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our people

bnhf team

Click on each team member to read their bio

Director

Sam Hart
Project Manager

Tammy McCann
Finance Manager

Josie Duggan
Director

Sam Hart

Sam has worked in social justice for the past 20yrs starting as a campaigning journalist and moving to roles in prison reform and education. She co-founded the organisation Sussex Prisoners’ Families in 2013. She is also a yoga teacher and believes that there is a strong link between social justice, yoga and wellbeing.

Project Manager

Tammy McCann

Tammy has a wealth of experience both in project management and yoga teaching. For 10 years she worked in an international development organisation focusing on improving maternal health, mainly in Nigeria. At the same time her love of yoga deepened and in 2018 she completed Vajrasati YTT 500hrs. Tammy’s passion is to share yoga therapeutically. She currently teaches classes for mental health recovery, stress reduction and restorative yoga. She is delighted to utilise her skills to support the BNHF.

Finance Manager

Josie Duggan

Josie is a qualified ICB bookkeeper and began her relationship with Brighton Yoga Foundation back in 2018 when she began donating her time to help with the accounts. She decided to get more involved in the work and direction of the foundation in early 2023, having been aware for some years of the brilliant outreach work they do. As part of the merger with BYF she now runs the bookkeeping for BNHF. She found yoga in her early thirties and practices every week, knowing the physical and mental benefits it brings. She believes in the huge benefits – social, mental, and physical – that yoga can bring to many people’s lives.

trustees

Click on each trustee to read their bio

Chair

Peter Kinsey

Carmen Appich

Robin Bines

Gary Christie

Petra Coveney

Peter Deadman

Ben D’Montigny

Indie Foolheea

Davy Jones

Margaret McHugh

Jo Torode
Chair

Peter Kinsey

Peter has had a passionate interest in mindful movement for over 40 years and regularly practises Tai Chi. He has worked in health and social care for 40 years working with people from disadvantaged backgrounds, including 18 as a Chief Executive of various care organisations and 7 as a Director of Mental Health Services in the NHS. He currently chairs Iris Care Group which supports people with mental health problems and learning disabilities and is Chair of Trustees of Guild Care, a charity which supports older people. He has an MBA and an MA in the Management of Community Care and is a qualified counsellor.

Carmen Appich

Carmen is a qualified public sector accountant, who has spent years working in local government, further education and the third sector, ending her career as a local councillor in Brighton and Hove. She found yoga around 15 years ago during a particularly stressful period in her life and thinks that it kept her sane during that time – and since. She believes very strongly in the health benefits of yoga, and having found out about the Brighton Yoga Foundation’s work at the yoga festival in 2022, she joined the BYF board after retiring as a councillor in May 2023. As part of the merger with BYF, Carmen has now joined the BNHF board of trustees.

Robin Bines

Robin is a co-founder of both Infinity Foods (1970) and BNHF (1981) and has spent his working life in the natural and organic products and environment sectors – as a retailer, distributor, manufacturer, importer, grower, campaigner, publisher and events organiser. He founded the Organic Food Company to expand the range of organic foods in the UK and launch them into supermarkets. In the ‘80s he introduced Ecover into the UK and US, marketing the range through campaigns to raise standards and reduce consumption in the mainstream detergents industry. In the ‘90s he published Green Magazine and launched Natural Products News and Natural & Organic Products Europe, still the UK’s leading trade magazine and exhibition for the sector. Robin ran the All-Party Parliamentary Environment Group at Westminster from 1993-2020 and continues to campaign on environmental issues. In 2019 he completed a long self-build passivhaus project in Brighton as his home and now acts as a business consultant to other small enterprises.

Gary Christie

Gary has over 30 years’ experience of both working and volunteering for local and central Government departments in programme and project management capacities and for voluntary sector bodies. He has focused on improving the lives of young people in the criminal justice system, in care, and with learning disabilities. Gary has co-created projects and supported participants to take advantage of health and well-being initiatives including basic cookery, substance misuse, personal budget management and physical activities. He has also worked in mentoring roles and facilitated and led group discussions. With a personal passion for health and wellbeing, and using his strategic, operational and lived experience of navigating the challenges of a disadvantaged background, he seeks to make a unique contribution to the work of BNHF. Gary is dedicated to helping broaden opportunities and enhance outcomes for those who are socially disadvantaged, and to making a real difference to the people in the communities we work with.

