Meet the new Board of Trustees for the Cultural Centre and Museum

After a rigorous recruitment process, the Isles of Scilly Cultural Centre and Museum has appointed four new trustees to form the inaugural Board for the new organisation.

Recruitment began in November 2023, seeking a small number of experienced trustees to help set the direction for the organisation which will be running the renovated Town Hall.

The Project Board was looking for trustees to help bring new thinking, views and experience to support the exciting transformation of the Town Hall and bring our new Cultural Centre and Museum into reality.

The Cultural Centre and Museum plans to expand the board with a further round of Board recruitment in late 2024/early 2025 and will also be setting up a community panel to seek contributions to Board conversations from our local island community.

Work is underway to legally form a new Charitable Incorporated Organisation, the formal legal entity responsible for the running of the new Cultural Centre and Museum.

We are delighted to introduce our new Board of Trustees.

Justin Richards

Justin lives on St Mary’s with his wife and youngest son.  He has previously spent time living on Bryher and St Agnes, although originally hails from Yorkshire.  Justin has spent the past 20+ years in leadership roles within various commercial organisations across a diverse range of sectors and geographies. 

 He is a qualified solicitor and works as a consultant for several of the large international law firms, being sent out to clients whenever they have a need.  He is currently on assignment as Company Secretary and Legal Director for a FTSE listed company. 

Ann Tudor

Ann became a trustee of the Isles of Scilly Museum Association in November 2022 and joined the Project Board as a museum representative. She became a co-chair of the Museum Association in March 2023 and has led two of the Project Board working groups – business planning and governance.

Ann is a chartered accountant and has held several charity trusteeships during her career as well as acting for charity clients. She shares her time between living on Scilly and in Shrewsbury. When her grandsons visit, they are the fifth generation of her family to holiday on Scilly.

Jeff Knott

Jeff lives near Huntingdon and has been visiting Scilly since he was 8. He has been to Scilly for most of the 30 years since, missing just a few years for university and while studying in Australia. In recent years he has been able to add a third generation of Knotts to Scillonian visitors, with daughter Erin (9) on her fifth trip and Joel (1) who will take his first trip to the islands in 2024.

Jeff has worked in nature conservation for the RSPB for the last 16 years, with the last 10 in director roles covering policy and operations. This has included running visitor centres, including Sherwood Forest. He is just about to move to a new executive role at another charity, Cats Protection.

Judy Niner

Judy lives near Oxford and is a fundraising and development consultant, primarily in the heritage and cultural sector.  She started her career at the BBC, before moving to the Science Museum and from there to the National Trust’s Waddesdon Manor.

She started a consultancy business in 2000 (www.development-partners.co.uk) and has run that ever since, working with museums and other organisations across the UK.

For 10 years Judy was chair of trustees for Cogges Manor Farm in Witney - a beautiful historic Manor House and farm which Oxfordshire County Council had bought and run as a farm museum since the 1980s. They had closed it because it was losing too much money.  The trust was set up to reopen it, and it is now a thriving operation. She has also been a trustee of the Roald Dahl Museum and the Waterways Trust.

Her introduction to the Isles of Scilly was on holiday in 2009 with her daughter and friends. Judy has wanted to return ever since and is delighted to have this opportunity to offer her experience.

The Cultural Centre and Museum would like to expand the board with a further round of Board recruitment and we will publish full details of this process in due course. We also plan to set up a community panel, giving people from the islands the chance to contribute to Board conversations from our local island community. More details to follow on both of these opportunities.