ACT Trustees

Jim has farmed in South Cumbria all his life and is our Chairman. As well as this he's a writer, freelance journalist, and at various times has acted as a consultant. A life member of the Youth Hostel Association he is an enthusiastic walker. Other than that he has had a long interest in rural matters being a member of the Churches Together in Cumbria Rural Forum, and a volunteer for Farm Crisis Network.

Now retired, Debbie worked as a GP and undergraduate lecturer in Newcastle for many years before taking on NHS Board roles in the North East as well as in Cumbria. Strongly committed to health and care integration and public involvement, she championed community development approaches in her professional work and is a Board member of the National Centre for Rural Health & Care. Debbie enjoys gardening and choral singing as well as walking the fells with Tess, her border collie. Debbie joined ACT as a Trustee in 2023, and is now Vice Chairperson

Alan is a retired Chartered Accountant and current High Sheriff for Cumbria. He has a keen interest in rural affairs having lived all his life in Cumbria and has a practical business approach to life. In his leisure time he enjoys travel to other countries and in particular the rural areas of those countries. He is an active Rotarian and took part in an aid convoy to Mali including an excursion to Timbuktu. His travels have also taken him to the most northerly Rotary club in Murmansk, Northern Russia.

Alan has been an ACT Trustee since 2002, supporting ACT’s financial planning and operations.

After studying linguistics and business administration, Sue has spent her working life in commercial environments within both the private and public sectors, undertaking a variety of roles for BPB Industries Ltd, Rural Development Commission and Cumbria County Council.

Sue has lived in Cumbria for over 40 years where she has actively engaged in her local community through serving on the parish council, involvement with her village hall committee and membership of various social groups.

Sue’s attachment to the countryside is strong, as is her commitment to encouraging local people to influence the future of their communities positively through their own choices and ensuring that the special characteristics of rural Cumbria can be celebrated and sustained.

Sam has spent her working life in a variety of roles within the public, private and voluntary sectors including in primary and adult education and working for the Rural Women’s Network, a network set up by Voluntary Action Cumbria to support Cumbrian women in business.

More recently she has worked within Economic Development at the County Council where she has developed and managed economic programmes including the 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 Solway, Border and Eden LEADER Programmes. Since July 2018, she has been employed by Foundation Scotland working with communities in the South of Scotland.

She has a keen interest in sustainable rural economic and community development, and is committed to supporting local communities to resolve the issues that are facing them.

Juan grew up in rural Cumbria, he attended Penrith Grammar School and studied Politics and Economics at university. He undertook teacher training, working as a teacher for 10 years then moved to the voluntary sector; setting up and managing an employment development team at Action for Blind People. He then developed and managed a national fundraising team, spending four years as Partnership Development Manager all within Action for Blind People.

Juan has spent the last thirteen years at Cumbria Youth Alliance providing infrastructure support to youth sector groups with governance, quality, fundraising and training. Volunteer roles have included supporting people with learning disabilities, trustee roles at Carlisle Play for All, Voluntary Sector North West, Cumbria Third Sector Consortium, Cumbria Youth Alliance and Co-ordinator at North Cumbria Community Transport.

Bex is from West Cumbria, and after attending Loughborough University, spent almost 20 years working for Allerdale and then Cumberland Council within the sports, leisure and arts service area.

In that time she has worked within the community providing advice to sports clubs and administering grants, delivered on a number of externally funded programmes as well as having managed and supported a range of partnerships and managed the leisure centre contracts.

Bex now works as a Project Manager for Futureproof Cumbria as part of the Zero Carbon Cumbria team, working on Cumbria’s decarbonisation journey.

In her ‘spare’ time, Bex is a partner in a low-waste refill retail business ReCa in Wigton, plays and coaches hockey for Wigton Hockey club and is a taxi to her two young children.

Katherine grew up in the USA, but relocated to England in 2001 at age 19. She has had a wide variety of employment experience in local government positions including leaving care, youth offending, children’s social care commissioning and internal audit, as well as having served as a full-time union branch secretary. Katherine left her career in local government to undertake an MA in Social Policy and a PhD in Political Sociology. She moved to West Cumbria in 2024 to take up a research position in Social Inclusion and Community Engagement with the University of Lancashire at their Westlakes campus, involving a second PhD project which will focus on civic engagement in a relatively deprived post-industrial rural community.

Although Katherine is new to living in Cumbria, she married in Millom and her family have long dreamed of settling here permanently. With her husband, she home educates her three boys and cares for her elderly father-in-law, as well as a menagerie including three cats, a Mauritian rescue dog, six Indian runner ducks and a shifting variety of injured and vulnerable animals that somehow regularly find their way to the family. She is passionate about reliable, active and environmentally friendly transport, singing and living a sustainable rural life.

In addition to joining ACT as a trustee in 2025, she is also a community governor at a local primary school.

Jolyon Dodgson - President to May 2025

Jolyon was active in rural affairs in the Noth West for many years. His voluntary work included Chair of ACRE (Action for Communities in Rural England), Chair of VAC, now ACTion with Communities in Cumbria, Regional Director of the CLA, Executive member of the North West Rural Affairs Forum to name but a few. He also founded the Cumbria Rural Forum.

He had been associated with ACT for more than forty years. Jolyon was a Trustee, then Chairman, and then latterly very proudly President, until his retirement in May 2025.

By profession Jolyon was a man of many talents. A professional musician from the age of seven when he was a cathedral chorister, he performed as soloist all over the world, led choirs and encouraged the development of subsequent generations of musicians. He was also very proud to have been awarded an MBE for his services to music and the rural communities of Cumbria.

Whilst doing all this he built his own house with his own hands.

Jolyon sadly passed away in February 2026. He will be very much missed not only by ACT, but throughout the whole of Cumbria. When the entire congregation at his funeral joins the soloist in singing the third chorus of the Hippopotamus song you realise that you were remembering a very special person.

Olive Clarke – Vice President to December 2023.

Olive Clarke was involved with ACT for many years and brought a life-long commitment to rural issues across Cumbria. The record of her achievements and lists of honours is beyond the scope of this brief summary. Suffice to say she was recognised nationwide for her outstanding personal commitment to agriculture and rural life. Here is a just a snapshot of her experiences.

Olive was a deputy Lieutenant of Cumbria and she received the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal in 1978, the MBE in 1979 and an OBE in 1994. She was a magistrate for more than 30 years, chaired the WI, County Landowners Association and was involved in the Young Farmers Federation for many years.

Olive was the first chairperson of ACT’s Village hall Conferences and was treasurer of her own Village Hall for over 30 years. As a lifelong committed WI member, Olive believed we must first build our own Jerusalem on our own home ground.

Olive passed away peacefully in her 102nd  year, still living independently at home. At her commemoration service she left instruction that afterwards, ‘everyone must have refreshments in the Village Hall’ Olive will be much missed in ACT and throughout Cumbria.