Our Trustees
Meet our Board
Gill Cooper
Gill spent her working career in the Arts sector and latterly in Local Government leading Arts in Education work, creating York's cultural strategy and leading the successful bid to become a UNESCO City of Media Arts.
She has worked on the Boards of the Federation of Music Services, Dance UK, Yorkshire Dance and Youth Music. Since retirement she has joined the Earlston Community Development Trust, Abbey Quilters, the Borders Modern Quilt Guild and ReTweed.
Lizzy McDonald
Lizzy lives locally and has been a Director with ReTweed since 2020. She has spent much of her career working in climate change and poverty alleviation in international development, so ReTweed is the perfect ‘home’ to work on these issues closer to home.
She is a climate and evaluation specialist with over 26 years’ experience working for the UK Government, philanthropies, private sector and international charities. Most of her work involves supporting large aid programmes which seek to reduce poverty in low income countries.
Jim Little BA (Hons) Dunelm, MIHSCM, MIoR
Jim is an accomplished health and social care manager with a wide range of experience in operational management, strategic planning and policy development.
He has over fifteen years of experience in quality improvement, programme and project management in government, health and social care focussing on access to services, improving efficiency and effectiveness in regulation, acute, mental health, primary care and adult social care services.
Proven programme and project management skills including project design, budgeting, monitoring, benefits realisation and report writing. Strong strategic planning and co-ordination skills to enable the delivery of major transformation and improvement programmes. Effective networking skills with experience in establishing and co-ordinating health and social care networks on a local, regional and national basis. Excellent capacity building skills including mentoring, development of training materials, workshop design and facilitation. Jim has also been on the Board of three other charities over the last ten years.
Jim lives in Gateshead and has a caravan in Coldingham where he spends most weekends with his partner and two dogs exploring the local area and enjoying coastal walks. He is a keen gym enthusiast, enjoys cooking and reading.
Hazel Smith
Hazel started out in community education 30 years ago, Hazel set up, developed and managed organisations and projects combatting exclusion and inequality working with third sector and public sector services and economic development agencies. Much of the work has focused on children, young people and women: managing Youth Agencies and Women onto Work in Edinburgh; working with the European Commission on research and development projects that promoted women’s and young people’s participation in education, enterprise and employment.
8 years ago, after a stint volunteering in rural Senegal with women and children’s charities, she returned to Scotland and set-about developing social enterprises that supported women and families, ReTweed is the primary example of that. It has won numerous awards for promoting egalitarian values and empowering vulnerable women to be leaders in their lives and communities. She is a former Board Member of a wide range of regional and national charities working on behalf of women, children and other disadvantaged groups. She currently holds a public appointment with the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration.
Hazel is a former care-experienced child and young person and someone whose career path has primarily focused on working with disadvantaged groups and communities. That commitment was informed by her first 18 years in care; starting out youthwork in her late teens through to setting-up and managing local, regional and national initiatives that focused on equality, inclusion, wellbeing and care for those who are most vulnerable, including our children and young people.
She is currently developing a legacy of 130 registered tartans, bequeathed by a talented philanthropist, David McGill – under the banner of Tartans for Social and Humanitarian Good.
Marina Kerr
Marina has been practising as a solicitor for 44 years. She is a Writer to the Signet and a Notary Public. She was senior partner at Doughtys’ WS., until they merged with Hastings Legal in 2019 and she is a full-time consultant with them.
Fairly wide experience in various aspects of law from court work, insolvency law, Judicial Factories to law for the Elderly and Vulnerable such as Powers of Attorney, Wills, Guardianships and Executries.
Marina is still the Chair of Eyemouth Chamber of Trade, and a Rotarian (although not with a club at moment) and former Eyemouth Rotary Club President.
Marina is married with 3 children, 3 grandchildren, 4 dogs, 2 cats – not much time for hobbies.
Alice Guinan
Alice has an extensive project management and policy development track record, gained over 16 years of working in the fields of humanitarian assistance, climate change, livelihoods and export development.
Having worked with the Scottish Government, UN agencies, NGOs, research organisations, public sector agencies and consultancy firms, she has proven experience engaging with the government, private sector, civil society, research and multilateral stakeholders.
She has designed, coordinated and managed a broad range of international development programmes (including on climate smart agriculture, WASH, green economy and market systems development) and has authored publications on disaster risk reduction, climate change, social protection, agriculture and disability.