Governance and Trustees

Helen Burridge

Helen is a community engagement and place management professional, with enthusiasm for and experience of leading events, activity and programming that raise funds and awareness and create memorable experiences. Helen is the lead trustee for Communications.

She has worked locally for the Council and the BID as well as running a creative workshop company teaching sewing, knitting and crochet to the community. She now works to coordinate the sustainability agendas of councils across Hertfordshire, as well as running a community interest company.  

Helen has lived in St Albans for 13 years with her growing family. When she’s not scouring the charity shops for preloved kids’ clothes, she can be found knitting, sewing , cooking or (badly) gardening…

Jack Easton

As one of the founders of Transition St Albans, our predecessor organisation, Jack has been with us since 2009, and is our treasurer.    He says, “I am an accountant by profession, and the environment is becoming ever more mainstream in corporate reporting; I am an economist by interest, and the realisation that “materialism” and GDP are part of the problem is getting an ever better hearing; and I live here, and I am immensely proud to be part of the St Albans journey towards being a sustainable community.  But there is plenty left to do …

Dan Fletcher

Dan is a fundraising professional, having worked for various charities since the mid-90s and for the last ten years as a consultant, currently with Moore Kingston Smith. He is also a trustee of Rethink Mental Illness and treasurer for Hertfordshire Natural History Society and RSPB St Albans, and brings experience of charity governance. He has lived in St Albans since 2001. As well as his keen interest in biodiversity and the natural world, he is a keen runner and gardener. 

Lesley Flowers

Lesley has been a trustee since 2016, and is the driver behind the successful Our Planet, Our Future initiative, which began putting on specialist talks and events in Harpenden as part of Sustainable St Albans, and continued during lockdown with many online events.

Lesley spent many years work establishing Playing Out St Albans District. She also co-ordinates the Thermal Imaging Camera project across both Harpenden and St Albans, and co-ordinated the wonderful Open Food Gardens initiative for several years.

Lesley lives in Harpenden with her family.

Sarah Gataora

Sarah is a Chartered Accountant who started her career in audit and then moved into industry over 10 years ago. Sarah is the link trustee for Open Food Gardens and provides secretariat function to the Board since 2021. She has worked across a number of customer facing sectors including entertainment, retail and hospitality. A mum of two, Sarah is keen to help her own children and the local community to work towards a greener future. 

Catherine Ross

Catherine has been actively involved with Sustainable St Albans and its predecessor for over a decade.  Originally, she set-up and ran our carbon-cutting Transition Streets programme, then chaired the first four Sustainability Festivals, and led our successful petition to the Council to declare a climate emergency in 2019. She became a steering group member in 2012 and then a trustee when we became a registered charity. 

Catherine’s day job is as the environmental lead in the national Cathedral and Church Buildings Team at the Church of England, writing guidance, running training, and sharing best practice around the country to support the Church’s aim of becoming Net Zero Carbon by 2030. 

She has lived in St Albans since 1999 and has three school-age children. 

Jill Watson

Jill has lived in St Albans since 2004 and joined Sustainable St Albans as a volunteer in 2018. She is now link Trustee for the SustFest Project team.

Jill especially enjoys being part of the projects that encourage bringing the community together to share our sustainability experiences and goals. Jill delights in collaborating with the District’s local community groups and their great ideas and great amounts of energy through SustFest, Sustainable Markets and the Events team.

She has a Biotechnology and Environmental Conservation background, is a small business owner, and is Mum to 2 kids.

Philip Nalpanis – Newsletter Editor and Membership Secretary

Philip has had an interest in environmental issues since his mid-teens; having done postgraduate research in meteorology he has some understanding of the physics behind climate change and hence has taken a particular interest in this. In the last few years he has been involved with Sustainable St Albans, editing their monthly newsletter and maintaining its membership register. Through this and his involvement with A Rocha, a Christian conservation and environmental charity, he has gained a wider appreciation of current environmental challenges. As a member of St Paul’s church, St Albans, he is encouraging the church and its members to live more sustainably.

Gail Jackson

Gail joined Sustainable St Albans as a trustee in 2012, leading on communications for SSA, and for the Sustainability Festival since its inception. Gail stepped down as a trustee in Sept 2021 to continue supporting the group as a volunteer.

Life-threatening brain surgery in 2010 had led her to think anew about priorities in her life: ‘That was easy’ she says, “the most important thing is the climate crisis, and  working with others to do whatever we small people can do to save the human species from destroying itself and this magnificent, beautiful planet we live on. I believe passionately in the power of community to make change.”