Trustees

Chair of Trustees

Charles became involved with FiND after his daughter Lucy went to the summer activity scheme, and had such a great time.

He became a trustee in 2004, Company Secretary in 2005 and Chair of Trustees in 2010.

Charles brings a business-like approach to the running of FiND and, when not working with FiND, runs the local manufacturing company Hodgson Sealants.  Charles is a graduate of Leeds University and is a Chartered Director with the Institute of Directors.

He is passionate about ensuring FiND succeeds by providing quality services to as many people with learning disabilities and autism as possible, however mild or severe, whilst at the same time ensuring that the charity remains well run and financially strong.

I am a retired teacher and in 1990 I was one of a group of parents from St Anne’s Special School who formed a self-help group to provide suitable activities during the school holidays for our teenage children. We became a charity two years later and I was one of the founding trustees. 

I have been involved in FiND’s development from its initial holiday activity scheme to the different services it offers today, including support to families facing the same challenges we faced all those years ago. I believe that the core values which were fundamental to the founding of FiND remain integral to its future.

Fourteen years ago, support during school holidays, for someone with severe learning difficulties, was rare. With nothing appropriate I joined together with other parents to deliver our own provision and share the responsibility. This became FiND and the rest, as they say, is history.

As FiND grew and became a charity, Trustees were needed and I took on this new role. I manage, just, to fit it into family life and part-time work, where I support children in a mainstream school. I am immensely proud of the progress FiND has made, what it offers to young people with severe learning difficulties, those who work for it, and those who support it.

I became a Trustee of FiND in 2013. I trained as a Registered Nurse but have always had a love of horses. Having seen the positive effect horses can have on people with disabilities, I became involved in Riding for the Disabled.

I strongly feel having a disability should not prevent you from achieving, and the FiND charity is a fine example of this. Its students are now taking part in RDA carriage driving and riding, among their many other activities. My aim is to keep supporting them in this activity.