John Hicks 
MLA South East Chair
john.hicks22@ntlworld.com
John Hicks is both Chair of MLA South East and a member of the national MLA Board. Since 2000 John Hicks has been a senior partner in Kentwood Associates, a management consultancy working primarily in the cultural and heritage sectors. He worked in public libraries before broadening his experience in other sectors and becoming Director of Cultural Services for the former Berkshire County Council in 1993. He was additionally the Council’s Head of Paid Service for the period 1996-98. Recent projects with Kentwood Associates have included efficiency reviews, interim management and advice on organisational change in libraries, as well as in museums, archives, the arts and archaeology services. John was previously chair of the government's Advisory Council on Libraries.
Margaret Wallis 
Vice Chair
m.wallis@brighton.ac.uk
Margaret Wallis is Vice Chair of MLA South East, Head of Co-ordination & Development, University Centre Hastings & former head of the Social Informatics Research Unit at the University of Brighton. She has been a Principal Lecturer in the former Department of Librarianship, now the School of Computing, Mathematical and Information Sciences at the University of Brighton since 1989. She was previously Personnel and Training Officer in Hertfordshire Library Service responsible for the recruitment and development of over 500 library staff. She has also worked at the Library Association and as an Assistant to the Library Advisers at the then Office of Arts and Libraries. Recent research includes the first national survey of academic researchers’ use of libraries and information sources in the UK, published in Spring 2003 and an evaluation of the DCMS/Wolfson Reader Development Public Libraries Challenge Fund in 2002. Margaret was a member of the Aslib consultancy team, which produced the Review of the public library service in England and Wales. She was an assessor for the DCMS Annual Library Plans for six years and has recently joined the SEE Online Board as the MLA South East representative.
Kate Arnold-Forster 
Kate Arnold-Forster has worked in the museums sector as a volunteer, curator and consultant for more than two decades. Since 2002 she has been Head of University Museums and Collections Services at the University of Reading, responsible for the direction of the Museum of English Rural Life and for the strategic development of the University’s other museums and related collections, where she has led a major programme of capital re-development for the University's museums. She has undertaken extensive research into the sector through the national (UK) survey of university museums and collections, including the two regional surveys for the South East. She is also a Fellow at the University’s Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Applied Undergraduate Research Skills, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council, to develop undergraduate teaching in research skills through new approaches to collections-based learning. Kate has held positions on a wide range of national and regional advisory and policy bodies and is currently a member of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council Designation Panel, representing university museums, and is on the committee of the UK University Museums Group Committee. She is a Fellow of the Museums Association and is involved in professional development for the Museums Association, as a member of its Professional Review panel.
Mark Bilsborough 
markbilsborough@swale.gov.uk
Mark Bilsborough has been Chief Executive of Swale Borough Council since January 2006. His priorities are to raise the profile of the borough and develop a sense of belief in its potential. Before taking up this post Mark was Strategy Director at the Government Office for the South East, where he chaired the Regional Housing Forum, the South East Rural Partnership and the Social Inclusion Partnership for the South East and was responsible for producing the Regional Housing Strategy and the Rural Delivery Framework. During his time in the Government Office Mark was also Housing Director and had area responsibilities for Kent and Medway. Before that, Mark had a long career in central government working on unemployment, education and training policy for a variety of government departments and ministers. He designed and developed the Employment Zones programme for long term unemployed people and was on the design team for the New Deal for Lone Parents. He is interested in reading, music and sport and was educated at Warwick University, where he read philosophy and literature.
Lorna Brown 
Lorna.Brown@westsussex.gov.uk
Lorna Brown is the Head of Arts and Cultural Strategy with West Sussex County Council and has many years' experience of community and arts development in local government and the voluntary sector. Her background is design and education and she has worked in London, Herefordshire, the Isle of Wight and, since 1999, in West Sussex, where she set up the County Arts Service. She works with colleagues across the cultural sector to raise the profile of cultural services, and chairs the West Sussex Arts Partnership, a partnership between the local authorities in the county which delivers a strategic programme of arts development schemes, including youth and rural arts, dance and health and professional development for practitioners. She holds degrees from the Open University, majoring in social and cultural history and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She has been on the executive body of the National Association of Local Government Arts Officers (nalgao) for some years and is currently the Vice Chair.
