Our people

Here are some of the people currently behind CommEnt:

Justin Larner

A member of the Chartered Management Institute since 2006, Justin's experience includes ten years as Development Manager of Mind in Manchester, turning it around from next to nothing to a turnover of £150K per annum over several years. Managing this involved securing funding, dealing with personnel issues, forming partnerships and raising the organisation's profile. A growing interest in social enterprise governance has to Justin developing research skills while undertaking an MA in Social Enterprise Management at Liverpool John Moores University from 2008-10. Subsequent research for Manchester University in 2011 explored the potential for wider application of open source principles, including to business models. His doctoral thesis research undertaken at Lancaster University from 2013-19 took a reflective approach to the design of new forms of narrative business model in the context of the platform economy. This knowledge and experience has enabled Justin to take a lead in the development of CommEnt as a Community Interest Company with a sustainable guild-like structure.

Angus Soutar

Angus has over thirty-five years experience of community-based regeneration and land-use design. He has worked as a business consultant to small organisations including local food producers, recycling companies, restaurants and retail outlets. Previously, he worked internationally in the energy industry as a trouble-shooter and project manager. His current activities include strategy formulation, research, project design and business planning, training and facilitation. His activities have now run across all the major sectors, but mainly drawn to the areas of food security and fuel poverty. Angus has been teaching permaculture for over 30 years, delivering the international permaculture design course in the UK, sometimes in challenging circumstances. He has also worked as an interviewer and facilitator, having undergone facilitator training from Environmental Resolve. Angus helped form CommEnt in 1998, working with the local community partnership to meet the needs in the Breightmet area of Bolton. He serves on the Board as Director of Development. Angus can be contacted [here]() or through the Northern School of Permaculture.

Krysia Soutar

Krysia has had a long and varied career a health professional. She has considerable experience of supporting community projects. In the past she has been involved in nurse education and has run her own complementary therapy business. She is a qualifies teacher holding a CertEd. Prior to her career in nursing, her early working years were spent with the Co-Op Bank. Her community experience includes work as a project administrator at the LETSgo Manchester project (budget £100,000 over one year) and she is a former director of Breightmet Credit Union. She is a long-term supporter of CommEnt and a founder member of both the Permaculture Institute of North Britain and the Northern School of Permaculture. She has a certificate for permaculture design from Geoff Lawton's Permaculture Design Course and a diploma in Permaculture Design from the Permaculture Academy..

Teresa Pereira Teresa Pereira completed the Permaculture Design Course (PDC) in April 2014 and embarked on the Dip. in Applied Permaculture Design with the North Britain Permaculture Institute in October 2015. She applies the patterns of permaculture design thinking to lifestyle, community and social projects. Her main interest is how to connect people to natural environments in holistic ways, with a focus on health and well-being, permaculture education, agroecology, ecovillage design and bio-regions.

She studied biodynamic and organic gardening in 2003 and started designing and growing edible gardens. What started as a hobby progressively became a line of work, that led to the organic development of an environmental education practice and ecological gardens design consultancy.

Teresa is the Learning and Education Development Coordinator at the Northern School of Permaculture, and is responsible in particular for the design and delivery of the ecological gardening educational programmes:

Zoe Rozar

Zoe works in the field of eco-engineering as a permaculture designer. She has experience of initiating and developing innovative projects that contribute to a sustainable future and a healthy biosphere. She has a particular interest in public health. Working internationally, Zoe divides her time between Manchester and Mauritius. A founder-member of the Permaculture Institute of North Britain, she is currently working on sustainability and health projects in Mauritius.