Petra Coveney

Petra is the founder of Menopause Yoga and author of ‘Menopause Yoga – a holistic guide to supporting women on their menopause journey,’ (2021). She is a senior teacher and trainer for the British Wheel of Yoga, Yoga Alliance Professionals and yogacampus.com and runs courses, classes and workshops worldwide. Her Menopause in the Workplace clients include the NHS, corporate companies and the Menopause Charity. Petra’s teaching draws on Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine that reframes the menopause positively as a Second Spring opportunity to improve long term health and wellbeing. She is currently writing her second book.

Peter Deadman

Peter is co-founder of Infinity Foods and co-founder of and currently Chair of Brighton Natural Health Foundation charity. He has had a long career in Chinese and lifestyle medicine as practitioner, teacher, author and entrepreneur. He is co-author of A Manual of Acupuncture and author of Live Well Live Long: Teachings from the Chinese Nourishment of Life Tradition. He is a teacher of qigong and is currently working on a book (provisionally titled) Riding the Wave of Life: A Companion to Qigong and Mindful Movement.

Ben D’Montigny

Ben’s professional journey has been deeply rooted in the healthcare sector, spanning over a decade in community pharmacy where he passionately advocated for self-help and wellbeing initiatives within local communities. Transitioning into paramedicine, Ben extended his scope of practice to provide frontline emergency care while also managing safety and medical services for diverse events across the UK, ranging from sporting events to festivals and venues. Beyond his vocational endeavours, Ben dedicates his time to enriching the communities of East Brighton. His efforts include spearheading the development of a community centre in Bristol Estate, where he tirelessly works to provide advocacy, support for wellbeing, and opportunities for communal engagement. Additionally, Ben is committed to fostering environmental stewardship and sustainability in Bristol Estate. He actively collaborates with residents to develop green spaces through initiatives such as planting trees, installing birdhouses, and implementing other environmental improvements, nurturing a more vibrant and ecologically-conscious community. Through a collaborative and synergistic approach, Ben endeavours to unite communities while promoting environmental awareness and action.

Indie Foolheea

Indie is a Yoga and meditation guide, Ayurveda Consultant and Freelance Marketing consultant. She has had a varied career across several different industries before landing on a more holistic approach to life in recent years. Yoga is an ancestral practice for her and after reconnecting to the practice, teacher training was a natural progression. She believes there is a strong link between the teachings of yoga and social justice and is something she continues to be vocal about alongside race, collective care and spaces for BIPOC. Indie was a board member of the Brighton Yoga Foundation and, as part of the merger with BYF, she has now joined the BNHF board of trustees.

Davy Jones

Davy has been practising yoga since 1999 and teaching since 2008. He co-founded the annual Brighton Yoga Festival in 2014 and set up the Brighton Yoga Foundation (BYF) in 2016. BYF makes yoga accessible to those who would benefit the most from it but who do not currently have access to it. He joined the Board of Brighton Natural Health Centre in Spring 2023 having helped to launch the fundraising appeal to keep BNHC going after it left its Regent Street premises. Davy went to school in Brighton at what is now BHASVIC college and his parents lived in Saltdean from the 1960s to the early 2000s. He moved back to Brighton in 2002 and is married to Janaki, another yoga teacher, and has two daughters from a previous relationship. He is also an active member of the Green Party having stood for parliament for the Greens in 2015 in Brighton Kemptown.

Margaret McHugh

Margaret McHugh has lived in Brighton for over two decades, and has loved being part of this city’s vibrant community, and raising her young family here. She has a profound belief in the restorative power of nature and the mind-body connection and regularly practices yoga, Pilates and sea swimming to enrich her well-being. She’s excited to contribute to Brighton Natural Health Foundation’s mission of making mindful movement accessible to all, bringing her passion and her expertise in strategy, brand building and marketing communications for challenger and purpose led brands.

Jo Torode

As a former barrister turned yoga and mindfulness teacher, and mental health advocate, Jo is committed to making natural healthcare in all its forms accessible to all. She understands the intrinsic value and the capacity that initiatives like BNHF have not only to heal, but also to create and nurture community. Having been both a practitioner and teacher, and also as someone with lived experience of being a disabled service user with access needs, she in particularly interested in helping BNHF champion inclusivity and access across all areas of its work. With her previous board and charitable experience, Jo also brings her professional skills in legal and regulatory frameworks to the board, helping the charity to deliver good governance and strategic growth.

teachers

Click on each teacher to read their bio

explore community classes

Tammy McCann

Charlie Quan

Megan Lloyd

Tiffany Mendel

Helen Moss

Lisa Nicholls Rider

Sarah Pailthorpe

Sophie Gibson

Tammy McCann

Tammy’s practice is rooted in Buddhism, she has explored the teachings and practises of many different traditions, which fuelled her love of philosophy and inquiry. Yoga played an important part throughout these earlier explorations and led her to the decision to train formally.

