AWOC Board of Trustees
Jean Basson
Jean has lived and worked in Leeds for over 50 years. Forty of those years were spent as a teacher in mainstream and special schools, as a trainer, adviser and manager. After retiring she continued to keep links with Education by taking on the Chair of Governors at a local primary school. At the same time, she became the sole carer for her mother who lived 60 miles away in Manchester. As a result, she experienced that ‘light bulb’ moment people have about who would provide similar support for her in the future. She is childless by circumstance without a partner, siblings, nieces and nephews or cousins.
In 2014 she read an article in the Guardian by Kirsty Woodard, the founder of AWOC which highlighted many of her concerns, and she followed this up by arranging a meeting with Kirsty in Leeds. As a result, and along with another Leeds person, she set up a local AWOC group in 2015.
It was agreed at the start that this would be primarily a campaigning group to raise awareness with organisations who make provision for older people. Since then, we have also created social opportunities for people to meet those in a similar position and to share ideas informally and reduce possible feelings of isolation. We also arrange regular information sessions on a range of relevant topics. AWOC Leeds now has over 100 members.
Jason Bergen
Jason became involved with AWOC in 2014 when he met Kirsty Woodward and the other founding members of AWOC while working for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation UK as Programme Manager of the Ageing Programme. That work included supporting the Campaign to End Loneliness and setting up a new programme on ‘Transitions in Later Life’, etc. He subsequently joined the original AWOC Board.
Jason currently works with the Manchester City Council’s Age Friendly programme and over the past decade has worked in ageing related policy and practice projects and programmes with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s Ageing Hub, voluntary sector and the University of Manchester.
Jason has worked previously in policy and communications in migration and was the founding Chair of Migrant Voice (he’s Canadian!) and was trustee from 2000-2015. He is childless due to circumstance, not by choice ,and lives in Trafford, Greater Manchester.
Jenny Collieson
Jenny became interested in AWOC as an issue after she attended the group’s first conference in London in 2015 and subsequently became a member of AWOC’s original Board. At the time she was working for the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) as a Senior Information Specialist managing projects and resource development for adult social care practitioners. Her particular interests include residential care, dementia support and the role of carers.
Since moving to York in 2018 and retiring she has been actively involved in the local voluntary and community sector and is currently Vice Chair of Age UK York, a member of the Curious Minds Public Involvement Group at the University of York and sits on the Open University Carers Research Advisory Group.
Jenny is childless by choice and has no family living in the UK. She has personal experience of being a family carer and of caring for a parent with dementia.
Dr Robin Hadley
Dr. Robin A Hadley is a leading expert on the psychological and sociological impacts of male childlessness across the life course. He has written several invited academic pieces and contributed blogs and podcasts to infertility and involuntary childless support groups. He is a founder member of Ageing Without Children.
Robin is from Old Trafford, Manchester (UK). He comes from a large working-class family and left school with few qualifications. His previous careers included counsellors, deputy technical managers, scientific photographers, and kitchen assistants. Robin’s training as a counsellor and his own experience of desperately wanting to be a dad led him to research the desire for fatherhood for his self-funded MA (2008) and MSc (2009) and involuntarily childless older men for his PhD (2015). His research has been widely published in international and national media, and his book ‘How is a man supposed to be a man? Male childlessness, a disrupted life course?’ (Berghahn Books,2021) has received critical acclaim.
Rev’d Anna Lumb
Anna Lumb is AWOC and a vicar in the Church of England in West Yorkshire. She was previously a teacher for 27 years, and she works closely with a wide range of people. Anna says – “I see and know first-hand the impact that not having children or family close by can have. Indeed, on visiting an AWOC parishioner in a rehabilitation facility, there was an issue with who was to do her washing – so I am really keen to look at structure, policy and practice to make sure everyone is cared for properly. I also work closely with local hospitals and am a volunteer chaplain in a local hospice so I know well the specific issues and challenges for people at particularly vulnerable times.
Anna says “My engagement with the organisation began through an online conference where I was really inspired by the work that AWOC do and so was keen to become involved. Even faith groups don’t always consider the needs and priorities of those of us who are AWOC so I am really committed to speaking up for the increasing number of us who are living – and ageing – without children.”
Penny Shepherd MBE
Penny co-founded AWOC East Kent in 2022 and continues to act as its main coordinator. She is childless and without any close family members who could provide her with family advocacy or informal care in future. Her concern about ageing without children results from her experiences as a carer, currently for her partner and another family member and previously for her mother.
Most recently, Penny has been an NHS governor in Kent and a consumer advocate working with the energy and water sectors, including on behalf of the Consumer Council for Water. She has been chair of Orchard Community Energy, a community energy society for Swale and Medway, an adviser on corporate accountability to Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, a trustee of Local Trust, a community development charity, and a board member of the UK Individual Shareholders Society. She was previously Chief Executive of the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association and of London Sustainability Exchange, a sustainable development charity. She started her career in the IT industry working at IBM with banks and retailers.
Penny received her MBE for services to sustainable economic development and socially responsible investment.