Background on Ullapool Community Trust Directors can be found below.
Amanda Barry
Amanda is a specialist in communications and public relations. She moved to Ullapool 5 years ago after many years visiting the area on hillwalking holidays. After working for the UK government’s waste delivery body on campaigns such as Recycle Now and Love Food Hate Waste, she was inspired to focus primarily on environmental issues. Her clients have since included Zero Waste Scotland, British Glass, the Ethical Tea Partnership, Global Action Plan, the Marine Conservation Society and plastic waste lumber specialists Plastecowood. She expanded her interest with a BSc in Environmental Studies, graduating in 2018. In 2017 she also trained as a business and life coach and now works with individuals and teams both in the UK and internationally. Previously a volunteer Director with BroomPower, Amanda joined the UCT Board in 2018 and co-chairs the Environment & Sustainability Working Group.
Company secretary - Susan Leslie
Employed in pharmacy since 1995. Pharmacist and manager of pharmacy in Ullapool since 1997. Founding director and former chair of UCT. Chair of board of directors for Ullapool our community owned swimming pool
Gayle Lowrey
On a family holiday to the Highlands I fell in love with the amazing scenery and dreamed of living here. I moved to Edinburgh to do a Civil and Environmental Engineering degree at Heriot Watt University. On graduation I moved towards a career in catering and hospitality. Having experienced a range of catering businesses and reaching management level I've developed financial, people, business development and hospitality skills. After 20 years of Edinburgh it was time to turn my dreams into reality so I moved to Badcaul at the end of 2017. I also wished to start out on my own as a self-employed caterer. I'm interested in the local environment, wildlife and developing Little Loch Broom community resources. I'm excited to apply my skills and experience and believe that being on the board will benefit the local area and myself. Interesting facts! I'm enrolled onto the Wester Ross Start Up Programme. I'm a keen bird-watcher, a vegetarian and don't drink tea or coffee!
Brendan O'Hanrahan
Brendan O’Hanrahan is an upland ecologist, land management consultant and community land use activist, who has spent most of the past thirty years living and working in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. He is originally from Kilkenny, in the southeast of Ireland, but has mostly lived in Scotland since 1988 (with a four-year detour to Germany in late ‘90s), the majority of the time in crofting areas in the Highlands and Western Isles. Although originally trained as a zoologist, he has mostly converted into a botanist and habitat mapping specialist since the ‘90s when he worked on the Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands Project for Socttish Natural Heritage. He has been very active in land reform, community land management and crofting projects and politics since 2013, having been a Board member at various times of ELKCAL (Elphin & Knockan), Assynt Foundation, Scottish Crofting Federation and the Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust. He was also a board member of the Irish Uplands Forum for several years and has also been sporadically active as a humanitarian mapper with Standby Taskforce and Open Crisis since 2011. While based in the Knockan-Elphin (and more recently Ullapool) area of northwest Sutherland, he has been closely involved with community-based projects in that area. Recent or ongoing projects include agri-environment schemes, forestry planting, crofting and agricultural support proposals and local affordable housing.
Linda Bailey
Before moving to Ullapool, Linda lived in Avoch, Black Isle for about 18 years. During that time, she worked for herself as a Personal Trainer, for the Highland Health Board as a GP Exercise Referral Practitioner, HHC as a Carer and a 999 Call Handler for the Scottish Ambulance Service. Linda also found the time to help put together the monthly local community newspaper, Chatterbox. Now living in Ullapool, since July 2018, Linda owns her own Guest House and Massage/Beauty Treatment Room, still a Personal Trainer and committed to using her experience and skills on the board of UCT. In her spare time Linda has a range of activities she enjoys, cooking, gardening, hillwalking and weight training. She’s also a very active member at the Church of Scotland, Ullapool.
Tim Gauntlett
Ullapool and Loch Broom is a great place to come and live your dreams, and I am fortunate enough to have been able to do that for more than three decades, either as a visitor, staying in a family cottage at Letters on the Lochside, or in more recent years as a resident of Ullapool. Those dreams have included exploring the mysteries of as many hills as possible, finding camaraderie on the sea by rowing with other ‘elderly lads’ in St Ayles Skiffs, laughing with others whilst sharing our contributions to a creative writing course, being excited by live music and local art, and being Chair of BroomPower, the community hydro scheme, as well as a director of UCT. You see, if you want to do something, you can, and you are likely to find reward rather than criticism. Like the weather, people can occasionally get you down, only for the most part this a place of great people, terrific scenery, and a socially supportive community. Prior to that, I was born in Wiltshire, lived in London, followed by many years in West Yorkshire. I have migrated North and this is where I shall stay. I have left behind a career as a psychotherapist, and got far away from many grandchildren who all live in London. Mind you, they are of the younger generation, and they are the only ones who now matter. Whatever our reasons and aims in contributing to community work, the purpose is to prepare the younger generation for a world that has hope and opportunity to live harmoniously together.