10 minute read
Local People
Lynn Tamsett-White
New Woolwell Centre Manager takes the reins
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Lynn is The Woolwell Centre’s new manager and is bringing her wealth of experience and can do attitude to her new role.
A Woolwell resident for 25 years, Lynn knows the area like the back of her hand and is delighted to have been chosen as the Centre’s new manager. Lynn takes over from Carole Spencer who was in the post for 13 years. The Woolwell Centre is situated at the heart of Woolwell and its aim is to encourage local people of all ages to get involved and participate in a range of activities and exciting events. The Centre strives to support both businesses and individuals together. By encouraging sponsorship, voluntary work and many activities to the centre, the aim is to enhance the lives of the local community of Woolwell and the surrounding areas. The centre was built for the benefi t of the local residents and is a large and impressive building set in its own grounds. Lynn said: ‘The Woolwell Centre is a building in the heart of the community but it needs to be better advertised and I feel it needs a complete makeover, I hope to use my energy to push it forward. I am
imaginative and I have so many ideas for the Centre. ‘I want to rethink the things that have always been done, just because they have always been done doesn’t mean we can’t change it to make things even better. I am willing to take on the challenge but we are in real need for more funding and more money. We are a charitable trust and rely on Centre users for income along with grant funding, which is diminishing in the current climate. If we do not get any grant funding or community support the Centre will cease to exist. I have already lined up two fantastic events; Friday 30 September, The Jersey Quartet and on Saturday 26 November, Pink World Number One tribute act. ‘We are able to cater for just about anything that is asked of us at the Centre and we are always ready for a challenge’, added Lynn. “ As a Woolwell resident, Lynn has the community at heart and As a Woolwell resident, Lynn has the community at heart and volunteers volunteers her time as a local her time as a local Parish
Parish Councillor for Bickleigh Councillor for Bickleigh Parish Council and is also a trustee Parish Council and is also a trustee for the Discovery for the Discovery MAT ” MAT (Multi Academy Trust) which incorporates Oakwood, Beechwood & Weston Mill Primary schools, led by Alison Nettleship. An experienced professional, Lynn has been a dedicated worker since the age of 16. Following a week of work experience at Natwest Bank, Tavistock, at the age of 15 she was invited to an interview with the Bank on her 16th birthday. She was successful and had a career with the bank for 24 years, where she rose through the ranks. During her time at Natwest, which later became the
Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Lynn met her wife Angie. They married in September 2008 and share 2 children. When their Plymouth offi ce closed in 2012, Lynn and Angie found themselves contemplating their next move, and what followed was something neither of them could calculate. ‘We wanted to take a gap couple of month’s after our redundancy from the Bank,’ said Lynn. ‘Angie’s mum is German and we wanted to travel through Germany, but I said that if we were going to go to the country then I needed to learn German. I spent six months learning the language and we were ready to go.’ But, part of the redundancy package from the Bank was to teach people how to get back into work. ‘We followed the redundancy guidelines and both gained employment therefore we are yet to fulfi l our German travel dream.’ Lynn went on to work for Marjons in 2012 until this year, 2022, when she saw the position of Woolwell Centre manager advertised. ‘After Covid lockdowns everyone was slightly diff erent and had diff erent outlooks on life. It gave me time to refl ect, despite working through the pandemic. One thing for me was that our eldest daughter got married in 2015 and had our fi rst grandson in 2018 - it makes you value your time with them more. Edison is the fi rst boy in Angie’s family, for a long time, and he is a sheer joy to have. We now have a granddaughter Adalin, being a grandparent is beyond words! ‘I used the opportunity to fi nd another career path to spend more time with my family and here we are! ‘I can’t get over how perfect this job is. I timed my walk to work and it’s roughly 4 minutes and 39 seconds; once I managed to get sub-4 minutes - not that I am competitive...’ laughed Lynn. ‘The location from my home to work is great as I can pop in and out throughout the day to help and support staff .’ In her personal time, as well as spending time with her family, Lynn and Angie are keen walkers with their ‘baby’, their 9-yearold black Labrador Louie. For more information on The Woolwell Centre visit the Woolwell Centre Facebook page or www. woolwellcentre.co.uk n
Lynn’s Labrador Louie
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Why bother understanding the Indian Ocean?
