Speaker biographies

Emily Reed

Keynote: Devon and the climate emergency Monday 14th 12pm

Emily Reed is the Devon Climate Emergency Project Manager, based at Devon County Council. She works with a partnership of 29 organisations in Devon to develop a Devon Carbon Plan, for how we reduce emissions to net-zero, and a regional Adaptation Strategy. This has included wide public engagement and consultation, including a Devon Climate Assembly. Prior to this role Emily gained a wide range of experience, primarily but not exclusively in the sustainable food sector, including business development for food production and retail, pasture-fed regenerative livestock farming and commercial beekeeping, as well as teaching. She holds an MSc in Ecological Food Systems from Schumacher College.

Laura Dixon

What is Devon Community resilience Forum? Monday 14th 9.30; Tuesday 15th 6pm

Healthy Communities Tuesday 15th 2pm

Laura is a project manager for DCT, taking over the management of the Resilience Forum in late 2021. She has over 20 years’ experience running environmental and education projects all over the southwest. Laura also teaches at Exeter College.

Martin Rich

An introduction to community emergency planning Monday 14th 10.30; Wednesday 16th 6pm; Updating your community emergency plan Monday 14th 6pm; Creating a home emergency pack Wednesday 16th 12pm

Martin Rich is a long-standing community projects advisor for DCT. For the Resilience Forum he visits parish councils and community meetings to explain what a local emergency plan is; runs coaching sessions for those about to start a plan and supports their work; gives advice, reviews draft plans, helps with funding applications and works with parishes to keep their plans up to date. Martin is a frequent contributor to Forum events.

Tom Dauben

South West Resilience Hub Monday 14th 3pm

Tom Dauben is a Senior Advisor in Flood & Coastal Risk Management for the Environment Agency. Tom is responsible for strategy and policy decisions on the future of flood risk management in communities across Devon. He supports his local colleagues and partners with technical leadership on flood risk issues and provides input and advice to national initiatives to ensure they are relevant to the Westcountry. Tom’s background is in geography and civil engineering. He is currently working on strengthening the use of nature-based solutions (such as tree planting, soils and peatland restoration) as a means of increasing flood resilience, as well as developing new methods of communicating levels of risk, advice and support to communities through the South West Resilience Hub. He is also the Environment Agency’s lead for the Devon Resilience Innovation Project as a partner to Devon County Council.

Hannah Reynolds

Funding for community projects Monday 14th 5pm; Healthy Communities Tuesday 15th 2pm; Community assets and how to engage them Wednesday 16th 2pm

Hannah is a Project Manager for Devon Communities Together, currently working with Devon Public Health supporting their Community Outreach and Engagement Team and is also an Enterprise Coach and Business Adviser for the Devon Communities Together project ‘New Start Devon Enterprise Coaching’. Hannah has lived in Devon most of her life, apart from 3 years in London as National Director of Learning for the School for Social Entrepreneurs, where she set up the learning programme and regional Schools around the UK. She has worked previously for Devon County Council, supporting youth work and adult learning and for the National Lottery as a grants assessor.

Chris Hunt-Watts

Designing a basic flyer for community groups Monday 14th 7pm

Chris studied Creative Music Practice as a post-graduate at The University of Gloucestershire. Through that time, he developed a passion for community projects, particularly after seeing the power and necessity of community work through the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020. He is a keen photographer, mainly interested in product photography and the creation of 360/Virtual Reality content. He is a Community Development Officer with Devon Communities Together and also the Resilience Forum's technical expert.

Simon Beer

The Emergency Response Framework Tuesday 15th 9.30

Simon has been Facilities Manager for Accord Healthcare for over ten years at the Barnstaple pharmaceutical manufacturing site (Accord supply 1 in 5 of all UK generic medicines and largest supplier of generic medicines to the NHS by volume). He has extensive involvement in site incident management and Business Continuity Planning and is both a Chartered member of the Institute of Occupational Safety & Health (IOSH) and a Fellow member of the International Institute of Risk & Safety Management (IIRSM). His spare time is generally taken up in the garden or walking the lovely Devon country and coastal areas.

Rod Birtles

Healthy Communities Tuesday 15th 2pm

Rod is a project manager at Devon Communities Together on projects as diverse as young people who are NEET, people and landscapes, and tackling loneliness with transport. He has a background in arts and environment management and marketing and prior to joining DCT was a teacher.

Kate Hind

Healthy Communities (Naturally Healthy) Tuesday 15th 2pm

Kate started off her career as an ecologist and outreach officer working in a variety of habitats around Devon. She managed a foundation degree in conservation but became concerned about the level of student anxiety. This led her to move to Exeter University where Kate was the impact fellow for the Investing in Nature for Health SWEEP project, working with a range of partners across the South West, looking at the benefits spending time in good quality green space can improve wellbeing. At the county council Kate is the Devon County Council in the environment partnership officer and co-lead for the Devon Local Nature Partnership initiative Naturally Healthy, working closely with Active Devon. Her aspiration is that everyone in Devon has access to good quality green space, where they can connect to nature, recognise the benefits spending time in it has, and become advocates for their local space.

