Staff and Volunteers

Tim Baster, Executive Director

Tim was a grassroots trade union campaigner in the construction industry in the late 70s and 80s, fighting against the privatisation of directly-employed labour in local authorities and the use of 'labour only subcontracting', which led to poor health and safety conditions and lower wages.

In the early 1990s he worked at the Refugee Legal Centre - a free representation unit for asylum seekers appealing against the refusal of asylum by the Home office - successfully representing many asylum seekers before the UK Immigration Courts.

In the late 90s as the level of detention rose dramatically, he set up an award-winning Human Rights organisation, Bail for Immigration Detainees, which sought to ensure that detained asylum seekers in the UK had access to judicial oversight of their detention consistent with the Human Rights Act. This work included an innovative litigant-in-person project for detainees who lacked access to legal representation due to cuts in the legal aid budget.

In 2006 he started working with the Campaign against Climate Change. He joined COIN in February 2007. 

George Marshall, Founder and Director of Projects

George has twenty years experience in research and campaigning and outreach for environmental and indigenous rights organisations. He has worked as a senior campaigner for Greenpeace and the Rainforest Foundation, and as a policy consultant to the German and Papua New Guinean governments. He has authored fifteen major reports and won nine awards for his video documentary work.

Before joining COIN George was one of the founders and co-ordinators of Rising Tide, a national network of grassroots climate change campaign groups. He has spoken and written widely on climate change issues and sustainable lifestyles including articles for The New Statesman, The Guardian, and The Ecologist. He is the author of Carbon Detox (www.carbondetox.org) a popular book offering "fresh ways to think about personal action to climate change" and is the creator of the blogsite www.climatedenial.org which examines our psychological responses to climate change. His 1930's terraced house in Oxford (www.theyellowhouse.org.uk) is a case study in eco-renovation and achieved 60% reductions in energy and water use.  

Janey Forgan, Operations Manager

Janey joined COIN in July 2009 as the part-time Manager of Operations, responsible for the organisation’s administrative and financial management.

Janey has worked for a number of years in the International Development sector, previously as the finance manager of SOS Sahel International UK, and as an internal auditor for Oxfam.  In addition to her COIN work, she continues to work on a freelance basis advising development NGOs on business management matters, including strategy development and partner relationships.

Nick Perks, Climate Solidarity Project Director

Nick was recruited by COIN in September 2009 as Project Director for Climate Solidarity, working with four leading trade unions to help their members cut their carbon emissions.

Previously, Nick spent 7 years as Assistant Trust Secretary of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, during which time he ran grant programmes in the UK, Ireland and South Africa, supporting organisations working on peace and security, corporate accountability, human rights and social justice. More recently, he spent a year as Director of Sheffield Hospitals Charitable Trust.  Nick has postgraduate qualifications in voluntary sector management, and work consultancy.  He is an active member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and lives in Sheffield.

Richard Conibere, Training Project Manager

Richard joined COIN full-time in August 2008 and will be coordinating the COIN training programmes. He hopes to see the delivery of courses move up a gear with more and bigger events and the courses being adapted to specific professions and other audiences.

Before working for COIN, Richard oversaw the documentation efforts of several large human rights projects in West Africa and Sri Lanka, using statistical methods to produce objective and undeniable evidence of human rights atrocities. This included work for Truth Commissions such as that in Sierra Leone, contributing to a history of the country's 10 year conflict. His interest in environmental issues is long-standing, beginning with involvement in green campaigning in the mid 90s.

Richard has been very active on climate issues, especially as volunteer coordinator of his local Friends of the Earth group, lobbying MPs and organising successful public events. Other interests include mountain biking so if you know of a decent sized hill near Oxford please get in touch... 

Hannah Smith, Refugee Project Manager

Hannah joined COIN part time in February 2009 and takes on a new partnership with Refugee and Human Rights NGOs. For the other two days of her week she works with Voluntary Services Overseas as a Volunteer Support Adviser. Before joining COIN Hannah worked primarily in campaigns and research on a diverse range of issues, from Woman’s Rights to Illegal Logging. She holds an L.L.B with Honours in Environmental, International and Trade Law and more recently completed an MSc in Environment and Resource Management. She is currently a Training Facilitator for Voluntary Services Overseas. She has also worked with the Scottish refugee organisation, ALP.

Hannah left Scotland at the age of 16 to work for a rural NGO in Sri Lanka and since then has gone on to work in varying capacities for organisations based in Swaziland and Cambodia. She also spent 12 months running small student led development organisation, EGP. She has been involved in campaigning on social and environmental justice issues since she was 16 including time as a dedicated local Greenpeace activist in Edinburgh.

Hannah also enjoys painting, creativity, music and language.

Siân Charnley – Fundraiser

Siân has recently retired from teaching. Climate change is a priority and for this reason she is happy to spend voluntary time doing any administrative tasks in the COIN office.

Siân has been concerned about the environment all her adult life. For example, it is over thirty years since she decided for environmental reasons not to fly again and not to learn to drive. Previous campaigning and voluntary work have centred around nuclear weapons (early 1980s)and,more recently, visiting asylum seekers in detention. 

Richard Sexton

In memory of Richard Sexton, Co-Executive Director and Founder of COIN 2004-06.