Narara Ecovillage’s Board of Directors are elected by the membership sociocratically. A number of our Directors have been involved in the project from inception bringing a huge amount of continuity and project knowledge.
The current members of the Board are:
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Verena MacLean (Chair)
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Jonathan Ellis (Steering Circle downlink)
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Pip Atkins (Steering Circle uplink)
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Ed Hughes
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Peter Higgs
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Rosemary Leonard
Our Co-operative Secretary is Stuart King and the Board Administrator is Jamie Payne-Dave.
Former serving Board Directors are Lyndall Parris, Richard Denham, Grant Rickey, Laurence Perrin, Tony Hester, Stuart King, John Talbott, Mark Fisher, Donna Carey, Richard Cassels, Geoff Cameron, Nicky Prince, Lincoln De Kalb, Patricia Meagher, Bronwen Bassett, Rod Kashubin, Lynita Clark and Gina Price.
A little more about some of our current Directors:
Verena Maclean
Verena was elected to our board in 2015 and brings a human relations and community eye to board decisions. She is a member of AICD and brings 20+ years consulting experience in requisite organisation, organisational development, capability building, work complexity and effectiveness across all sectors and industries.
Laurence Perrin
Laurence is a member of our community who is deeply steeped in village life. His contribution to many areas of village life is invaluable. Laurence has held many management and executive directorship roles, predominantly in finance sector companies. He has experience in private equity placement, property syndication and establishing and managing start-up ventures. He brings a wealth of business development, financial and governance skills to our board.
Grant Rickey
Grant joined the Board in 2016 and brought with him energy and enthusiasm. One of Grant’s weaknesses is that he hasn’t learned to say no which has resulted in an unsustainable workload from time to time. He has been one of the driving forces for the Building Standards Approval process and evaluation criteria. His project management and planning skills are a real asset for the Board and are being more fully utilised in holding the stage 2 planning process, drawing on the lessons from Stage 1.
Grant is always happy to see the positive in situations and people and his can-do approach helps keep the Board going forward.
Richard Denham
Richard brings a broad knowledge of NSW planning and natural resource legislation and administration. Having worked in planning and policy positions in the NSW Government for many years he brings specific experience in relation to water resource management, water quality and aquatic ecology, crown land policy and management, primary industries policy, urban planning and biodiversity off-set planning. Richard is the convenor of our Legal and Finance Working Group.
Gina Price
At the last board election there was a strong consensus about the value that Gina brings as an Independent director. Gina Price was originally nominated for a variety of reasons one of which is her skills in sociocracy. The insights that she brings to the Board is invaluable and her commitment is shown by the hours of work she puts in to help us develop a robust sociocratically focussed governance framework. Gina teleconferences into our board meetings from Western Australia each month.