The Bewdley School Foundation – Director Profiles
Mr Ian Hardiman
Ian is presently both a County Councillor for Cookley, Wolverley & Wribbenhall and a District Councillor for the Wyre Forest Rural Ward. He was first elected as a District Councillor in 2010 and as a County Councillor in 2017.
Ian spent most of his working life in the local carpet manufacturing industry, where he held management positions in carpet production followed by sales and customer service responsibilities. In 1991 he entered self-employment as a Carpet Consultant providing a technical complaints investigation service to the industry.
Ian has always been resident in Wyre Forest where he was educated at Sladen CE Secondary School, Kidderminster and Kidderminster College. He is married with two children, six grandchildren and one great grandchild. He has always been a keen musician, having played the cello in the County Youth Orchestra then in local Rock /Soul bands playing lead guitar. Together with his wife, Lyn, he spent 10 years as a registered volunteer Puppy Raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind.
For Wribbenhall, Ian is very supportive of local residents and is mindful of the traffic congestion issues around the two local schools which have not been easy to resolve. He is however hopeful that improvements can be achieved alongside the introduction of the intended projects by The Bewdley School.
Mr Dale Parmenter
Dale has been in the presentation and communication industry for over 40 years. While at Bewdley High School he was inspired and encouraged to run his own business, after just 3 years the opportunity arose and Dale took it, operating at first from a shed at his parent’s home as a filmmaker.
Today drpg is recognised as one of the leading integrated, full service presentation and communication groups, winning agency of the year multiple times. The drpg team comprises of over 400 specialists across seven locations in Worcestershire, London, Windsor, Manchester, Germany, and the USA.
drpg designs and produces communications solutions globally. Working with a wide range of corporate clients to effectively communicate to internal and external audiences, all through award-winning film & video, events, experiential, print, design, digital, exhibition and creative solutions.
Dale is past Chairman of EVCOM and he is actively involved with key corporate clients, he works at a senior level assisting in the development of communication strategies and creating presentation vehicles.
Dale is passionate about sustainability and believes businesses should be fully integrated into the community. DRPG was the first agency globally to gain the ISO14001 and ISO20121 accreditations plus in 2023 being awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Growth and more recently B-Corp.
The past 17 years Sustainability and CSR has been a major priority for all the group’s operations. Embracing the triple line principle of people, planet, profit. With an active community programme, a series or environmental initiatives which include renewable energy, zero land fill waste and elimination of single use plastic. Also championing accessibility, inclusion and responsible business.
Dale is passionate about nurturing new talent and putting his people first. The company holds the Investors in People platinum standard, one of only 1% of companies who have IIP status.
In 2015 he was presented with the events industry personality of the year and in 2016 honoured with a fellowship award for services to Communication, presented at the House of Lords. In 2022 Dale was awarded CIPR Leader of the Year.
Mr Anthony Arnold
Anthony is a childcare practitioner with over twenty years’ experience of working in Childcare and Education settings.
A large portion of this time has been working in Early Years and Special Needs settings and he currently works in a Specialist school for Children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs.
Anthony is also a teacher of ground based Circus Skills and has worked with many organisations to provide Circus teaching as part of local youth provision.
He became a director for Bewdley School Foundation in 2023 and Chair person of Bewdley Development Trust Community Interest Company in early 2024.
Mr Dave Hadley-Pryce
Dave read for a BSc in Theoretical Physics at the University of Kent, and having worked as Head of Physics, Head of Sixth Form, SENCO and Deputy Head, he is now in his third Headship at The Bewdley School. After spending his twenties in industry, Dave has worked in secondary schools for 30 years, 15 of them as a Head Teacher. He has been a school governor at his children’s primary school as well as during his three Headships, totalling 20 years of school governance. In 2022 he initiated the formation of The Bewdley School Foundation to support the school, which is a partnership between The Bewdley School, Bewdley Festival and Bewdley Civic Society. He is currently a Director and Chair of the Foundation.
During his first and second Headships he was commissioned as a Squadron Leader with the RAF volunteer reserve, supporting an active CCF in both schools. In his current role he has taken a more active role with outdoor education, training as a Lowland Leader to support Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions. More recently he has trained as a PADI registered advanced open water diver, to support school expeditions to biodiversity hotspots with Operation Wallacea. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts since 2013 and completed his MSc in Educational Management and Leadership, with the University of Worcester in 2015. He is currently studying part-time for a PhD in Ocean Science with the Bangor University.