Seven years ago, when Peter Burkill was Professor of Ocean Science at the University of Plymouth, he started an international programme of research on the Indian Ocean. In his research, he has travelled widely, and is now also a Nikon sponsored wildlife photographer with a particular penchant for pine martens. In October, Peter will be giving a Tavistock Heritage Trust talk about why we need to understand the Indian Ocean, the least studied and arguably the most sensitive, of all our oceans. The Indian Ocean’s core temperature is rising the fastest of all oceans, and the surrounding populations are also the fastest growing, placing increasing pressures on natural systems. ‘Why bother understanding the Indian Ocean?’ is on 6 October in Tavistock Guildhall - see What’s On for more details. Peter continues… I was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1950, growing up on the beaches of Malaya and diving before there were any diving qualifi cations. This was to help my father who was working on seaweeds and my job was to harvest them from the off shore reefs. So oceans, wildlife and wild places have always interested me. My fi rst degree is in biology and my PhD was gained from Southampton University in Ocean Science. I then moved to Plymouth in 1975 to join the Plymouth Marine Laboratory where I eventually held a prestigious Individual Merit post. In that time, I set up the fi rst marine fl ow cytometry facility in Europe. I should explain that fl ow cytometry was a laser-based technique devised for analysing cancer in human blood. I fi gured that human blood cells are fundamentally little diff erent from microbes in the sea (that was my research topic) - and that proved correct. There were though huge challenges. Not only was the instrument seriously expensive (costing hundreds of thousands of pounds) but to operate on a ship at sea required a deck-mounted 20-foot container and a chiller that needed 3-phase
Peter Burkill electricity to dissipate 15kW of heat from the laser. It was a crazy idea with a lot of teething problems but in the end it worked extraordinarily well. With this unique capability, I amassed a very large number of publications and gained fellowships from the Royal Society of Biology, the Royal Microscope Society and very recently from the Marine Biological Association of the UK. I moved back to Southampton University in 2002 as a professor to head up the George Deacon Division for Ocean Science. That involved fi ve years of weekly commuting between Devon and Hampshire before moving back permanently to “ We enjoy living in an old farmstead on Dartmoor which we Plymouth as Director of the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Studies (SAHFOS) bought 40 years ago in a derelict on the Hoe. During this time, state and resurrected, although our parents thought we were crazy ” I also became a professor at the University of Plymouth. In 2012, I was elected President of the Scientifi c Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR). SCOR is an international non-governmental non-profi t organization, with some 40 members, that coordinates fundamental research internationally. To be elected president was a great honour and I held the post for eight years. Unfortunately, it was also incompatible with being Director of SAHFOS, so I resigned the latter. In 2020 I decided to seek new challenges and resigned from my paid university post. Judith Petts, the Vice-Chancellor, was good enough to award me an Emeritus Chair which I continue to hold. During the last decade, I have served on many advisory
boards including the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban. While giving a public lecture in Oban, I was asked if I’d ever photographed pine martens. Like almost everyone, I had not even seen one in the wild. But this question started my interest, as the questioner had pine martens visiting her cottage in the wilds of Argyll where I now visit every year. Although wild and very shy, pine martens are addicted to peanuts so I have found I can tempt them into photographic range when I’m out of sight. I photograph them from inside the cottage using wireless connections to my Nikon cameras and flash guns. There is a lot of technology involved but Nikon cameras are good in low light and I feel I have now mastered this. Nikon’s sponsorship is invaluable particularly if anything goes wrong while I am travelling. I have worked on all the Earth’s continents including Antarctica, and this year I went to Svalbard in July to photograph polar bears and will travel to Ecuador in October to photograph its extensive wildlife. So, I have been lucky both in ocean science and in my wildlife photography, and throughout very ably supported by my wife. We enjoy living in an old farmstead on Dartmoor which we bought 40 years ago in a derelict state and resurrected, although our parents thought we were crazy. We brought up our two boys there - now married with their own children. My wife is a parish councillor while I am on the village hall committee, so I like to think we are giving back something to our community! n
Professor Peter Burkill
Pine Marten
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