​Our Board

The Redwoods board draws on a broad range of care, third sector and business experience. This experience is invaluable to Redwoods, and provides a solid foundation for the organisation to thrive and meet its statutory obligations. 

Please hover over or click on each photograph below for a short 'bio' about our board members.

​You can also find out a bit more about me by clicking here and listening to a series of radio interviews that I took part in recently.
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Chris Townsend
Managing Director

Born in England, Chris initially studied Biology in Wales before moving to Edinburgh in 1992. He attended the local church that founded Redwoods and took part in a weekly prayer meeting for the organisation where he caught the vision. Chris joined Redwoods as a support worker in 1995. More than thirty years later, the calling has not left! He has now been Managing Director at Redwoods for the past decade.

Born and brought up in a small village in Essex, Jeanette trained and worked as a nurse in Essex, London and Edinburgh, with a 5-year break from that to help run and work in the family business of coach operations. In 1986, she became involved with what became Redwoods as a volunteer, and in 1988 left the NHS to help develop and shape the organisation for the future. Jeanette retired after 28 years but remains on the board.

John Thomson retired after nearly 40 years in the computing industry. John graduated in computing science in the eighties, and specialising in communications software, he had held many positions in large and small businesses. He and his wife Myra took a career break in the nineties and spent six years doing education, relief and development work in one of the world’s poorest nations.

Myra retired after nearly 35 years teaching in a number of schools. In the nineties she and her husband John spent a number of years involved in doing education, relief and development work in one of the world's poorest nations where Myra was involved in setting up and running an international school. She still keeps her hand in with education by volunteering to teach English to people who have arrived from overseas.

Ros was born and raised in Dundee and trained as a nurse in Edinburgh. She spent 20 years in the NHS before moving into Social Care in the Voluntary Sector. Ros has been part of Redwoods since its inception in 1986, like so many initially as a volunteer before joining the staff team in 1992. Having held various posts in the organisation, Ros retired in 2015, but continues to serve Redwoods on the board of directors.

OUR VALUES
Our purpose, ethos and core beliefs lead to a number of values that are central to everything we do. You can read these by clicking on the link above.