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Social Leaders Oxfordshire brings together local partners with Clore Social Leadership to offer two fully funded skills and development programmes to the social sector in Oxfordshire.
Emerging Leader Oxfordshire takes place from 12 Sept 2023 to 11 Jun 2024, offering access to a wealth of leadership development interventions designed to help participants find their feet in leadership. The programme creates
time, permission and space to enhance wellbeing, resilience and empathy, and has been specifically developed to respond to the challenges that social leaders are facing in Oxfordshire.
Voluntary and Community Leader Oxfordshire takes place from 14 Sept 2023 to 19 Mar 2024, aiming to bring together grassroots and community leaders from across Oxfordshire to build capacity, strengthen communities
and learn from one other. We want to create a safe and energising space, where participants can develop a network of other community leaders to collaborate with past the length of the programme.
We are on a mission to democratise leadership, making development accessible to every social leader in the UK for a fair and equitable society. As part of this, we are strongly committed to supporting leaders from the Global Majority, and we actively encourage applications from people from ethnically diverse backgrounds.
With special thanks to the programme funder, Humphrey Battcock for the opportunity to deliver this free programme in Oxfordshire.
Programme Detail
Hybrid format
Various dates
All levels
Free
Programme Features
Choice of 2 programmes
Bespoke to Oxfordshire
Leadership development
Clore Social community
Social Leaders Oxfordshire series
Free
Emerging Leader Oxfordshire
Applications closed
A nine-month programme designed for those with three-six years' leadership experience in the social sector.
We are proud to be partnering with Aspire Oxfordshire to deliver this unique programme in Oxfordshire. Aspire is an Oxford-based charity and social
enterprise which empowers people facing homelessness, poverty and disadvantage to find dignified employment and secure housing. Aspire regularly engages over 2,000 people across our projects and programmes each year throughout Oxfordshire
and the wider Thames Valley.
We are also working closely with a local steering group whose members reflect the diversity and reach of the local sector - indicative of the impact we want the programmes to achieve. The steering group's role is to help shape the programme
to make it as relevant and impactful for the social sector in Oxfordshire. We are also fortunate enough to be working with two programme directors, local to Oxfordshire, who also support the development of the programmes and will lead
all programme activities.
Steering Group
Chair, Paul Roberts (Aspire Oxfordshire, CEO) Paul joined Aspire in 2013. Prior to joining Aspire, Paul was a British Diplomat for six years. Paul previously volunteered at Asylum Welcome in Oxford and as a Generalist Adviser for Citizens Advice. He also holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy. Alongside his role at Aspire, Paul is also a Director of Makespace Oxford, a co-founder and active member of the Oxfordshire Homeless Movement, a co-founder of Flo’s (a charitable Community Benefit Society) and a Director of the Oxfordshire Social Entrepreneurship Partnership (OSEP CIC). Paul lives with his family in Faringdon, Oxfordshire.
Nigel Carter (Oxford Community Action, Director) Nigel is a researcher and a co-founder of Oxford Community Action, a grass-roots Multi-Ethnic community organisation
which is part of the Owned by Oxford Community Wealth Building Initiative. Nigel has many years’ experience working in the areas of community development, equalities, diversity and inclusion, patient and public participation,
mental health, homelessness, and substance misuse within the NHS, Local Authority, and VCSE Sector.
Ray Coyle (Oxford Hub, Executive Director) Oxford Hub is a community charity working primarily in South East Oxford. Ray is also a director of the Oxfordshire Social
Enterprise Partnership, and sits on the England Committee at the National Lottery Community Fund and chairs the Small Charity Advisory Panel at the NCVO and is a founding trustee of TREEZ, a reforestation charity operating
in Malawi.
Andy Edwards (Makespace Oxford CIC, Executive Director) Andy is a passionate social entrepreneur who has led a number of successful purpose-driven community businesses.
Alongside his role at Makespace Oxford CIC, he is ‘Meanwhile in Oxfordshire...’ programme lead, co-founder and Associate at Transition by Design Co-operative and co-founder of Kindling Housing Co-operative. Andy believes
strongly in strategic design and community-led placemaking as tools to create happy, healthy, equitable and resilient places. Andy is committed to unlocking underused spaces, using 'meanwhile use' as a catalyst to bring
about greater community ownership; enabling local communities to bring about the change we need to see in the world. Andy is a Clore Social Fellow.
Richard Kennell (SOFEA, CEO and Founder) Launched in 2014, SOFEA helps to transform people’s lives through an innovative programme of education, employability and wellbeing
with a food redistribution programme providing good quality food to people in need. Richard is a former Oxfordshire Deputy Headteacher, is a founding Trustee of the Didcot Community Partnership, a Board Member of Didcot
First and a Governor at Didcot Girls’ School.