Liam Lucassi

Keeping Warm this Winter Tuesday 15th 3pm

Liam has been working for Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service for 18 years, across several departments. He is a Crew Manager within the prevention team and covers campaigns, resourcing and local risk, working out of the Plymouth area.

Steve Fisher

Keeping Warm this Winter Tuesday 15th 3pm

Steve has worked for Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service for 24 years, starting his career at Barnstaple Fire Station before moving into the prevention department. He is a Crew Manager covering campaigns, resourcing and local risk, based in the North Devon area.

Jen Murphy

Preparing for Winter Tuesday 15th 10.30

Jennifer Murphy is the Network Operations Control Centre Team Leader for Devon County Council, although prior to this she has undertaken a variety of operational roles within Devon’s Traffic Management Group. The Network Operations Control Centre monitors Devon’s highways 24/7 365 days a year, responding to a multitude of weather events and other incidents.

Martyn Bragg

Growing local Fruit and Vegetables in a global context Tuesday 15th 12pm

Martyn has been farming for 39 years on a family farm on the beautiful ‘Red’ soils at Shillingford Abbot, on the edge of Exeter. They have been growing Organic vegetables for 22 years and marketing through their Shillingford Organics Box Scheme, farmers markets and supplying local shops and restaurants. They grow a wide range of vegetables for 52 weeks a year production. They have 8 acres of Agroforestry – mainly apple trees. With 11 staff they supply approximately 1,000 families in and around Exeter a week.

Nora Corkery

Whole of Society Resilience Tuesday 15th 5pm

Nora is CEO of Devon Communities Together. She graduated from The University of Southampton in 1985 with an Honours degree in Law & Politics. She actively chose to work in the public sector, working with the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders; Women’s’ Aid and South Glamorgan County, the national Citizens Advice Service in Devon as a Specialist Welfare Rights Officer and Partnership Development Officer and Manager of Devon Welfare Rights Unit.

Harry Bonnell

A Day in the Life: Imagining your plans through your communities' eyes Wednesday 16th 9.30

Harry is experienced in facilitating a wide variety of multi-stakeholder, grass roots processes from single workshops through to extended consultation, engagement and project development. He has been working at Devon Communities Together for over 4 years, having previously spent 3 years working in Kilburn, North London, developing grassroots projects, actions and campaigns. Harry maintains an approach rooted in principles of Asset Based Community Development and Design-Led Thinking. Harry holds an MSc in ‘Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability’ from BTH University (Sweden) which is rooted in facilitation and systems thinking across disciplines.

Dr Paul O’Hare

Retrofitting your home in the event of a flood Wednesday 16th 10.30

Dr Paul O’Hare is a Senior Lecturer in Geography and Development at Manchester Metropolitan University. He researches efforts to engage ‘the public’ in governance and planning decision-making processes and in approaches to climate change adaptation. He has written multiple research papers (Google scholar profile) and advised Government, local authorities, communities and civil society organisations on climate resilience strategy and practice. He was recently appointed as an ‘Expert Reviewer’ for the United Nations Race to Resilience initiative.

Liza Oxford

Engaging communities about flooding Wednesday 16th 3pm

Liza Oxford works for Plymouth City Council and is Project Lead for the Building Resilience in Communities (BRIC) Project. Liza has a B.Ed.(Hons) in education and qualifications in youth and community work and sustainability. Before joining the BRIC project, Liza worked as a training consultant for the environmental sector for 11 years. She has a wealth of experience of working with people and communities gained from working across a number of sectors including employability, education and health.

Sarah Durbridge

Engaging communities about flooding Wednesday 16th 3pm

Sarah Durbridge is an Assistant Flood Risk Engineer at Plymouth City Council. Having previously worked as a personal injury lawyer and a Civil Service investigator, Sarah recently decided to retrain as an engineer. Having graduated from Plymouth University in 2021 with a BEng (Hons) in Civil and Coastal Engineering, Sarah is now working as technical lead on the BRIC project.

Carol Williams

Farm Wildlife, Fair to Nature and Gardens Wednesday 16th 5pm

Carol is Director of Conservation at the Bat Conservation Trust. As someone who has a long-running special interest in woodlands this post brings together her two main passions of bats and trees. Carol has been involved in bat conservation for over 20 years and carried out a PhD on the winter ecology of lesser horseshoe bats. She is a member of the Cornwall Bat Group and also the Isles of Scilly Bat Group and carries out a range of NBMP surveys each year. She is also a chartered biologist.

Kate Pearson

Recruiting Volunteers for Community Emergency Response Teams Wednesday 16th 7pm

Kate Pearson is a Flood Resilience Advisor with the Environment Agency. Kate studied BA (Hons) Environmental Planning and Management at University of Wales, Bangor, before joining the Environment Agency as a River and Coastal Engineering technician in 2006. Kate volunteered as a Community Flood Volunteer in her hometown, before joining the Environment Agency’s Flood Resilience team in 2012 to support more communities across Devon and Cornwall to do the same.

Devon Community Resilience Forum virtual event 14-16 November 2022