Jane Finnis 
jane@24hourmuseum.org.uk
Jane Finnis is Director of the 24 Hour Museum. She joined the 24 Hour Museum in 2001 from Lighthouse Arts and Training in Brighton where she worked as Director for 10 years. She has worked extensively across the arts, education and creative industries sectors looking at how online technologies create new ways of working and learning. She is an experienced consultant, fundraiser and project manager and has also worked as a Producer of online artist commissions, ICT in school projects, museum/gallery installations, website, video and interactive media productions. She is a founder member of the Culture.mondo international steering committee, an informal network that encourages and facilitates communication amongst experts responsible for creating, developing, and maintaining cultural portals worldwide. She is also a trustee of the visual arts organisation Photoworks and is on the Program Committee for Museums and the Web 2007. She has a background in creative industries, regeneration, education and culture issues spanning fifteen years and a first class arts degree from Brighton in 1987.
Councillor Brian Gurden
cllr.brian.gurden@basingstoke.gov.uk
Brian is a Hampshire County Councillor and brings much useful experience of local government from the perspective of an elected member. He is a Basingstoke and Deane Borough councillor, and past Council Leader, and member of Hampshire County Council’s Policy and Resources Policy Review Committee. Brian was the former Chair of the Management Committee of Milestones – Hampshire’s living history museum in Basingstoke. He now totals 25 years of local government service at County and Borough level.
Elizabeth Hughes 
Elizabeth Hughes has been County Archivist at East Sussex Record Office, which serves the county and Brighton & Hove, since 2000. Her remit includes data protection and freedom of information as well as the traditional archives and records management roles. She has spent all her working career in the South East, having cut her teeth at Hampshire Record Office (1982-1992) before moving to Berkshire Record Office, where she ran the public and outreach services. She was involved in the planning of new record office buildings in both counties and hopes to make it a hat-trick in East Sussex. She was Secretary of the British Records Association 1995-2005 and is currently Secretary of the Association of Chief Archivists in Local Government.
John Isherwood C.M.G. 
ji@dmac.co.uk
John Isherwood has been a Board member of MLA South East since 2002. John was born in 1936 and educated at Merton College Oxford (MA 1963 : MSc 1997) and at Stanford University, California 1959 to 1960. John qualified as a solicitor in 1964 and was in practice from 1969 to 2001. From 1964 to 1969, he was a staff member of Voluntary Service Overseas,Trustee of Oxfam (1968 to 1998) and Chairman of its Executive Committee (1979 to1985), John was a founder trustee of Water Aid from 1981 and its Chairman from 1995-2001. John was a trustee of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations from 1996-2002 and is currently Chair of the Hampshire Archives Trust.
Miranda McKearney OBE 
miranda.mckearney@readingagency.org.uk
Miranda McKearney is Director of The Reading Agency, the UK wide development agency for libraries’ work with readers. The Reading Agency’s mission is to support and inspire readers by working with libraries and other partners. The Reading Agency came into being in July 2002, and has been formed by merging three smaller library development agencies; Miranda played a leading role in all three agencies. The Reading Agency is playing a key role in a range of national library initiatives, including leading the sectors national reading based partnerships. Miranda is a member of the Public Lending Right Advisory Committee. Before working with libraries she worked in marketing.
Sally McMahon 
sally.mcmahon@brighton-hove.gov.uk
Sally McMahon joined the MLA South East Board in 2006 and is Head of Libraries and Information Services at the multi-award winning Jubilee Library in Brighton. She is currently acting Assistant Director for Library Services within Brighton and Hove and has had responsibility for Library Services across the city of Brighton & Hove since 1998. She has worked as a librarian in a range of organisations including further education colleges in Lancaster and London, a teacher training college, a university, the first Regional Curriculum Resource Centre and at the BBC Reference Library. She has a BA in History from University of Lancaster (1979), a Postgraduate Diploma in Librarianship, College of Librarianship, Wales (1981) and is an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals since 1982.
Marilyn Scott 
marilyn@thelightbox.co.uk
Marilyn is the Director of Light Box, the new museum and community arts project for Woking which opened in Woking in 2006. She has spent all her working life in museums and heritage organisations and has worked for the Victoria & Albert Museum, The National Trust, the Museum of Richmond and has been a consultant on a number of new museum developments. She is a member of the South East England Cultural Consortium, Regional Assembly, a member of the MLA South East Museum Policy Advisory Group and an Ethnics Trainer for the Museums Association. Marilyn works with a number of small voluntary led museums as Curatorial Adviser and is adviser to a number of artists led groups in Surrey.
Nicky Whitsed 
n.whitsed@open.ac.uk
Nicky is Director of Library Services, at the Open University in Milton Keynes. She is responsible for developing an innovative service to a target audience of 200,000 distance learners. Before joining the OU, Nicky was Information Manager at SmithKline Beecham and Librarian at the Charing Cross & Westminster Medical School (University of London). Nicky is a member of the JISC Learning and Teaching committee and the Milton Keynes Learning City Libraries Network.