Lisa Meaney (Wild Pear CIC, Founding Director) Wild Pear CIC is an Oxfordshire-based organisation speeding up and democratising environmental change through creative
practice. Before moving to Oxfordshire, Lisa worked for over a decade in the creative industries in Sheffield, on site-based social and environmental change projects. She worked for seven years as an agent and artist in
the national Creative Partnerships programme, facilitating systemic change within the education system. She has also worked extensively in community settings. Lisa maintains a studio-based art and design practice, and writes
about design’s role in shaping our relationship with nature. She is a Clore Social Fellow is soon to embark on a Design PhD at Lancaster University.
Emmy O'Shaughnessy (Oxfordshire Youth, Director of Innovation and Growth, Deputy CEO) Emmy is proud to have been part of this steering group from its inception. She
carries two decades of working for the voluntary sector as a youth worker, mentor, community artist, programme designer, and Charity CEO of a grassroots community arts centre for six years. Now at Oxfordshire Youth, Emmy
works in collaboration with funders and partners to ensure investment is brought in to enable youth work to change lives, unite communities, and tackle inequality of opportunity. Emmy has helped to raise over £13m
for the Oxfordshire youth sector in the last ten years and is passionate about systems change, heart-led leadership, and growing community power. Emmy advocates for an intersectional approach to social justice work, and
for excellent cake at all meetings of hearts and minds. Her recommended book to all those involved in liberation work is 'Pleasure Activism' by Adrienne Maree Brown.
Laura Price (Oxfordshire Community & Voluntary Action, CEO) Laura joined OCVA in November 2020 after having represented her community as a County Councillor for
eight years. She was a founding Director and Chair of West Oxfordshire Community Transport, a co-operative community benefit society operating bus services in and around Witney. Originally from Doncaster in South Yorkshire,
Laura moved to Oxford in 2003 to study at Oxford Brookes and went on to work in academic publishing as a Commissioning Editor. She is passionate about community organising and the power of people finding and shaping their
own solutions.
Zoe Sprigings (Oxfordshire Community Foundation, CEO) OCF is a charity that builds thriving communities through effective
philanthropy. It gives around £2 million of grants annually to grassroots charitable organisations across the county. Before joining OCF, Zoe was Director of Business Planning and Reporting at C40 Cities, a global charity
that supports 100 major cities across the world to take climate action which builds healthy, equitable and resilient communities. Zoe was responsible for developing and implementing C40’s four-year strategic plan. Previously
she held roles as a senior policy advisor and team leader in various UK Government departments. Zoe is an Oxfordshire resident, and in her spare time volunteers as an English teacher with refugees and asylum seekers.
Programme Directors
Annie Davy, (Independent Facilitator, Trainer and Coach) Annie is an active campaigner for social and ecological justice and founding member of local projects in her home town Oxford: The Parasol Project, Barracks Lane Community Garden and The Nature Effect CIC. In 2018 she co-founded ‘Flo’s – the Place in the Park’ a former children’s centre turned Community Enterprise Hub with a Nature Nursery for children and a healthy Café at its heart – a project of which she is very proud. Annie’s
Leadership experience includes Headship of a large Community Education Centre, Headship of a Nursery School and Children’s Centre and 12 years as Head of a large service in Oxfordshire County Council.
Annie’s current work includes leadership development and consultancy support for a range of organisations. She is author of the best-selling book ‘New Playwork’ published by Thompson Learning and ‘A Sense of Place –
mindful practice outdoors’ published by Bloomsbury in 2019.
Yasmin Sidhwa (Mandala Theatre, Artistic Director) In September 2023 Yasmin celebrated 35 years working as a professional actor, director, workshop facilitator, drama Lecturer and Artistic Director - touring nationally and internationally. As Creative Learning Director at Pegasus Theatre, she founded and directed MESH - a bi-annual International Youth Arts Festival. In 2014 she received an Oxfordshire High Sheriff’s Award for services to the Arts and Young People. Yasmin left Pegasus in 2015, to found Mandala Theatre Company, an Oxford-based, national and international touring and training company offering professional pathways to young artists from Global Majority and White working-class backgrounds. Yasmin was an Independent Governor at Oxford Brookes University for four years and is an Executive Board member of CREARC in Grenoble, France, as well as an RSA Fellow. She is part of the steering group in the Oxford Cultural Anti-Racism Alliance developing a Manifesto for Change for Global Majority artists to be fully reflected in leadership and decision-making.
Place-based case studies
The power of place-based
Carrie Cuno, Clore Social Leadership’s Development Manager, writes about how investing in a place-based approach to leadership could reinvigorate communities across the UK.
HEY100 was our place-based innovative programme of leadership development and training that united leaders from different levels across Hull and East Yorkshire.
No, you don’t need to have any particular academic or professional qualifications to take part in the programme. We know that leadership development training can be very difficult to access in the social sector, so try to make
it accessible to those with minimal prior training. Your passion for and experience in the social sector are all you need to apply.
