About Us

Stonewall Cymru Council

Each year our members elect representatives to the Stonewall Cymru Council. The Council inputs into the overall strategic direction of Stonewall Cymru. The Council is represented on the Stonewall UK Board by its co-chairs.

Becoming a Council Member

To be eligible to stand as a Council Member you need to be to have been on the Stonewall Cymru Supporters database for at least 6 months.

Supporters are kept informed about our work and will receive information about Council Elections. Click here to join. Return the form to:

Eleanor Hicks
Stonewall Cymru
3rd Floor
Transport House
1 Cathedral Road
Cardiff
CF11 9SB
email: eleanor.hicks@stonewallcymru.org.uk

Current Council members are:

Rachel Aukland

I am a grandmother with thirty years experience of community development work, including five years working with ethnic communities. I live as an ‘out’ bisexual woman, in a committed lesbian relationship in a small village near Swansea . I have served for two years as a co-optee on Stonewall Cymru Council, leading the conference committee and organising Mas yn y Maes/ Out and About events. I am currently studying for an MA in Sustainable Development. If elected I would continue to work for LGB inclusion in public and community life, especially environmental participation, for example in housing, transport and employment.

Leigh Arundale

My name is Leigh Arundale, and I have lived in old Colwyn for fifteen years. I have been on Mind Out Cymru steering group for 3 years and still active with them and also with Mind too. I have some gay friends in Wales and also with Miss Mae too. I have 13 years of Mental Health services work exchanges and had done voluntary work in Mind subgroups etc. I have experience and knowledge of LGB through Mind Out Cymru etc and other groups too I am a member of.

Tim Heywood

Andrew Hinchliff

I am an out gay man, a County Councillor. I have written a report on older LGBT issues for the W.A.G. and chair a multi agency committee to look into older LGBT provision. I am also setting up an OLGA AWAB based best practice group to advise on older LGBT. I have been a stanondu council member for 3 years, I chair NW Police LGBT diversity committee and do diversity training. I am a former Unison LGBT rep. for Wales . I have a history of supporting civil liberties, women’s issues and particularly older people’s issues.

Gruffudd Jones
Co-chair

Layton Percy Jones

I'm an open gay man living in the South Wales valleys. I currently employed as the Acting General Manager for Cardiff Action for Single Homeless (an organisation I have worked for, for 15 years). I am involved in politics and have previously served as a councillor with RCT, from 1999 - 2003 I was the Cabinet Member for Better Health. In the early 90’s I was involved in setting up Mid Glamorgan AIDS Helpline, and was its first Vice Chair. I am committed to ensuring that gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders have recognition and equality. I have also been a member of Stonewall Nationally for over 10 years.

Sylvia Jones

I am committed to working to ensure recognition, equality and fair play for lesbians, gay men and bisexual people within Wales. I came out as a lesbian and a feminist almost 30 years ago, and along with others, I have experienced the challenge of being true to myself, living as an out lesbian in a heterosexist world.
I started teaching in 1975 and currently work as a senior education officer within Denbighshire. I have considerable knowledge of current education and local government issues and experience of working with a range of agencies and organisations around educational issues and children and young people. I believe I can influence the agenda of addressing lesbian, gay and bisexual issues and education, including addressing homophobic bullying in schools. I also have experience of voluntary work within the LGB Community in North Wales over the past twenty five years.

Chris Malkavian

Lee Philips
co-chair

I feel I have the necessary skills to support the Stonewall Cymru Council to move the LGB agenda forward in Wales. In the past I was a volunteer on the Friend helpline in Cardiff, was its first woman coordinator, representative on the National Friend Council and was one of the original members of the South Wales LGB Police Liaison Group. Recently I have been fortunate to be on the management team that initiated and developed 'Sygnet', the Swansea LGBT Youth Group. I am a lesbian mother and partner working for the civil service in a strategic and policy role for Legal Advice Services across Wales.

Federico Podeschi

During my employment at Stonewall Cymru and within the voluntary sector, I developed great understanding and knowledge around sexual orientation and contributed to the achievement of better equality for LGB in Wales and the UK. I have provided LGB Awareness and Discrimination Training as well as co-ordinated the Diversity Champions programme, often relating this to the needs that people might have in experiencing LGB and multiple discrimination. I can help Stonewall Cymru circulating information and promote joint working through the networks that I have developed in the public, private and voluntary sectors as well as contribute to its future development.

Paul Stephen Thomas

I feel I could contribute a lot if I was elected as I have petitioned for the civil partnership and collected over 3000 signatures in the Cynon valley. I am a member of the Labour Party and sit on the board of governors at a local school. I am treasurer of the local community centre. I am entering a civil partnership in March with my partner of 34 years. I am aware of the problems in the valleys and Wales. I am a good listener and my door is open to people with problems.

Dr Neil Wooding

Neil is the former Co-Chair of the Stonewall Cymru Council and has worked to promote lesbian and gay equality since his early teenage years. He is the Equal Opportunities Commissioner for Wales and from 1992 until the early part of 2005, worked as the Director of the Centre for Equality and Human Rights inside NHS Wales. He is currently employed as the Director of Public Service Management Wales.

In addition, he is a Board Member and Trustee of the National Aids Trust, the Vice-President of the Welsh Food Alliance and a non-executive Director of Chwarae Teg Wales, and South East Wales Race Equality Council. Neil is a Fellow of the National Centre for Public Policy and an adviser on Equality, Human Rights and Social Justice to the Welsh Assembly Government.

Co-optees

Kate Bennett

Kate Bennett became Director of the Equal Opportunities Commission in Wales shortly after the establishment of the Assembly in 1999. Prior to this she worked as a full time trade union official with MSF, as a community campaign worker and as a research journalist. She studied Industrial Relations with Politics and Government at the University of Kent.

Kate is committed to working with others to eliminate discrimination and promote equality for all women and men in Wales, whatever their background or lifestyle. We will be able to transform Wales, economically and socially, if equality is central to policy making and public service delivery.

Penni Bestic

Jeff Newsome

I've lived near Hay on Wye for nearly 35 years, arriving via Leeds for school, and London for university. I became more intensely politicised via anti Clause 28 marches and soon after joined up with Powys Aids Line Services (PALS) to get a pretty comprehensive training (well, 60 hours of days and weekends anyway) on the issues involved. I joined up with them in 1989, (now their chair) and in 1998 started work as a gay men's health worker for the NHS. Elements of that work continued to 2007, when my brief turned to older people and mental health. I share an old fashioned rented cottage with half an acre of established but partly wild flower garden with my partner Patrick, a painter.


	Editor's Choice
	Count us In! report download[626kb]

	Join Stonewall Cymru Supporters database Download [96 kb]


	PDF format
To read pdf format documents you may need to download the reader from adobe. Click on the icon above to go to their website.


	Related links
	Information Bank