The last six months has seen a lot of changes in the Knowle West Alliance core team, and we thought it was about time we updated the community.
As most people know, we said goodbye to Lucy Holburn, Network Development Director, at the end of September, with Jai Breitnauer starting as Community Development Manager in November 2024.
Jai comes from a communications and fundraising background, having worked as a journalist for over 20-years, as well as fundraising and communications manager for a variety of local charities. Before taking this role, she was operations manager for Mendip Access Adventure Foundation in North Somerset, and she is also a trustee of Bristol-based children’s disability support charity Incredible Kids. Jai is married with two children who are disabled according to the social model, and is passionate about advocacy and empowerment of local people. The new job role of Community Development Manager puts even greater emphasis on the empowerment of local residents in Knowle West.
During this time there have been two other major changes. Firstly, the sad closure of Re:Work. As they were a founding member of the Alliance, this opens up an opportunity reforge Alliance connections and priorities. The Alliance regularly supports over 40 local organisations and have always welcomed those who have capacity to take a more central role through our working group and project groups. We will be reaching out over the next few months with a renewed offer of mutual support.
We also recently said goodbye to Frances Coates who was a key Community Development Worker for our core team. Frances looked after grants and the training programme, and will be sorely missed. We’ve temporarily closed our grants programme while we re-group, and will re-launch this offer at the end of May.
One thing that hasn’t changed is our passion for the local community. As always Knowle West Alliance is here to support the work you want to do. If you want to get involved with an existing programme or have a great idea you need help getting off the ground, please get in touch!
Knowle West Alliance 