OUR TEAM

Lisa Graham
Project & Volunteer Manager

Lisa started off as a volunteer with Hebden Bridge Arts in 2015 to meet people when she moved to the area. She was thrilled when the opportunity arose to get involved with a Staying Well project called 'Cafe Culture' as  a freelance Project Coordinator. 

​After this, she jumped at the chance to work as an Assistant on the annual 9-day festival and relished gaining more experience in event organisation, volunteer coordination and social media marketing. 

Since 2020 Lisa has been focussed on supporting the board and assisting as team on community projects. 

She currently works as Project & Volunteer Coordinator - as well as managing marketing activity, Company Secretary duties and looking after the finances! 

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Duncan Stuart
Trustee

Duncan has spent 15 years working in some of the UK’s most renowned and creative advertising agencies. He has helped to build brands from all manner of categories. In more recent years he has set-up his own brand and marketing consultancy business where he continues to help brands grow through strategic planning and creative communications. 
 
His only stint away from being agency and consultancy side was as Head of Marketing with inclusive theatre company, Chickenshed.  

​​Duncan moved to West Yorkshire in late 2020 and lives in Huddersfield with his family. As part of plugging into life across the region, he enjoys hosting a weekly radio show for Calderdale’s Phoenix FM.​

Patrick Shepherd
​Trustee

Patrick is a composer, project manager, and educator hailing from Guernsey. He moved to Manchester in 2016 where he completed a Master’s in Electroacoustic Music and Interactive Media, starting his love of crafting music from field recordings. 
 
Currently, he serves as the Programmes Manager at Manchester-based music charity, Olympias Music Foundation. In this role, Patrick spearheads various initiatives, including community choirs for refugee and asylum seeker womxn; free music lesson provision to children from low-income families; weekly music sessions for children with SEND; and regular collaborations with partners across the North-West.  

Patrick is a sound geek, and loves sharing this passion with the next generation by providing weekly composition lessons with a group of 7 young composers at Contact Theatre in Manchester. 
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Joëlle McNichol​
​Vice Chair of the Board & Trustee

Joëlle is Director of Communications for a local multi-academy trust, helping schools to achieve strategic goals, build community, morale and culture and bring values to life.  
   
Joëlle has a broad and creative skill set, spanning strategy, video, web design, copywriting, graphic design, social media, PR, live events, and internal comms. This is paired with a deep insight into education and youth engagement - with experience as an art teacher, school governor and parent as well as work within the government education regulator and at a major youth charity before moving into school communications.  
   
A passionate advocate for the value of the arts within education and beyond, Joëlle believes access to quality arts experiences is a social justice issue. She has a degree in History of Art from Cambridge and loves the creative and cultural life of the Calder valley.  ​​

Emily Ghassempour
​Trustee

Emily is an Iranian-British writer and passionate social justice activist. With a 20 year proven track record in delivering community engagement projects within the arts and culture sector, Em brings a wealth of experience in inclusion, diversity and community consultation to the board.

She is Co-Founder of the campaign Books For Change and is a qualified children's Anti-Racism Educator.

She currently works for The National Trust and has recently relocated to the Valley, her and her family live 'up on the tops' with views over the beautiful Crags. She loves to write short stories and poems and is an avid reader.   
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Sally Hoy
​Trustee

Sally worked in the third sector for over 30 years and has been directly involved in strategic partnerships between third sector, private and local authorities on a number of occasions.  

She retired from paid work in 2020 and is currently a trustee of a small charity she established with a musician colleague in 2021, delivering open access music workshops with young people from a base in inner city Leeds. 

Over the years she has successfully sought funding for, developed and managed many small and large programmes as part of her work with young people, including a number of arts projects.  She is a firm believer in the power of creativity to support mental health and wellbeing. ​