BCAN

Caroline Virgo has a passion for social justice and finding transformative ways of engaging with society and has been involved in Christian social action for many years, both in the UK and abroad. Her experience is as a social entrepreneur: starting and establishing new initiatives that reflect the gospel's concern for those in temporary or permanent need.

She is currently the Director of Hope's Place, a Bristol-based charity that works to bring emotional healing and wholeness to women and young people and is the Chair of BCAN.

Contact Caroline Virgo

Colse Leung is part of the team that leads The SUNSHINE Experiment - a group that seeks out oportunities for acts of comapssion and random kindness as well as working with partnership groups in urban priority areas of the city.

He is part of the staff team at Woodlands Church where he works co-ordinating the worship and communincations teams as well as volunteering in youth work and in the church's Urban Mission Partnerships; Colse also oversees a community house in the city and is the Co-ordinator for BCAN.

Contact Colse Leung

Jon Doble is a recent addition to BCAN and works as the director of ISR, an ecumenical organisation focused on putting faith to work in workplaces through chaplaincy services and in the community through church engagement and social action projects. Jon has worked as a social worker and manager in the children’s voluntary sector over many years as well as working as a Methodist minister.

Key areas of experience are around project development and management, building strategic responses to issues and facilitating groups to build capacity for mission projects.

Contact Jon Doble

Keith Hagon joined BCAN shortly after becoming Chief Executive of the George Müller Charitable Trust in September 2008. He has a background in finance and project management and became a Christian whilst working in International Banking in London in 1979.

After training in Manchester for ministry, he was ordained in 1990 and led two churches in the Leicester area. Keith is married to Mandy and they moved to the Bristol area in 1994, finally settling in Portishead this year. During most of that time they worshipped at Christ the Rock in Yate, where Keith was on the leadership team from 1997 and Senior Leader throughout 2003 to 2007.

Keith is also the current chair of Bristol Evangelical Alliance and a trustee of a local pregnancy crisis centre.

Contact Keith Hagon

Paul Hazleden worships at Highgrove Church, and runs Crisis Centre Ministries, a local Christian charity helping homeless people.

Paul is also on the board of FareShare South West and Voscur (the 'Council for Voluntary Services' supporting all of Bristol's voluntary sector).

Paul is married to Sue, and they have three boys -You can read more about Paul and Sue if you go to www.hazelden.org.uk.

Contact Paul Hazleden

David Maggs seeks to have the church involved in many parts of society as possible, and see the links made between social justice and mission. For many years he worked for ISR in Bristol and took various roles supporting and representing the churches in the area.

As BCAN aims to engage people in the Bristol City Region, he has remained involved in his latest role as Social Justice and Environment Advisor for the Diocese of Bath and Wells, which includes BANES and North Somerset.

He is the Churches’ representative on South West Action on Poverty – a coalition of networks and organisations working to address local poverty issues.

Contact David Maggs

Julian Marsh is currently Director of the Church Planting Initiative and is committed to encouraging and resourcing church planting in the UK. He was part of the team which set up BCAN, served as Chairman for some years and continues to contribute to its work.

After 19 years in further education teaching and educational administration at a senior level, Julian went into full-time Christian work in 1990. He was involved in church planting and became full-time paid Leader of the church they had planted, has lived by faith and also from 1993 to 2008, he was Chief Executive of Mullers.

Since then he has continued to serve and advise a variety of local bodies, many trusts and organizations and has links with a number of churches including several in Poland, Albania and India. He is a Core Leader of Gordano Valley Church, Portishead.

Julian is married to Liz and they have three grown-up, married children and four grandchildren.

Contact Julian Marsh

Julian Perkins currently works with the national family charity Care for the Family as a development manager. He has led large programmes for the organisation dealing with prodigals, community development and work-life balance and currently heads the Engage programme – helping churches to connect with communities, specifically through family issues.

He was an Elder of Living Waters Church in Clevedon, where he worked for 15 years. During that time he also served as administrator and music director. He was involved in setting up and developing: a Counselling Centre; a Debt Advice Centre; a drop-in youth project; a community alcohol and drug forum; a schools puppet theatre; and small-business lunch club and seminar programme, amongst others.

He trained as an accountant and is the finance director for a handful of companies and trustee for a number of trusts. He has worked as the music director for Colin Urquhart, Don Double and Yinka Oyekan.

Julian, has been married to Lynda for over 27 years and has two adult children. He is the Treasurer for BCAN.

Contact Julian Perkins