Gloucestershire Libraries Advisory Board

Emily was appointed to the new Gloucestershire Advisory Board as Interim Chair in March 2023. She is a career civil servant who brings a breadth of leadership and board experience. This is her first advisory board position.

She was fortunate to grow up in a family, school, and community where the arts and culture were rich and diverse, which fostered in her a life-long love of both. She is also a mum to two primary age children which has made her even more passionate about early years learning and instilling a love and curiosity for reading, music, and the arts.

Emily believes Gloucestershire Libraries 5-year plan combined with this significant investment from the Arts council is a fantastic opportunity to deliver some new innovative and creative services to a wide variety of communities, and hopes that she can help ensure this investment secures these vital services and outreach for future generations.

Aidan is originally from New Zealand, where he grew up in a rural area. From his own experience, he has seen the positive influence libraries and their staff had on his development and ongoing education. He strongly supports libraries for their varied educational and social roles.

Aidan spent ten years working in the New Zealand civil service managing the delivery of government financial and policy functions. He relocated to the UK with his wife and dog in 2019 and since then has worked in the healthcare and social housing sectors. While working in the NHS he managed regional projects related to NHS 111 and the initial rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations for vulnerable patients and key workers. He currently works in the social housing sector and leads technology projects that support residents and staff.

Aidan has previously held voluntary roles as the secretary of a community band charity, a trustee for a multi-academy trust, and a member of an academy intervention board. He enjoys playing music, exploring new cities, and country walks with his wife and dog.

Kate McStraw is an independent Creative Producer with a wealth of experience spanning over ten years in the arts and cultural sector. Specialising in accessible arts practice, she is an advocate for inclusive cultures and freelancer for a range of disabled-led companies and independent artists as a producer, access worker and agent for change. 

Kate is also the Co-Founder and Executive Producer of Viv Gordon Company, working to change the social and cultural narrative for survivors of child sexual abuse. Kate is delighted to be joining the Gloucestershire Libraries Advisory Board.

Rebecca has worked for Gloucestershire Libraries for ten years - currently as a library assistant, and she also worked for twelve months as a Development Officer. 

After graduating she worked in business and retail marketing. With her young family she moved to Seattle for three years – with its award-winning library system. She also studied non-fiction writing part-time at the University of Washington. On returning she worked as a freelance business writer and has had her own work published in magazines in the UK and USA.  

Rebecca is passionate about the power of reading and literacy – volunteering in the past as an adult literacy tutor. Now, her role includes running story-times and the new ‘Library Littles’ sessions. She has put on several writing workshops for adults, including library-based sessions. 

She loves books and travel, so - as other staff secretly admit to – a holiday isn’t complete without a trip to the local library. 

Rob Bermingham is Learning Mentor for Gloucestershire’s Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, supporting them to access and find support to achieve in Education, working alongside social care and local organisations and institutions.

Having previously worked in FE teaching young people with a spectrum of obstacles to engage with learning, he comes from an Arts background and has worked in education settings such as museums, community and public arts and museums and galleries. Previously, he has worked as an artist, exhibiting and lecturing in contemporary practice in South Wales.

Rob is passionate about building stronger communities through access to education and learning, and aims to support the UASC community to become part of shaping Gloucester’s future.

Deborah Thacker has been teaching literature in higher education for nearly thirty years and was in the School of Humanities at the University of Gloucestershire for over twenty of those. A specialist in children's literature, she currently teaches courses on fantasy and visual narratives for American students on a study abroad programme. Her PhD research is focused on the inter-relationship between those organisations, such as libraries, publishing, the media and academia, that mediate between children and reading fiction, but she has published on many aspects of children’s literature. 

She has been on the evaluation team for Cheltenham Festivals' Reading Teachers = Reading Pupils programme since its inception in 2016, and has been a Cheltenham Festivals Trustee since 2018. Debby is the co-Chair of Governors of a small Gloucestershire primary school where she is also ‘English’ governor. She is currently a trustee for the David Vaisey Trust, which aims to 'Get More People to Read More Books', after having been head judge of the David Vaisey Prize (awarding initiatives in Gloucestershire Libraries). In addition, she is on the board of MakeBelieve Arts, a small educational charity that delivers an innovative storytelling curriculum (Helicopter Stories) to schools around the world.