WE are very very pleased to be able to announce that we have two new members of our team. Along with Jane Treays who has offered her skills as an executive producer, we have been joined by Alice Hosking, who will be helping us organise ourselves better – basically to fulfil the role of project manager; and Judith Holder who will be co-ordinating our efforts on two fronts, firstly to promote the documentary to film festivals during 2016/2017 and secondly to help produce a book to accompany the documentary.
Alice Hosking
Alice has extensive experience as a senior NHS manager and a good knowledge of the charity sector as well as the various funding strategies that could be open to us.
“I feel honoured to be part of The Good Grief Project. I met Jane and Jimmy purely by accident and became much moved by their story and by the stories of other bereaved parents. I am so lucky to have two wonderful boys and although I personally have not been affected by a child’s death I am continually aware that bereavement can happen at any time and to any one.”
Alice has come on board with huge enthusiasm for everything we are trying to do but don’t have the skills or the experience to achieve. Her role of helping us to draw up proposals for funders, researching what it means for the good grief project to become a charity status are going to be invaluable.
“When I first offered to support the project I felt that I had little to offer, simply because I had not experienced the loss of child myself, yet I also realised the importance of building a bridge between bereaved and non bereaved people. I see The Good Grief Project as means of bridging that gap, providing a language and mechanism that can be used by all to promote awareness, understanding of ultimately death and parental grief”
Judith Holder
Judith Holder is an award winning TV producer with over 30 years in the industry, making and originating a lot of peak time network programmes for BBC and ITV – everything from high end entertainment talk shows with Clive James, Michael Aspel, Dame Edna and Billy Connolly to stranding Joanna Lumley on a desert island. She’s also made documentaries about Benedictine monasteries, taken Clive James to Japan, and Victoria Wood to the USA to investigate the diet industry. Before retired from telly, Judith spent the last ten years running the Grumpy Old Women franchise for BBC Two – writing, executive producing and acting in them all. This was followed by the stage shows which she co-wrote with Jenny Eclair and which has toured extensively across the UK and the West End.
Far from being really grumpy (she has now written 4 books in the ‘grumpy’ series) Judith is very energetic, good fun and truly compassionate.
“I’m knocked out by Jane and Jimmy’s drive and determination to make something good happen as a result of everyone’s worst nightmare. Life enhancing people to be around and they have so much to offer a world which is horribly bad at dealing with bereavement.”
In her time as a TV executive Judith originated and produced two tv series for BBC2 on mental health – one with Anthony Clare on mental illness, and one with Bel Mooney on bereavement called The Long Goodbye. She told us that she is ‘glad to be grey’ and has recently completed a research fellowship at the Institute of Population Ageing at Oxford University, where she was surprised to find many students older than her.
Trained as a Cruse bereavement volunteer, and with her extensive experience both in tv and in book publishing Judith’s skills are going to be essential to the way we are able to develop the project.
Welcome to both Alice and Judith. We are extremely please to have you on board and look forward to working with you.
Jimmy and Jane
June 2016
