GETSuk Trustees


Julie Limbrick Hon. Secretary	Paul Webster Treasurer	Sheila Plaister Sponsorships
Dawn Webster Webmaster	David Goss Castellan West African Trust
	Advisors

Shirley Britton Fundraising	Tony Bond Corporate Funding	Cliff Parfit Curriculum

	Angela Thomas & Rosie Holder Newsletter

Via membership fees, donations and fundraising, volunteer placements
and sponsoring, we manage, implement and closely monitor a variety of educational projects
in The Gambia, West Africa.

Julie has been Secretary of GETSuk for five years and her background is as Senior Manager of a large Age Concern Day Centre in Kent. Her twice yearly monitoring visits to Gambia play a large part in keeping herself up to date with project progress plus legislative and administrative considerations on behalf of the charity.

Paul lives in Wales with his wife, Dawn, our Webmaster. After gaining a Bsc.Econ at the London School of Economics, he trained as an accountant. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. As one of his hobbies is bird-watching he is in his element when he visits The Gambia.

Sheila has been Sponsorship Secretary of GETSuk for three years. She originally trained and qualified as a librarian but her current role is as a database administrator in Cambridge.
Sheila administers all the individual student and project sponsorships as well as co-ordinating the transfer of funds to Gambia.

I live in Essex not far from where I spent my childhood. I met my husband in my mid-teens. In my younger days I worked in administration at St.Margaret’s Hospital, Epping. I joined the ambulance service in 1979. Firstly as a technician, then paramedic and Leading Ambulance woman. In 1985 I was promoted to Group Station Manager/paramedic. After eight years in this role I decided that I would prefer to be working on the ambulances with a colleague dealing with patients. During my managing days I had the responsibility to ensuring the medical services if they were required to, Her Majesty The Queen, HRH The Princess Royal, Diana, Princess of Wales, & Prince Andrew Duke of York, some would say a ‘perk’ of the job – I say ‘WHAT AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE’
I was a very small girl (not at senior school) when I was first interested in Africa, in fact, I think it was because of the Suez crisis and I heard the word ‘war’. In-between all those long years I have been active in one-way or another within Africa. My first visit to The Gambia was in Feb 1988. I cannot say how many times I have travelled the ocean, but I know a lot of landmarks (from the air) in the Sahara!

It is my responsibility as GETSuk Fundraising Secretary to:

· Uplift public awareness of Gambia Education & Teaching Support
Generate income to enable the charity to fulfil their planning objectives
Strengthen the membership/sponsorship & donation of funds
Advertise for persons to participate in our Fundraising team
Communicate and build up a knowledgeable team of GETSuk fundraisers
Inform and advertise to members of the public and schools by poster, handouts (UK & The Gambia) newsletter/press and radio details of GETSuk; its ongoing activities, objectives and completed projects.
Carry out administration duties as per rules of the Charity Commission.

With a background in commerce and experience in finance gained with small to medium businesses in various different sectors of industry and also with direct sales and marketing experience, Tony retired recently. He visited Gambia earlier this year.
Having for a number of years held financial accounting responsibilities at Midlands-based companies, in mid-career he became involved with marketing in the wine industry and later financial services. He also ran his own small business for 8 years, and was more recently Accountant at a large independent school, having previously worked as a part-time Financial Administrator at a small charity and served on the Board of another charity for several years.

Cliff was a teacher in the UK, working with ILEA to produce resources for what were in the 70's called reluctant learners, before he went to live in Japan, where he set up an English Centre.
He recently returned to the UK after spending 30 years teaching Japanese children to speak English. The similarities between the problems we face in The Gambia and the problems Cliff faced in Japan are so close as to make no difference.
Using Cliff's ideas the staff and children first learn to speak English and then develop their reading and writing skills.

I am a retired teacher, now living in Wales with my husband, Paul. We have two daughters and one grand-daughter. After I retired I took computer courses at our local further education college and now am often to be found at my computer! This is the third website upon which I have worked.
After coming to live in Wales, I learnt Welsh, even taking O then A level exams and doing some extra courses at the university. I have helped in a local school where all the teaching is done in Welsh, despite the majority of the children coming from non-Welsh speaking backgrounds, so can relate to the problems that Gambian children will have in receiving their education in English.

Rosie Holder and Angela Thomas first visited The Gambia at Christmas, 2003. They stayed in a large hotel on the coast and were warned not to go out of the hotel compound. Of course, they did; they found a guide and taxi driver and had a whale of a time!
After they returned to the UK, they couldn't wait to return and scoured the internet, looking for anything to do with The Gambia. They found the GTS website, contacted Francis and the rest is history.
They have visited 14 or 15 times now, have made many friends and have recently bought a small apartment. Rosie has a background in accountancy and Angela was trained as a graphic designer, although she currently works in administration. They live near Bristol, sharing a house with Rosie's husband and three cats!

David was sponsoring a child in Senegal through a major international charity but on visiting the village, by back-packing from the Gambia, he found she was not receiving any education nor would she in the future. He found there was plenty to be achieved in The Gambia and with the help of his many friends and clients in the UK David set up the CWATP in 1997/8. The Trust operates only in Bwiam village and sponsors each support an individual child and the child’s family. After this financial support for school fees etc., there are surplus funds and with extra fund-raising activity various projects have been undertaken to improve village life generally. This included bringing a six year old girl with severe burn wounds back to the UK for plastic surgery.