Dawn Brown, Director of Quaggy Development Trust and a Trustee at METRO Charity, has been appointed Vice Chair of the diversity and equality charity at its May board meeting. Dawn takes over from David Burgess, who stepped down after two years in the role.
Dawn has 30 years experience of working in the voluntary sector, and was previously CEO of Home-Start Greenwich. She was also until last year Chair of Mum’s Aid, a small charity supporting mothers with perinatal emotional health needs.
Dawn first joined METRO Charity's Board of Trustees when Greenwich Action for Voluntary Support (GAVS) merged with METRO in 2017. Dawn was Chair of the GAVS board at that time.
In June, Barbara Gray also joined METRO's Board. Barbara moves onto the Board from Voluntary Action Lewisham (VAL), which merged with METRO Charity in April this year.
Barbara is an equalities campaigner and leads the health inequalities work of the Lewisham BME Network. She is passionate about empowering communities to achieve their ambitions and transform their lives, and reducing health inequalities for Black, Asian and minority ethnic adults and children.
Gwen Bryan, Chair of METRO's Board, welcomed the new appointments, saying:
“Dawn brings a wealth of experience to this role, from commissioning and monitoring, staff and volunteer management, governance, finance and funding, to keeping the voice of those using services at the heart of what we do.
“We would all like to offer our heartfelt thanks to David for all his hard work over the past two years; he made a significant contribution to the Board as Vice Chair, and we looked forward to continuing to benefit from his experience, knowledge and skills as he continues in the role of Trustee.
“We are also delighted to welcome Barbara onto the Board. Barbara brings significant equalities experience which will be hugely beneficial, as well as being able to provide that insight into the work of Voluntary Action Lewisham, one of our newest programmes of work. With the recent focus on racial inequalities, Barbara's experience within Lewisham's BME Network is particularly welcome at this time.”