Meet the trustees
Jason Barnett
Trustee
Jason has worked for a non for profit charity called deafPLUS since 2009 as a Centre Manager. He is also a former employee of The Royal Association for the Deaf as an Interpreting Office Manager and was an Executive Assistant to the CEO when he left for deafPLUS. He also developed and ran the BSL Interpreting Section for the London Borough of Hounslow. Jason has contracted meningitis when he was 21/2 years old.
Mary Sorene
Trustee
Having trained as a Secretary in 1961, Mary was a verbatim court reporter for over 40 years. Mary is also a Certified Reporting Instructor and now concentrates on training Verbatim Speech-to-Text Reporters for deaf or hard of hearing people.
Craig Crowley
Chair
Craig works as CEO of charitable company, Action Deafness & also Honorary President of UK Deaf Sport and currently chairs UKCoD’s Common Purpose Steering Group. Craig is well versed within the deaf sector serving as Trustee of Signature & NRCPD, having previously been the Deputy Director of Action on Hearing Loss’s Care Services, President of International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (Deaflympics) and completing a short stint as Executive Director of European Union of the Deaf (EUD).
Jeff McWhinney
Trustee
Jeff McWhinney worked in disability related public and voluntary sectors for over 30 years with the last nine years as the Chief Executive of the British Deaf Association before launching his own social enterprise, Significan't (UK) Limited that developed the UK's first and leading Video Relay Service - SignVideo. Jeff is a Deaf BSL user and hails from Northern Ireland and is firmly committed to achieving equality for deaf people throughout the UK.
Ralph Nattress
Trustee / Treasurer
Ralph’s background is engineering & followed a technical business based career covering product design, production, logistics, sales & marketing dealing with computer & telecommunication based systems. He has been involved with improvements in communications for the deaf, from development some 25 years ago of the V.18 protocol to helping shape subsequent deaf product developments.
Simon Pearse
Trustee
Simon has been actively involved in the deaf community since 2006 when co-opted to TAG covering broadcasting issues. He is currently on the DAC Executive which he represents on the Next Generation Text Steering Board.
Simon is a Trustee for National Association of Deafened People and represents NADP at Ofcom's Consumer Forum for Communications and Digital Television Group Accessibility Working Group. Simon is profoundly deaf and uses hearing aids. Simon is a qualified Actuary.James Watson-O'Neill
Trustee
James is Chief Executive of SignHealth which has been working to improve the health and wellbeing of Deaf people for the last 31 years. Prior to this he spent a decade at disability charity Scope in a variety of roles, including Executive Director of Services. He previously worked at NSPCC and also held a variety of non-exec roles including chairing the Board of Trustees of SurvivorsUK (2010/14), Trustee at deafPLUS (2012/15) and independent lay member of NHS Community Services Tower Hamlets (2010/11)
David Welbourn
Trustee
Prof. David Welbourn is Chief Executive of BSHAA since April 2015. He has drawn upon his considerable breadth of experience and extensive network at board level within the health and social care system to raise the profile of hearing care. He is visiting prof. at Leeds Business School, Founding Managing Director of Eutropia. He is a chartered physicist and chartered engineer and sat on advisory groups with the Institute of Risk Mngt, The Chartered Mngt Institute and Skills Council and British Standards Institute.
Jill Jones
Trustee
Jill has worked in the deaf community for 52 years, as a social worker with deaf people in local authorities and NDCS, and as manager of a Sensory Impairment Team. Jill co-founded the Deaf Ex-Mainstreamers Group (DEX), and led DEX’s deaf-led audit of deaf education. Now the Chair of DEX, Jill was a Director of the Institute of BSL and UKCoD. She supported a successful appeal for the award of the Disability Living Allowance (Fairey/Halliday case law). She is deaf due to Treacher Collins Syndrome.
Sheila Sirco
Trustee
Dr Sheila Osmanovic was brought up in Deaf culture and graduated from English Language and Literature, obtained MA and got two PhDs and is also a published author. From her early life, she was acquainted with difficulties Deaf people encounter, which led her to become an ardent campaigner for Deaf inclusion and equal treatment. Sheila had worked over 20 years as a Linguist, Interpreter and Consultant incl the UN. In 2008 she took over TERRA.
Valerie Copenhagen
Trustee
Valerie has worked within the charity sector for the past 14 years. Her previous employment was at the National Deaf Children’s Society for 10 years where she managed the Family Programmes. Since Nov 2016 Valerie has worked for UK Deaf Sport as Head of Participation working towards engaging and encouraging more Deaf people into Sport and physical activity. She has a wide range of knowledge and experiences in programme management, impact measurement and engaging with stakeholder groups.
Thomas Lichy
Trustee
Thomas works as Director of DeafLondon, & also trustee at Inclusion London; & DeafPLUS; & Parent-Governor at Heathlands School for Deaf Children. He has previously been a trustee for RAD; Governor at Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children; member of the Board of Oversight for a genetic engineering research program at Bristol University; and a participant in a UN relay services working group. He has a particular interest in legislation and technology.
