Board of Trustees
Sharon Middling
Chair of the Board
Sharon Middling is Chair of the Board of Trustees. She is an asset to the board as well as the town of Biddulph.
Sharon brought our Community Garden to life recently by leading her team of volunteers. She’s been involved in the designing, building, digging and planting processes from start to finish.
Connor Brady
secretary
Connor Brady is the Secretary of the Board of Trustees and has been a trustee at the Zone since 2019. He is a current Biddulph Town and Staffordshire Moorlands District Councillor for Biddulph East and is passionate about representing the views of young people within the community.
He works in marketing and social media and is also a trustee at Citizens Advice Staffordshire North and Stoke on Trent.
James Bourne
vice chair of the board
James Bourne (Trustee) has been a vital member of the Zone for over 4 years, volunteering at the Youth Club, Kids Active, Fitness classes and much more. James works as a PSCO down in Brighton, where he recently relocated to.
James was a valued lead Youth Worker engaging young people and creating fun activities to take part in. He also encourages and supports the young leaders, holding regular meetings and guiding them to plan activities. His other interests are fitness, films and TMNT. James joined the board in 2019, having seen the potential of the centre and would like to help push it to the next step.
Adam Parkes
Trustee
Adam is an Educational Consultant and ex-Headteacher, who has worked in Education for almost 30 years. He has always been keen to serve the most vulnerable young people and, as a result, quickly transitioned from mainstream to Special Education, culminating in him setting up the Outreach Service for Stoke-on-Trent and leading the PRU Service for a number of years. He knows advise schools on social, emotional and mental health, working directly with students and staff, aiming to reduce exclusion and increase retention.
Following his own mental health journey, he set up Taking off the Mask, a non-profit organisation focused on fighting the stigma of mental health and offering 24/7 online support to those that reach out. Latterly, he has become a Town and District Councillor, standing on a platform of mental health and young people.
Chris Thomas
Trustee
Chris Thomas (Trustee) is now retired but spent 30 years working for the Inland Revenue. He has recently completed 8 years as Hon. Treasurer of “The Tibetan Education and Relief Association”, a registered charity which collects money to send out to Nepal and Northern India to aid, specifically, children of the Tibetan refugee communities and, more generally, peoples of Himalayan ethnicity.
In past years he served as a voluntary social worker and worked as a volunteer with young people, either offenders or considered at risk of offending. Outside of these activities his life passion has been in things oriental and oriental martial arts. He has served as Secretary and Chairman of the Tai Chi Union for Great Britain and also on the Technical Panel of that organisation.