the executive committee

Joe Eason - Events Officer — Joe Eason
Events Officer

Natalie Edgoose - Recruitment Officer — Natalie Edgoose
Recruitment Officer

Clare Burges - Members Officer — Clare Burgess
Members Officer

Kemal Çufoğlu - Policy Development Officer for Colchester & District Green Party — Kemal Çufoğlu
Policy Development Officer

Steph Nissen - Communications Officer — Steph Nissen
Communications Officer

John Burges - Treasurer — John Burgess
Treasurer

Amanda Kirke - Campaigns Co-ordinator for Colchester & District Green Party — Amanda Kirke - Co-ordinator

colchester & district green party campaigns officer

In September 2019, Blake Roberts became the Coordinator of Colchester & District Green Party. By day, Blake works in publishing where he is the deputy editor of a national gardening magazine. He has been a Green Party member since before the 2015 General Election. In january 2020 blake decided to focus on campaigning and became the campaigns officer, swapping roles with amanda kirke who re-took the helm as coordinator.

In the four years he has been active in the Green Party, he has held a variety of positions, including Communications Officer for the Colchester branch of the party, the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in the 2017 General Election for Harwich & North Essex, Campaigns Officer in the year leading up to Colchester Greens’ breakthrough onto Colchester Borough Council, and the Young Greens Elections Officer where he helped to elect a record seven new Young Green councillors to councils from Brighton to Norwich.

In his term as coordinator, he wants to build on the recent breakthrough by electing even more Greens at every level of government, spread the Green message of social and environmental justice to even more people, and professionalise the internal workings of the local party as it continues to grow and see further successes.

STEPH NISSEN

COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER AND CANDIDATE FOR CASTLE WARD 2020/2021

In May 2019, Catherine Rowett made history by becoming the first Green Party MEP elected in the East of England (which covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Essex and Bedfordshire).

Before taking up her current office as MEP for the East of England, Catherine Rowett was a professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, a position she took up in 2003. She is cited the world over for her influential research on Presocratic philosophy, Aristotle, and Plato.

Catherine was active for many years locally and regionally in Green Party politics. She has been a lifelong believer in the importance of changing things at the political level in order to solve the crises facing us on this planet, to achieve a fairer distribution of resources and to prevent the global problems that we face .

Catherine works with 75 members of other Greens across Europe to deliver radical and visionary corrections to existing and emerging EU policies. She aims to address a range of issues in connection with transport, agriculture, fishing, fair taxation, aviation, and energy, as well as key issues relating to migration, refugees, religious persecution and the increasing threats to human rights & democracy within and beyond the EU.

MARK GOACHER

BOROUGH COUNCILLOR FOR CASTLE WARD

I was born in Leicester and grew up in Leicestershire before reading History at Lancaster University. I moved to Colchester in 1990 and have worked as a History teacher at Colchester Sixth Form College since then.
I first joined the Green Party around 1993, inspired by the anti-roads campaigns at the time and the rising interest in environmental issues at that time. Although I was not an active member indeed I never expected to be active in politics after a brief dalliance as a student. However I rejoined again in 2012 as I was angry at cuts to the funding of public services by the coalition and livid at a range of environmental issues, both global and very close to home.
I didn’t want to just be an angry keyboard warrior ; I’d done that and was looking to channel that into something more positive I suppose. I wanted a political brand that had ‘Green’ at the core of it but which would also be opposing the cuts to pensions and education funding. The Green Party was the only choice I felt comfortable with.
I received a nice welcome email from Colchester Green Party inviting me to their AGM. I went and was inspired to keep going to meetings and to get more involved. The rest, appropriately, is History.