The Revd Canon Dr Charlotte Bannister-Parker

Founder of Hope4Creation; Charlotte is the Associate Vicar of St. John's, Notting Hill, and was an Associate Priest at The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. She is also a faculty member of the Senior Faith Leadership Programme, St George’s House, Windsor; a Researcher Affiliate of the Laudato Si Research Institute at Campion Hall, Oxford; a member of the Oxford Diocese’s Environment Task Group; and the chair of St Mary’s Green Team.

Ordained in 2005, Charlotte has served the Diocese of Oxford in numerous capacities for 17 years. In addition to varied roles within the University Church, Charlotte has been the Bishop of Oxford's Adviser for Overseas Programmes; a visiting priest at Oxford’s twinned diocese Kimberley and Kuruman, South Africa; Catechist at Exeter College and Chaplain to the Mayor of Oxford. She is a member of the Oxford 3 Faiths Encounters and founder on the Oxford Annual Interfaith Friendship Walk.

Trustees

Georgina Matthews

Georgina is a marketing and communications expert, specialising in the charity and social enterprise sector. She is currently the Director of Communications for The Oxford Trust (supporting STEM education & enterprise) and has previously worked for Ethex (ethical fundraising platform), the Low Carbon Hub (community renewables), and the Children’s Society (refugee projects). She has also used her professional experience in a voluntary capacity to set up a community benefit society to raise finance to save her local pub and to start Refill Oxford to reduce the use of single-use plastic water bottles in the City.

Alistair Dutton

Alistair is Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis and has 25 years’ experience of development work in over 70 low-income countries. He is also a Chartered Electrical Engineer and he has used his engineering background to drive technological innovation in environmentally sustainable energy projects. He is board member of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, Caritas Europa and CIDSE. He was the CEO of SCIAF until July 2023.

Mary-Lu Bakker

Currently working as an agency and freelance photographer, Mary-Lu's background is as an environmental journalist, editing Zimbabwe Wildlife magazine and writing for New Scientist and BBC Wildlife magazines and various newspapers. She also worked as a researcher on environmental films. Following a degree in zoology Mary-Lu taught biology to GCSE level for five years before retraining as a journalist.

Project Associate
Anna Dominey

Anna joined in 2024 as our Project Associate, responsible for the administration of our interfaith climate initiatives including workshops, training, retreats and conferences; office management; and fundraising.

Anna's background is in marketing administration: she has previously worked for a variety of organisations including the University of Oxford, Maggie's cancer charity, and local events website Daily Information. Anna studied Theology at Worcester College, Oxford, and Environmental Stewardship with the Fulbright Commission's Summer Institutes. She volunteers with Cutteslowe Greenhouse, a new initiative to connect people with each other and the local wildlife through community food growing, nature walks and other environmentally focused, community-led events.

Communications Associate
Ana-Maria Niculcea

Ana-Maria is an experienced Communications Officer with over 6 years of experience of working in digital communications within the University of Oxford and freelancing for a variety of clients. An enthusiastic self-starter, she trained herself and built a thriving digital community, starting in March 2020. She also set up the University Church’s livestream and hybrid event procedures and provided training for several Colleges within the University on the topic of big scale/small budget sustainable digital content creation and broadcasting.

Patrons

Patron
Esther de Waal

Esther is a foremost scholar in the Benedictine and Celtic traditions and has published extensively in both fields. Esther de Waal read history at Newnham College Cambridge, and was subsequently Research Fellow. As a result of living in Canterbury she discovered the Rule of St Benedict; and her interest in the Celtic tradition was the result of living in the Welsh Borders. She has a worldwide reputation as a writer, speaker and retreat leader in the areas of monastic spirituality and Celtic spirituality. Her books have been translated into numerous languages and include the classic Seeking God which has been in print for over 25 years. She has been living in Oxford for the past three years.

Patron
Mpho Tutu

Mpho Andrea Tutu van Furth (b. 1963) is a South African Anglican priest, author and activist. She is the daughter of Leah and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. She coauthored two books with her father, and a biography about him with journalist Allister Sparks. She moved to Amsterdam after her marriage to Prof Marceline van Furth and is now a licensed priest at Vrijburg church in Amsterdam alongside her career as a writer, speaker and artist.

Advisors

Advisor
Margot Hodson

Margot is an environmental educator specialising in environmental theology, ethics and mission.

She is Director of Theology and Education, with the John Ray Initiative, speaking and writing widely on these issues and helping to develop education and research programmes including the distance learning course, CRES. She is Associate Lecturer in Environmental Theology and Rural Mission and Ministry at Ripon College Cuddesdon and on the steering group for the Theological Colleges Environmental Network. She is a member of the Grove Ethics.

Margot is ordained in the Church of England and serves on her local ministry team in West Oxfordshire.

Advisor
Hannah Heil

Hannah Moshopyadi Heil is the founder and director of B2B company Resonance Dynamics Limited which she founded in April 2018 after several years as Executive Director of Reputation House(Pty)Ltd and a director of Reputation Institute Pty(Ltd) in South Africa prior to that. In addition to her role as researcher into the Reputation of large corporations where she’s passionate about applying Social Science principles and systems thinking, Hannah has exercised marketing and corporate governance experience when serving as non-executive director in several companies in retail, financial services and community radio.

Advisor
Celia Drummond

Celia Deane-Drummond began her academic career in the natural sciences, focusing on plant physiology and agricultural botany, particularly the biochemistry of nitrogen nutrition in plants and the biophysics of ion transport across plant cell membranes using novel tracers. The global and ethical challenges of the use of GMOs encouraged her to retrain in theology, education, and environmental ethics. 

She is currently the Director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford.

Advisor
Kris De Meyer

Kris De Meyer is a neuroscientist and director of the Climate Action Unit at University College London. He brings insights from neuroscience and psychology to improve how we tell stories about climate change, and create opportunities for climate action. Recent projects of the UCL Climate Action Unit range from the "Climate Action Programme for UK Parliament" (a training programme for MPs and Peers), over the Net Zero Innovation Programme (which helps local councils deliver climate action plans), work with the National Trust on climate adaptation, and the InSpire and InSpire Hope4Creation climate action programmes with the Diocese of Oxford and Hope4Creation.