United Reformed Church & Methodist Minister, Cheap Street Church
After working as a design engineer for GEC High Voltage Switchgear, Duncan trained at Westminster College Cambridge to become a United Reformed Church Minister, and was ordained in 1992. Duncan has served as minister in pastorates in Crawley, The Forest of Dean, South Cambridgeshire and North Herts, before coming to Sherborne in 2018, were he serves as the URC / Methodist minister for four churches. His interests include, sport, dog showing and music, currently playing in the Sherborne Town Band, and regularly attending the Bayreuth Wagner Festival.
minister, Somerset Mendip Circuit, Methodist Church of Great Britain
Rev. Manley served in the Royal Air Force for 16 years as a police officer and as a counterintelligence officer. On discharge he became a police officer in the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, working within a variety of specialist roles. As a detective, he worked on security matters within the United Kingdom and overseas. After retiring, he was recruited back into the service as a civilian investigative officer, specialising in the field of financial intelligence and investigation. Following this, he attended University seeking to become a minister of religion within the Methodist Church. After a long period of academic and practical study of Theology, he achieved a BA Honours degree in Theology. Ordained at Coventry Cathedral he is currently stationed within the Somerset Mendip circuit serving seven churches and communities.
freelance writer and journalist
Louise Carpenter is a British writer, working primarily for the Saturday Times Magazine. She is the co-author of Let Her Fly: A Father’s Journey and the Fight for Equality, with Ziauddin Yousafzai, father of the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai. Her journalism has been published in many publications including Granta, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and Vogue and has been syndicated worldwide. She is the author of two other non-fiction books, An Unlikely Countess: Lily Budge and the 13th Earl of Galloway and Ida and Louise. She lives in Somerset with her family.
presenter, BBC Radio Solent
Steve Harris is the presenter of BBC Radio Solent’s Dorset breakfast show.Based in Dorchester, his show covers stories from right around the county. Last year he presented his show live from Sherborne Girls’ new arts centre. He lives in Poole in Dorset with his wife, 9 month old son and cats Aristotle and Moses.
company director
After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, Jonathan had a 10 year career in various financial positions with the Jardine Matheson Group in Asia and Australia. Latterly he was financial controller of an associated company, Allied Food Industries, which manufactured Van Houten chocolates in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. He then spent 16 years with James Capel & Co (latterly HSBC Investment Bank) in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and India – as managing director in the latter two appointments. Jonathan specialised in ‘privatisation’, assignments in the UK including Rolls Royce and Britoil; followed by eight privatisations in Hungary post the collapse of the USSR (working out of Frankfurt, commuting to Budapest). Taking a break from the City in 2002, he took an interim assignment as chief executive of a country legal partnership for a year. Jonathan then returned to the City to join Close Brothers where for five years he used his extensive overseas experience to develop international distribution for their specialised open and closed-ended property funds. Now based in Dorset, Jonathan actively develops his own business portfolio, including a small farm in Ukraine with three Ukrainian partners – exporting soya to Indonesia and China – and vegetables to Europe. Jonathan was a Governor of Knighton House prep school for 10 years. He has four daughters, two of whom attended Sherborne Girls.
editor, School House Magazine
Annabel Heseltine, journalist, TV and radio presenter, is the editor of School House Magazine, written for the parents of children educated in the independent sector. As a mother of four teenagers, all of whom have learning differences, she has written and spoken at educational conferences on dyslexia in schools and amongst girls. Annabel has been a feature writer for The Sunday Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail, specialising on British social mores and on conservation and education in Africa. Prior to becoming a mother she regularly appeared on news, comment and TV shows including World at One, Panorama, BBC24 News and Esther Rantzen. She is a fellow of the RGS. Annabel represented Stowe on their debating team and is a member of the Durham Union (the only debating society to share membership with the Oxford Union).
freelance writer; co-producer, Hot Off the Press, Battle of Ideas Festival 2019; Living Freedom alumnus
After graduating with a first-class degree in Central and East European Studies/Economic and Social History from the University of Glasgow, Philippa has moved into freelance writing, providing online articles on a variety of topics including mental health and the debt crisis. Throughout her degree, she took a particular interest in Central Asia, but has also conducted research in Budapest and studied a wide range of topics across four years, from the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment to the Russian Language. In addition to this, she has lived and worked in South Korea for a year, written and conducted a guided tour of the Hunterian Museum (Glasgow), produced Hot Off the Press sessions for the Battle of Ideas Festival, and gained extensive experience in the field of digital marketing.
managing director & founder, Pathfinder Marksman Limited
Steve has led technology based innovation and transformation for many organisations across multiple industry sectors for nearly 40 years. Since 2005 he has been working in healthcare designing and delivering new models of urgent care for millions of people. Most recently he has worked with Babylon Health; the UK’s leading medtech company, to deliver a new AI led model of primary care in England.
He is an enthusiastic advocate of technology led disruptive innovation and transformation seeing it as the best hope for tackling the world’s most intractable problems, especially in healthcare.
Outside of work, Steve lives with his wife Lucy in nearby Charlton Horethorne, enjoying country pursuits, music, theatre and the arts. He is also an unreformed but apologetic petrol head.
www.pathfindermarksman.co.uk
chief executive, BPAS; author, The Moral Case for Abortion
Ann Furedi is Chief Executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK’s leading independent provider of abortion care. Before this, Ann was Director of Policy and Press for the UK’s regulator of embryo research and assisted conception. Ann has written extensively in defence of women’s autonomy and reproductive choice and last year was awarded an Honorary Doctorate for her writing and advocacy on abortion law in the UK and Ireland. Until recently she chaired the Governing Body of a large further education college.
copywriter, Word Bird
Chris Bird, aka Word Bird, is a creative writer for design and business, known for ‘making the complex simple.’ Chris set up Word Bird in 2001 after winning a contract with Orange. Her client list includes Microsoft, John Lewis and Zaha Hadid Architects, as well as leading UK and international design and branding agencies. From her home in Sherborne, she now works on projects ranging from tone of voice to writing training, on-pack copy to naming, web copy to book editing. In 2019 Chris was one of the organising team behind the inaugural TEDxSherborne, working closely with the speakers on the content and narrative arc of their talks. TEDxSherborne has since been recognised by the TED organisation as a world-class event.
