village exper­i­ence week at Findhorn.

Peter McColl

Peter is a com­munity act­iv­ist who has lived in Edinburgh for 12 years. Peter came to Edinburgh to study geo­graphy, pub­lic policy and crit­ical the­ory. His thesis was on land reform in Scotland. While at University, Peter was President of Edinburgh People and Planet and Vice President of the Students’ Association (EUSA), dur­ing which time he cam­paigned for car­bon reduc­tion, Fair Trade and eth­ical invest­ment of Edinburgh University’s reserves. He cur­rently works for the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and has recently become Chair of Transition Support Scotland, an organ­isa­tion that sup­ports Scotland’s Transition Towns move­ment. Peter lives in Portobello with his part­ner, Maggie. He is a mem­ber of Portobello Community Council and has been act­ive in PEDAL since its cre­ation. He has par­tic­u­lar interests in com­munity own­er­ship and land reform.

Eva Schonveld

Eva Schonveld has lived in Portobello for the last 12 years and has raised her three boys there. She was a founder mem­ber of PEDAL, helped set up the PEDAL orch­ard as part of the food group, and was part of the team who developed PEDAL’s CCF fun­ded pro­jects. She has worked in com­munity devel­op­ment and involve­ment pro­jects for the past 20 years and is very com­mit­ted to the ideas behind the Transition model. Together with oth­ers in PEDAL she set up Transition Scotland Support, where she’s cur­rently work­ing to sup­port Transition com­munit­ies across Scotland and build a national net­work for them.

Lucy-Anne Wiltshire

Lucy-Anne has many years exper­i­ence in com­munity act­iv­ism, primar­ily in animal rights but lat­terly in com­munity and guer­illa garden­ing. Through Portobello Community Growing Space, a grow­ing space behind the Town Hall, she has exper­i­ence of set­ting up a very well regarded grow­ing pro­ject in Portobello. Through her mem­ber­ship of the PEDAL Board, Lucy-Anne aims to strengthen links between PEDAL and PCGS, and keep stra­tegic or policy decisions ‘real’ through con­nec­tion with exper­i­ence on the ground.

Neil Woodward

After com­plet­ing a degree in Microbiology & Virology in 1985, Neil worked for the University of Nottingham Department of Pharmacology doing research for a well-known house­hold products man­u­fac­turer. He went on to work for Scottish & Newcastle Plc in 1990, first in fer­ment­a­tion research and then as Pilot Brewery Manager, where he was instru­mental in brew­ing and pack­aging designer beers.  He later became Consumer Relations Manager for the UK, com­pleted his MBA and became an aud­itor for BSI.  Unfortunately, due to ill health, Neil was retired from this role in 2009, but fol­low­ing a full recov­ery is now look­ing for a new career.  His interest in PEDAL came about through being involved in the Donkeyfield Orchard, and the oppor­tun­ity to become more involved in the com­munity was too good to miss. Neil lives in Portobello with his wife, Lorna, and their son Alexander. He is an affil­i­ate mem­ber of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Tom Black (Secretary)

Tom is not a Board mem­ber but attends Board meet­ings as Company Secretary. He also leads on the wind tur­bine pro­ject. He has worked in vari­ous roles over the past 13 years, start­ing in community-based envir­on­mental pro­jects, then mov­ing on to develop and man­age grant pro­grammes and more recently to provide advice and train­ing to com­munity enter­prises at Development Trusts Association Scotland. Tom joined PEDAL as a volun­teer in 2005, and was Project Manager at PEDAL in 2010-11 when he was respons­ible for man­aging a major Climate Challenge Fund pro­ject. He lives in Portobello with his wife Emma and their two boys. He has a great love of the Scottish out­doors, is now try­ing his hand at grow­ing his own food.