Trustees

Mark Courtice, Chairman

Mark Courtice has been a senior executive at a number of arts organisations in the UK, both building based and touring. Throughout a freelance career he has been responsible for development projects across the arts including local authority education and facilities development, support for new theatre writing, development of a small scale arts centre, and a number of major customer care and organisational development projects. Mark has run multi-million pound capital projects.

At Winchester he was the chief-executive of an enterprise that took on and now runs the Hat Fair (the UK’s oldest outdoor arts festival) as well as running a middle scale touring theatre. Mark has produced dance, theatre and touring productions, including a very successful series of traditional pantomimes over six years. He has a significant track record of work with artists and projects to support emerging and early career artists.

Stephen Foster, Arts

Between 1987-2017 Stephen was the Director of the John Hansard Gallery at the University of Southampton, during which time the Gallery has won a substantial reputation for seminal work with artists and curators. Stephen began his career as an artist, teacher and lecturer, and began his curatorial career as the Director of Axiom, an artist-run Gallery space in Cheltenham from 1982 to 1987. Stephen’s main interests are contemporary art and travelling which, fortunately, he has been able to combine.

Gemma Regniez, Comms

Gemma Regniez is a senior strategic marketing and communications professional with over 18 years diverse experience including behaviour change campaigning, and promoting trade for Britain. She has a particular passion for supporting and promoting sustainable solutions to the challenges our world faces today. Gemma’s current role as Chief Communications Officer for the Army focuses on advising senior Army officers and officials on strategic communications across the marketing and communications mix.

Zoe Crockford, Education

Zoe Crockford is head of art at Winton Academy, Andover. She did her masters in Art Education at Oxford University and did batchelors degree in Design at Bath Spa University. She is a passionate and enthusiastic supporter of creative education for young people and an experienced teacher.

Yinnon Ezra

Through the Chief Officer posts Yinnon Ezra has held in the London Borough of Ealing, Kent County Council and as Director of Culture, Communities and Rural Affairs for Hampshire County Council he has always been at the forefront of local government advocating the transformational power of culture in re-generating communities. In Kent this was expressed through his early leadership of the Turner Centre project in Margate (now Turner Contemporary) and latterly in Hampshire re-invigorated libraries through the pioneering “Discovery Centre” programme. His energetic, innovative, radical and inspiring solutions to delivering Cultural Services and strong customer focus are seen as best practice.

After working in local Government and the voluntary sector for 37 years, 23 of which have been at Chief Officer Level in three local authorities, Yinnon Ezra MBE MA FRSA has been the National Advisor on Public Libraries with the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) for more than a year. In February 2014 he finished a six year term as a National Trustee for the Heritage Memorial Fund/Heritage Lottery Fund.

Currently Yinnon is Chair of the Test Valley Arts Foundation, is Vice-Chair of the Hampshire Cultural Trust which delivers Hampshire County Council and Winchester City Councils Museums & Arts Service (in this capacity he has assisted the DCMS in the preparation of the “White Paper on Culture”), he is a member of the Theatre Royal Winchester Board and is a Regional Ambassador for the Princes Trust. He is a member of The Society of Local Government Chief Executives Charing a national “Master Class” on the Future of Cultural Services, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts & Business and a Fellow of the University of Winchester. He is married to Ruth an Artist; they have two children both married and a granddaughter of eight. They live in Broughton near Stockbridge in Hampshire.

He was an Advisor to the Local Government Association (LGA) throughout his Chief Officer local government career and more recently became an associate Peer Reviewer for the LGA. He was a Member of the Board of the Museums Libraries and Archives Council, the South East Regional Board of the Arts Council and the South East Cultural Consortium. In the New Year Honours of 2008, he was awarded the MBE for services to local government.