Hilary Hopwood
Non-Executive Director
Lancaster, United Kingdom
After retiring as Head of Modern Languages in 2012 I accepted an invitation to chair East Meets West, a women’s community group started up in 2006. The group’s aim is to facilitate contact and encourage friendship between women living in the Lancaster area from different cultural religious and ethnic backgrounds. As part of a lottery funded Healthy Living Project in 2014/5 we approached Curel who arranged and led six movement classes for us, which were mostly well attended and much appreciated. My own interest in dance goes back to my days as a social worker in Lambeth when I attended a weekly evening dance class at Morley College. Since moving to Lancaster I have also attended various classes at Ludus. Currently my husband and I have a fortnightly movement session with Alice Grayson which we find very beneficial and which encourages us to repeat the exercises on a daily basis. My husband had some private sessions with Alice following bowel cancer surgery, and found these highly beneficial as much psychologically as physically. We are both hugely supportive of the work done by Sam and Alice and in my new role as director of the CIC I hope to be able to use my skills, experience and local network to extend the impact they can have in the locality.