Meet the NAYC Management Committee

Members of the Management committee are also the trustees of the charity

Pete Bardwell has been a Trustee since 2017 and became Chair of the Trustees in 2022.  He works full time as Team Leader of River Church, which meets at North Avenue Christian Centre.  River Church gathers people of all ages from the local community and more widely across the city and beyond. 

Pete loves to see ideas and dreams realised and prior to working for The River, he started and ran a successful bespoke furniture company.  His desire is for the young people to live life to the full, grow in hope and for their own ideas and dreams to come to fruition. 

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Martin Solder has been the county director for Essex Boys and Girls Clubs for over 30 years. A qualified PE teacher, Martin has worked almost all his working life with young people. He has been involved with NAYC from its start, and is our Vice Chair.

Martin has a passion for the outdoors and is a qualified Winter Mountain Leader and leads regular trips to Scotland and wider afield to Nepal.

Sport is a major part of Martin’s life and he still trains and compete in triathlons. Martin’s spare time is spent as Chairman of the club he attended as 10 year old (Frenford in Redbridge) and as Chairman of Vision RCL, the Essex Council for Voluntary Youth Services, and YouthBuild. Having not long become a granddad, he expects his next focus in life will no doubt be his grandchildren.

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 Jane Humphreys OBE was born in Chelmsford and has lived most of her life within two miles of North Avenue Youth Centre. Following a varied career with the Civil Service mainly working in the area of telecomms and broadcasting, she is now mixing voluntary work, travel and leisure in retirement.

As well as being treasurer of NAYC, she is treasurer at Christ Church URC Chelmsford and North Avenue Christian Centre, and a trustee for Chelmsford United Charities and the Friends of Chelmsford Museums.

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Trevor Andrews – Trustee with responsibility for project managing the work carried out following the successful bid for funding from the Chelmsford City Council’s Community Infrastructure Levy.

He is also a member of the Management Team for the North Avenue Christian Centre, and a URC Lay Preacher.

Trevor grew up on the Melbourne Estate and attended North Avenue Congregational Church (as it was then called).

Trevor spent 15 years in the Merchant Navy before working ashore, the majority of it working within the manufacturing industry in the management of health and safety, quality and environmental systems

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Rebecca Stanley has been involved with NAYC since 2013 in her role as Club Development Officer at Essex Boys and Girls Clubs.

Rebecca previously supported the sessions and became club leader for a number of years; she stepped back from the running and became a member of the Management Committee when NAYC employed a full time club leader.  

The young people have the opportunity to take part in different activities, training, events and have been to the centre in Maes Y Lade in Wales with Rebecca and other EBGC staff members.

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Yvonne Spence Most of Yvonne’s career was spent in teaching, latterly at the Cathedral Primary but earlier in challenging communities in Scotland and Birkenhead. For the last decade to 2010, Yvonne was early years adviser for the dioceses of Chelmsford (Anglican) and Brentwood (RC).

Yvonne has always had extensive community interests, including spells as City Councillor, as a school governor (in primary & secondary schools) and involvement in organisations such as Ladies Circle, Tangent and Rotary. She is a parish councillor and leads the social and fundraising team at Chelmsford Cathedral.

Yvonne is a wife, mother and grandmother and just enjoys being with people. Very occasionally, she loves seeing Scotland win at rugby!

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Janet Cassels was born in Glasgow but moved to Essex 50years ago. She spent several years as a primary teacher in Chelmsford before becoming head teacher of a village school in north east Essex.

Since retiring she has volunteered with Foodbank and Riding for the Disabled. She is a member of Inner Wheel where she has held various executive positions and is an active member of Trinity Methodist Church. She is married to Eddie and they have two grown up children. Her hobbies include travel, gardening and reading.

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Graham Handscomb has lived in the Chelmsford area for almost 40 years.  He has an extensive career of senior leadership of local authorities and schools and twenty years teaching experience.   Then following semi-retirement he has works as an education consultant across the UK and is the editor of journals and writes education books.

Graham was Professor of Education and Dean of The College of Teachers and is currently Honorary Professor with University College London (UCL) and Visiting Professor at University of Bolton and Durham University. Graham is an URC Elder, has developed the URC’s discipleship training and development programme and he chairs The Free Churches national Education Committee.

Advisors to the Management Committee