Ms Barbara Longmore
Barbara represents Bewdley Civic Society on the Foundation. She is Secretary of the Society and has, for many years, worked with students from the Bewdley School on Civic Society local history projects. She attended Kidderminster High School for Girls and gained a teaching qualification from Birmingham University, specialising in English. After further study later in her career, she was awarded a Post Graduate Diploma in Management Studies and an MSC in Management and Organisation Development. Following 2 years teaching in school she moved to lecture at Kidderminster College where she taught English and Business Studies.
After 11 years she moved on to lecture at Worcester College of Technology where she taught business and management studies on under-graduate and post-graduate courses. She eventually became the Course Director of the Post-Graduate Programme in Management Studies, which ran in partnership with the University of Central England. She also spent 9 years as a governor of the college. Finally, she was given the opportunity to move to the same University in Birmingham where, as a Senior Lecturer, she became Director of the Post-graduate Management Development Programme and Manager of the Students Learning Resources Centre.
Since retiring she has worked part-time on research projects for Birmingham University and the Simon De Montford University in Leicester and for the last 12 years, she has managed the publication of an academic journal on management development methods, for the publishers, Routledge.
Dr Carl Stevenson
Dr Carl Stevenson is an Associate Professor (senior lecturer) of Geology at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. Carl is currently programme lead for all degrees in Earth Sciences at the University and has taught undergraduate and postgraduate students there since 2007. His academic specialism is in structural geology with a focus on the emplacement and deformation of geological materials.
Carl was born in Co. Down, Northern Ireland and went to Regent House School, Newtownards before studying for a BSc in Geology at Queen’s University Belfast. From Belfast he moved to Birmingham to study for a PhD in Earth Sciences and he has lived in Bewdley since 2014. His academic research has involved extensive field work in Ireland, Scotland, South Arica, Canada and he has led expeditions to Northern Greenland and Svalbard. Latterly in his academic work, Carl has been involved with Citizens UK, a community organising charity, sitting on the Birmingham Chapter leadership group and gaining a postgraduate certificate in Community Leadership from Birmingham Newman University.
Mr Trevor Price
Trevor was born and educated in Worcester. He has lived in Bewdley for over fifty years, from where he achieved a successful business career spending time with Cadburys and BASF plc. In his role as Northern Europe Managing Director for Emtec Magnetics, he led the UK company’s exit from parent company BASF plc, setting up the new UK operation before taking responsibility for other European territories. He led a team of 65 individuals with responsibility for sales revenues of £65 million.
Leaving the corporate world, Trevor set up his own company which operated successfully before his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2009. He became a carer for Christine before retiring following her death the following year.
Trevor has been involved in the arts world of Bewdley since that time. He was on the team that organised Bewdley Book Week before being co-organiser of the “Music in the Hall” series of music nights in St Georges Hall, which has been taking place now for over ten years. He was asked to become Chair of the multi-arts Bewdley Festival in 2017, a position he still proudly holds. He has overseen many changes to the operation of the Festival and is currently leading an expansion starting in 2024 with two new one-day Festival events in addition to the main Festival in October.
He passionately believes that in partnership with The Bewdley School, Bewdley Festival should look to be involved in creating and building a Performance Arts Centre (including a 400/500 seater theatre) available for use by both the school and the community.
Ms Sue Pennington
Originally from Portsmouth Sue studied her degree in Environmental Science at Newcastle Upon Tyne. Having settled on a career in marketing with her first jobs based in leisure marine electronic companies on the south coast, Sue moved to Worcestershire when she was 26. Sue became Marketing Manager for the Worcester Warriors but currently and for the majority of her career as led on corporate communications at Worcester Bosch.
Sue and her family moved to Bewdley 20 years ago.
Her eldest child Dan has a walking disability and is active in the international wheelchair tennis league. He is currently studying for a psychology degree at Worcester University after attending both Bewdley Primary and Bewdley High School and 6th Form. Her youngest son Max is in his final year at The Bewdley School sitting his GCSE’s.
Sue is an active member in the Bewdley community, is director of the Bewdley School Foundation, a committee member of the Bewdley Festival and an active member of Bewdley Tennis Club. Sue has performed other voluntary roles – worked on the social media for ‘for the love of scrubs’ in the time during Covid, acted as a governor at Regency High School Worcester for 4 years and is also on the LTA Management Team for Herefordshire and Worcestershire.