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Gaia House trustees

Meet our current Board of Trustees.

Click here for information on becoming a trustee.

 Chair: Tim Blanch
Tim has been coming to Gaia House and its predecessors for 40 years, and is the local organiser for the Gaia House group in South Wales. He retired in 2014 from his role as Chief Executive of Coastal Housing Group, a social housing provider specialising in regeneration, and hopes that his experience of construction and building maintenance will be useful to the Trust.  He is a Sustrans ranger, looking after a stretch of route 4 in South Wales, and has been a trustee of a number of charities.
Susanna Alyce
Susanna started her meditation practice in 1985 and travelled through various approaches before finding her home in the dharma in 2009. This happened while she was studying for the MSc in Teaching Mindfulness at Bangor University. She has attended retreats at Gaia House regularly for more than 13 years and has more than 20 years of experience as a yoga teacher. She has recently completed her PhD in Applied Psychology researching survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) and their experiences of trust and trustworthiness. Susanna has lived experience of CSA; meditation and yoga have been central to her recovery from developmental trauma. Way back, Susanna worked at IBM and SmithKline Beecham in marketing as a product manager.
Hannah Higginson
Hannah has worked in the education and culture sector for twenty years. She is currently Schools Relationship Officer for the charity Voice 21. Before that, she was Engagement Producer at Watershed an arts venue in Bristol and Project Coordinator at Labour Behind the Label supporting universities to integrate sustainability into their teaching. She loves working with teams of people to bring projects to life, in organisations that are pioneering new approaches and have a commitment to social justice at their core. In her personal and professional life, she has felt the benefit of the practice and teachings offered at Gaia House. She is honoured to offer to Gaia House her experience and the skills she has developed through her professional career including fundraising, inclusion, safeguarding and project management.
Photo of a TrusteeAndrew Lacey
Andrew first developed an interest in meditation at the Zen Mountain Monastery, New York State, while living in the US some 30 years ago. On returning to the UK he became involved with the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, before finding a spiritual “home” at Gaia House, where he has been on retreat regularly over the past decade. He currently runs his own counselling and coaching business, as well as working part-time as Communications Manager for South Western Ambulance Service. His particular focus as a trustee is in supporting effective communication, including our Building Appeal Fund.
Adva Rodogovsky
Adva has been practising Buddhist meditation since 2004. Of which she dedicated two years to an ongoing intensive silent meditation retreat whilst living in Buddhist monasteries in Nepal and Myanmar.  She has been attending retreats at Gaia House since 2011. Adva has been a humanitarian aid worker for nearly twenty years and worked extensively in fragile contexts across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In 2018 she trained as a Buddhist Healthcare Chaplain and a Counselling Psychotherapist with a professional focus on palliative care and bereavement. Since then, she has been working, part-time, in hospice and hospital settings in London, offering psychological and psychospiritual support to individuals who face life-limiting disease and their families. She is grateful for the opportunity to repay Gaia House and offer her time, presence and experience as a trustee.
Paul Stevenson
Paul is a marketing consultant with over 30 years of experience working for some of the world’s largest brands (and some of the smallest) in over 20 countries and across many business sectors. Although being introduced to Buddhism in South East Asia as a travelling student, Paul is a comparatively recent convert to Dharma, retreats and meditative practices. Having experienced other centres, his first full retreat at Gaia House was in 2022. He believes that his multicultural living and working experiences support our inclusivity aims, and his perspective and insights as a relatively new practitioner will particularly benefit those that are finding their way with Insight Meditation in the Buddhist tradition. From a commercial viewpoint, Paul is pleased to offer his business experience and skills to Gaia House to support its continued success and development.
Pam Sutherland
Pam is a qualified Chartered Management Accountant, and was awarded an MBA by the Said Business School, University of Oxford. She has worked in a variety of finance, project management and technology positions within the charitable sector, culminating in her role as the first CIO at Oxford University Press. Pam retired in 2014. Her current interests include insight meditation, work with refugees and climate activism. She is Treasurer and Trustee of Oxford Insight Meditation. She sees the ethos of Gaia House as a badly needed counterbalance to a world increasingly driven by commercialism and division.