Back in 2010, Sita Brand put on sixteen storytelling events in Settle and waited to see who’d turn up. People came. Then they came back, and brought their friends.
Sixteen years on, stories that start at The Joinery find their way into classrooms, living rooms and podcast headphones in 44 countries. A charity that’s grown like that needs good people helping to steer it, so we’re thrilled to introduce three new trustees: Jackie Christie, Elvi Piper and Kausor Amin-Ali.
If you’ve ever wondered what trustees actually do, the short version is that they are volunteers who look after the charity’s direction, its money and its values. They ask the tricky questions, back the brave ideas and help us hold on to the reasons we started. We are delighted to welcome the new faces to our Board.
Meet our new Trustees
Jackie Christie
Jackie is an inclusive leadership practitioner, trainer and communications specialist. At the BBC she led on race and ethnicity for the Creative and Workforce Diversity Unit and served as Head of Partnerships for BBC World Service Africa. Most recently she was Global Inclusion Projects Lead at Fremantle.
She spent most of the last ten years in East Africa, running media and communications consultancies for international NGOs, UN agencies and BBC Media Action, the BBC’s international development charity. That work ranged from developing new products to making television and radio that supported local development priorities.
Elvi Piper
Elvi is a theatre director and playwright who lives in Settle. She trained at Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama and the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona, then founded Wrongsemble, the award-winning family theatre company she still leads as Artistic Director.
She began in participatory arts and has developed and delivered programmes for the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Leeds Playhouse and The Old Vic. Her directing credits include Robin Hood and The Wizard of Oz for The Dukes, The Wensleydale Whey and Hush Hush for Mikron, Bring It Back for Bradford Arts Centre and Bradford 2025, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet for Storyhouse, and Wrongsemble’s own Rapunzel and A Town Called Christmas.
Kausor Amin-Ali
Kausor studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Sheffield before training as a mathematics teacher at the University of Cambridge. He’s now Principal of an international school in Dubai.
He’s written three books, A-Z of School Leadership, A-Z of Teaching and A-Z of Learning, and writes for TES Magazine. He holds a Master’s from the University of Nottingham and is completing a doctorate at the University of Birmingham. His advocacy work covers safeguarding, child protection, domestic violence and anti-racism, and he founded All Children Read to tackle childhood illiteracy. His favourite novel is Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
What Sita and Tony say
Here’s Sita, who started it all:
“When you’re a small charity in a small town, the board is where a lot of the big thinking happens, so we wanted people who’d bring something new to the table. Jackie has made radio and television in Britain and across East Africa. Elvi makes theatre for families and lives here in Settle. Kausor runs a school and has written three books about teaching. I’m looking forward to the much needed conversations and debates.”
And our Chair, Tony Durcan OBE:
“We are delighted with the success of this summer’s recruitment campaign. We are having to say goodbye to much valued Trustees who extended their terms of office to support us through covid and the post covid readjustments. But I am confident that our new Board appointments will enable Settle Stories to continue to develop and reach new and more diverse audiences. It’s a very exciting time for the charity.”
Over the coming months, Jackie, Elvi and Kausor will be helping to shape what happens at The Joinery, online and in classrooms. The best way to see where it’s all heading is to come along to something.