In 2018 she completed a two-year 500-hour yoga teacher training that gave her a solid grounding in yoga’s spiritual and physical elements.. Since then she has completed extra training in restorative and somatic yoga and is passionate about sharing the benefits of these practices.

Tammy’s classes are playful and accessible, while also being heartfelt and informed by a deep belief in the healing power of yoga.

Charlie Quan

Charlie teaches the gentle yoga online for BNHF.

Charlie’s yoga and Pilates journey began over 20 years ago in dance training. Both practices helped her stay flexible, strong, injury-free, and calm. Her love for yoga grew from here and she became inspired to pass this feeling onto others through teaching.

Charlie began her yoga training in 2010 (350hrs with Frog Lotus Yoga in both Italy and India) and is also qualified and has led classes in Pre-natal yoga.

Charlie is a big fan of Mother Nature and a lot of her yoga teachings are inspired and have a connection to the natural world.

Megan Lloyd

Megan is a qualified as a 200hr hatha and vinyasa flow teacher. She also works as an Occupational Therapist within a NHS mental health team with extensive experience working with a range of mental and physical health conditions. Megan integrates these therapeutic skills as well as yoga philosophy into her classes.

Tiffany Mendel

Tiffany began teaching yoga classes in 2013 and is now in the process of completing her training as an accredited Yoga Therapist.

Passionate about healing she has experienced repeatedly the benefits of yoga whether it be in support of everyday life or in times of difficulty.

Tiffany has experience supporting people with CFS, M.E., anxiety, depression, PTSD , menstruation symptoms, insomnia, general burn out, scoliosis as well as other back problems and general low mood.

Weaving in yoga philosophy, encouraging agency and connection are all at the heart of her classes.

Helen Moss

Helen has been practising yoga since 1998 and teaching since 2008. She offers practices as a collaboration, not a one size fits all or a therapist knows best situation. What is comfortable, challenging or restful for someone is unique to them. Helen invites people to uncover ways they can bring a greater sense of ease and steadiness to their movement, breath and thought.
Her work is done with kindness, humility and at its heart, a deep sense of welcome.

Her teaching blends the wisdom of yoga and mindfulness lived and therapy trainings, nature, neuroscience and from being another human just doing her best.

Lisa Nicholls Rider

Sarah Pailthorpe

Sophie Gibson

Sophie has been practicing Qi Gong for 25 years.  After a burnout and health scare, her Qi Gong practice was central to her recovery and she made the decision to train as a teacher. She has been teaching for two years.

With a background in social justice, Sophie is passionate about the importance of access to healing practices.  Witnessing the benefits of Qi Gong for students across a range of physical, emotional and mental health needs is an ongoing source of inspiration.

Connection to nature and daoist philosophy are woven into her warm and welcoming classes.

mindful movement champions

Click on each champion to read their bio

Emma

Luca

Emma

“I’ve always been interested in health and wellbeing and yoga plays a vital part. Yoga helps me to notice and relieve any current tension and stress through gentle postures and breathing techniques. It’s my weekly re-boot and good for calming my mind and soothing my body. I recommend giving it a try and enjoy the benefits it can offer emotionally, mentally and physically.”

Luca

“I have been practicing yoga for some years now. I started in my 20s when I was a contortionist and circus artist and it was a good way to blend extreme poses and stretching with the flow and mindfulness of yoga. Later on, after I became disabled due to a genetic disorder I started using yoga as a gentle exercise to bring back movement to my body.

What I like about yoga is that its intensity and difficulty is buildable and it can be blended with many other different practices and exercises too. I also really like how good I feel when I do it and after, it helps me relax, feel grounded and in harmony with my body and mind. Now that I’m in my 30s and have different needs, I practice a very gentle and basic yoga as often as I can, either after or during a workout or before breakfast or when I feel tight and my joints feel stuck. All it take is just a few poses to make me feel better some days.”