The Trustees

Di Gallagher

Di recently retired as the Trustee and volunteer Director of the Meeting House Arts Centre in Ilminster Somerset. Prior to this she had a varied, interesting and fulfilling career, spanning the artistic, military, charity and commercial worlds.

As a Third Officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, she worked for 6 years in communications and administration.  She retired to get married and then had a variety of part-time jobs whilst bringing up two boys.  When the boys flew the nest Di continued working in various fields both voluntary and salaried.

Administrative, PA and secretarial experience was gained working for an architect, a solicitor and an auctioneer. For 3 years Di worked as secretary at a Special School for children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties.

Di has always had a keen interest in the Arts. For 20 years she had her own upholstery and chair restoration business which led to having her own antique shop.  Painting and drawing, clay and willow sculpture, basket making and felt work have all been practiced in Di’s studio.  She has exhibited her work and demonstrated willow sculpture at country shows.  Di trained and handled her dogs for television and film work – featuring in Casualty, Grange Hill, Ivanhoe, the film "The Red Violin" and a TV advert. 

Voluntary work included working for Save the Children Fund as Trade & Industry Secretary in Fife, then as Chairman of a small branch in Somerset. For many years Di worked as a volunteer helper and driver for day centres for the elderly in both Surrey and Somerset.

Di now lives in Somerset with her husband, Leo, and is devoting all her time and energy to FMVSO, and to fund-raising for the Orphanage.

David Brown

Dr David Brown is a researcher in the biomedical field. Over the past 30 years he has worked to find solutions to diseases of both advanced Western societies and Developing Countries.  He has held senior executive roles with a number of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and been instrumental in the discovery of several important medicines. He has also previously served as Chief Executive Officer and Board member of a biotechnology company and he currently serves as Chairman and/or Board member of several biotechnology companies in the UK as well as Chair of FMVSO. In addition he serves as Senior Advisor to the CEO at OneWorld Health, San Francisco, where his work is dedicated to bringing medicines to the poorest of the poor in the world.

In his private life Dr Brown has for over 30 years been a practitioner of Chan (Chinese Zen) meditation; he is a Fellow of the Western Chan Fellowship and spends 7 weeks each year in intensive retreat in the UK and USA and offers tuition and classes in Cambridge, UK where he lives with his wife Ann.

Jacy Wall

Jacy Wall was born in London and after school spent the first part of her working life there. She worked initially in theatre publicity, then following a year in Italy she returned to London to study textile design. After graduating in 1979 she moved to Somerset where she has lived ever since. She has worked first and foremost as a practising artist, making large-scale woven tapestry's to commission, and latterly as a printmaker also. Alongside this, she has worked as a visiting artist in schools, and has been involved in running several important arts projects in the County, most notably initiating a hospital arts project in Taunton in the early 1990's which is still in existence today.  She is currently consultant and coordinator on several rural art projects, and continues her work as a weaver and printmaker.

James Crowden

James Crowden was born in Stoke Damerel, Plymouth, and brought up on the western edge of Dartmoor. In 1976 he gained a degree in civil engineering from Bristol University.  He has travelled extensively in the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. In 1976-77 he spent a year in the Zangskar valley, a remote Himalayan area of Ladakh, North West India. Since then he has been visiting many different regions of India including Arunachal Pradesh in 2005.  He is a writer and poet and has written ten books on a variety of rural topics. See www.james-crowden.co.uk