Our purpose
The Ken Stradling Collection is an educational charitable trust that exists to engage a wide range of audiences with design and creativity through the Collection and its interpretation, by means of exhibitions, talks and outreach projects.
The Collection is in the care of a charitable trust that provides public access through exhibitions and events at the Stradling Gallery together with a lively educational outreach programme.
Governance of the Trust
- The Ken Stradling Collection is held in part at 48 Park Row, Bristol BS1 5LH.
- The Trust is governed by a panel of Trustees who meet at least five times a year at 48 Park Row, Bristol; proceedings are recorded in minutes taken by the Administrator and approved by the Trustees. As of November 2022 there eleven Trustees, including the Acting Chair, and a quorum of three Trustees is required for a meeting.
- The Trust is managed by two part-time consultant staff: the Curator and an Administrator, each of whom report regularly to these meetings.
- The Trust benefits from the advice of a voluntary financial adviser, and its accounts are examined annually and available for public scrutiny.
- The Trust complies fully with the requirements of health and safety, and has a certificate for full public liability that is displayed at 48 Park Row.
- The Collection is fully insured, and the premises at 48 Park Row are protected by an alarm system.
- The Collection is curated to full professional standards, and recorded by a computer system approved by the Museums Association. The Trust intends in due course to apply for Accreditation as resources permit.
Trustees
Click or tap on the images below to download a PDF of our Annual Report and Accounts.
Annual report and accounts 2021
Annual report and accounts 2022
Karen White – CHAIR
Karen is a trained journalist and communications specialist and now runs her own agency focusing on clients in the arts and charity sector. Previously she has worked both in consultancy and in house, latterly running the Europe, Middle East and Africa region for a multinational organisation specialising in weight management and wellness products. She has held a number of Non-Executive board positions, currently including Bristol Museums Development Trust and Pahar Trust Nepal, which builds schools and health facilities in remote areas of the country. Karen started her relationship with the Stradling Collection as a volunteer steward, a role she still fulfils.
Fiona Hallworth – VICE CHAIR
Director of MES, an education consultancy, Fiona has advised governments, corporations, governors, consultants, schools, head teachers, parents and pupils on a wide number of education issues and is now working in education search for the recruitment firm RSAcademics.
A Cambridge graduate, she has worked in: recruitment in a top 30 FTSE company and a leading independent television company; been a senior leader in top independent schools, a governor in primary and secondary schools and an ISI Inspector. Her 30-year consultancy portfolio includes projects for BAE Systems, software companies, the Malaysian Government, Shanghai University, Bristol China Partnership, UKTI and private Preparatory and Secondary Schools. She has worked with pupils and schools in the UK, Europe, Argentina, S. Africa, Mexico, Malaysia, China, Japan, USA and Australia.
She has been a committee member for over 40 years at local, regional, and national levels for charitable organisations in education, the arts, employment, and welfare, which has also involved lots of fundraising.
Currently, an enthusiastic trustee for three Arts organisations in Bristol and alongside all this she has been a passionate geography teacher, avid reader and amateur artist and chef. She has run a small antiques business, director of a ski holiday company and loved being a daughter, wife, and mother!
David Beech
David Beech joined us after retiring as Head of Art, Design, Media and Photography of The Bristol School of Art (WISE campus) of South Gloucester and Stroud College and as course leader for the Foundation Diploma. Previous to his educational career, David ran a successful furniture design company. He is a passionate and committed believer in the positive effects of an arts education for all.
Peter Dunscombe
After university Peter joined a firm of stockbrokers in the City of London and then in the mid-seventies moved back to Bristol to join the in-house investment management team which managed the Imperial pension fund where he was Joint Managing Director for the last 10 years. After 24 years with Imperial he headed back to London where he managed the investments of the BBC pension fund.
He retired in 2011 but for the next 11 years provided advice to a number of financial institutions. He was a keen sportsman but arthritis now restricts his activities to walking and helping out on his son’s allotment.
Jo Elsworth
Jo initially trained as an archaeologist but has worked as a curator for most of her career. She is currently Associate Director, with responsibility for Culture and Collections, within University of Bristol Library Services where her responsibilities include Public Art and Special Collections. She is also the Director of the Theatre Collection, which is a Designated collection, and an accredited museum and accredited archive service. She believes that collections should be used to inspire and inform new work as well as enhance our understanding of the past.
In her spare time Jo enjoys printmaking and is gradually trying to learn more about the whole process!
Jodie Inkson
Jodie Inkson is founder and creative director of creative agency Fable and avid enthusiast of all things art and design, particularly mid-century furniture and fabric. Jodie’s obsession with typography began at school when she painstakingly hand cut every letter of a project. Climbing the design ranks in London, she formed Wire Sky, now Fable, in 2003, winning multiple awards and a position in Who’s Who. Passionate ambassador of the arts, Jodie believes that art and design exists to be seen – enriching lives and opening opportunities for people. She sees her beloved collection of mid-century chairs as art, not sure whether she prefers sitting on them or looking at them.
Josephine Lanyon
Josephine Lanyon (born 1970) has been producing visual arts projects from the South West for over 25 years, early on as a curator at Arnolfini and then as Director of the agency Picture This specialising in producing and exhibiting artists’ film and now in a freelance capacity. Josephine has worked with a range of artists and organisations including Marcus Coates, Rosalind Nashashibi and John Wood & Paul Harrison and Chisenhale Gallery, Baltic, Venice Biennale and Serlachius, Finland.
Staff
CURATOR: Tanya Martin
Tanya started coming to the KSC as a volunteer in 2016. Later she took on the task of bringing up to date and managing the Collection online catalogue, and in July 2021 she was appointed in the role of curator of the KSC. She is currently looking after the Collection ensuring that its conditions are optimised for the future as well as both organising exhibitions and tours. Tanya is trained as an architect and a landscape architect and has a special interest in the Bauhaus and Modernist period of ceramics, furniture and architecture. She is also a ceramicist in her own right and has recently held several exhibitions of her own work, both in The Guild and further afield.
ADMINISTRATOR: Bettina Langlois MSc
Bettina originally trained as a theatre costume designer and maker. After gaining an MSc in Information Science from City, University of London, she became an academic librarian before moving into web content management. She studied upholstery at London Metropolitan University and her fine art upholstery has been exhibited at places including the National Centre for Craft and Design at Sleaford, Fringe Arts Bath and Ruthin Crafts Centre. In 2015 she moved to Bristol to begin a large-scale renovation project, joining the Stradling Collection in October 2021.