Category: Board Members

Originally from Greece, Artemis moved to Scotland in 1995 and lives on the Isle of Raasay. She has worked for a major funder, the Scottish Government and several charities in the fields of equalities, homelessness and addictions. For a while she was self-employed, supporting youth participation projects in Scotland and across Europe. She gained a Masters in Sustainable Rural Development from the University of the Highlands and Islands which led directly to the work she does now as National Coordinator for Scottish Rural Action, helping to deliver the Scottish Rural & Islands Parliament and the European Rural Parliament.

Artemis is Secretary of Raasay Community Renewables, a community benefit society which develops renewable energy projects  and sits on the Board of CLIMAVORE CIC and on the Advisory Board of the Scottish Rural & Islands Transport Community. She is appointed to Consumer Scotland’s  Advisory Committee on Consumers in Vulnerable Circumstances. She also Chairs the Parent Teacher Association of Raasay Primary School which in 2023/24 has a pupil roll number of four.   

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/artemis-pana-694a551b2/

Neil is originally from Glasgow, brought up in Cumbernauld, and went onto study Environmental Science at Lancaster University in 1986. He has achieved two environmental postgraduate degrees, the second of which gave Neil a great insight into industry before embarking upon a diverse career in various sectors in England and Scotland.

Neil also managed to attain a PDGE in Primary Teaching in 2009 before heading into community development work and roles in the private energy services sector where he now works for Warmworks Scotland – managing agent of the Scottish Government’s Warmer Homes Scotland scheme and other home energy projects – as their Communities Manager. This work has involved managing a strategy and initiatives around delivering community benefits, particularly those in relation to employment and skills, including supporting young people into the industry through a scheme called Warmstart.

Neil moved from the south side of Glasgow with wife, Pamela, in 2010, to bring up his family in Linlithgow. In his free time, Neil has been involved as a community volunteer and now trustee with Linlithgow Community Development Trust. He has been leading on the new community energy enterprise – Linlith-Go-Solar – delivering 2 successful phases for 3 sports clubs, and now aiming to scale up the community’s ambitions working with another 5 fellow communities in West Lothian and other parts of southern Scotland.

As well as giving free energy advice, organising local community energy events and setting up a Young Energy Enterprise Group, Neil also recently started a local Facebook group on Sustainable Retrofit and Net Zero Buildings to help local people share knowledge and best practice to make their homes and buildings greener and more affordable to heat

Angela is the Project Coordinator of Sustainable Selkirk, a community-led project delivered by Selkirk Regeneration. She has a background in climate change, gaining a MSc in Carbon Management from the University of Edinburgh and BSc in Environmental Studies.

Angela has lived in the Scottish Borders for over 14 years and was brought up in Argyll. Therefore, she feels she has good knowledge of the issues faced by small rural communities, but also the opportunities of bringing people together to take action towards climate change. She strongly supports sustainable rural development that brings multiple benefits to local communities; such as providing innovative solutions to their energy issues, promoting sustainable income streams, job creation, local regeneration, poverty alleviation and enhancing social well-being.

Dr Calum MacDonald is the founder and Development Director of Point and Sandwick Trust which operates the UK’s largest community-owned wind farm (9MW).

As MP for the Western Isles, Calum piloted the Crofter Forestry Act through Parliament and he initiated the transfer of council housing into community ownership as a Scottish Office Minister in the last UK Labour Government.

He is deeply committed to community development and keen to maximise local communities’ involvement in, ownership of and financial benefit from, the renewables industry in Scotland.

Calum has an MA in History from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Political Philosophy from the University of California, Los Angeles. He was also a Visiting Fellow and Senior Associate Member at St Antony’s College, Oxford.

Gillian has over 14 years’ experience working in the energy sector across corporate, public and third sectors roles supported by her postgraduate studies in Energy & Environmental Management and MSc in International Public Policy. She currently works as a senior analyst and comms manager to the CEO Office at ScottishPower Group having previously worked for a number of years at SP Energy Networks and has a strong interest in how organisations practically facilitate a just transition and measure their impacts in this essential area. During her time at SPEN she enabled consumers and stakeholders to strategically contribute to the company’s forward-looking Transmission and Distribution business plans and most recently she ensured the delivery of SPEN’s first ever Community Energy Strategy and Just Transition commitments.

Gillian is also a former employee of Community Energy Scotland (CES) where she worked as the Innovation Manager for the charity from 2015-18. During her time at CES she successfully delivered the £2.5M Mull and Iona ACCESS project – balancing local electrical heat demand with a community owned hydro scheme. She also spent her early career working in Australia and New Zealand as a hydrogeologist where she was able to oversee the successful delivery of a number of hot-sedimentary aquifer geothermal energy projects over a variety of scales and geographical settings.

Gillian has formal training in mental health and provides psychodynamic counselling as well as mental health training across Scotland after completing her studies at Human Development Scotland, the former Scottish Institute of Human Relations. She is a keen stand-up paddleboarding instructor and uses her spare time to deliver SUP lessons and water safety education to those in vulnerable circumstances or with additional support needs. Gillian is committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in all areas of her work and is particularly focused on supporting those living with the impacts of trauma to access mentoring opportunities, affordable counselling and experience the outdoors.

Dr Ameena Camps, Project Delivery Manager, a project professional; with a PhD in carbon capture and storage, and international experience in energy and climate change mitigation technologies working across industry, government, community and academic sectors; who recently successfully delivered Uist Wind: a challenging £3.5 million renewable energy community benefit project, and is currently developing a number of projects including the Net Zero Environmental Community Hub in Lochmaddy.

She has lived and worked in Uist for over 5 years across a number of roles at Cothrom and Tagsa Uibhist supporting delivery of the Keep Scotland Beautiful Grow your own Community project; at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar as the OH Leader Development Officer for Uist & Barra and shortly as a Planning Officer.

Ameena works for North Uist Development Company, but she is representing Barra & Vatersay Community Ltd (Coimhearsnachd Bharraidh agus Bhatarsaidh Ltd) on the CES Board.

Originally trained as an accountant, Angus changed direction and retrained in social work before working on a number of community led regeneration initiatives during the 1980s in the large housing estates that sit on the fringes of Edinburgh.

In the early ’90s he worked in schools with a focus on improving home-school relationships before moving to a city-wide post with a focus on the integration of services for children and families across Edinburgh. More recently, he was responsible for establishing Development Trusts Association Scotland and worked as CEO.

He is currently Director of Scottish Community Alliance, a group of national community sector networks which has been formed to advance the community agenda in Scotland.

Donald has been involved in work to develop several community energy projects in and around Huntly & District. Projects range from micro-hydro, community-led wind, joint venture wind and solar PV. His MSc in Infrastructure Engineering has given him experience in sustainability projects in the Netherlands and Guatemala and he’s a Chartered Valuation Surveyor.

Suzy is Chief Executive of Greener Kirkcaldy, a community-led charity and development trust in Fife.

She has worked in the voluntary sector since 2011, developing ideas into deliverable projects and finding the resources needed to put them into practice. She previously worked for Heriot-Watt University’s Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology, a research consultancy, where she specialised in carbon and sustainability evaluation.

Greener Kirkcaldy leads the Cosy Kingdom partnership, providing a home energy advice service across Fife. The charity is a member of Community Energy Scotland and one of the participants in the Community Energy Futures programme.

Annabel is a social anthropologist based at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2011, and has held postdoctoral posts at CRESC, University of Manchester and ILAS, University of London. Her research has focussed on social, political, and technological change in Latin America and in Scotland – particularly in local and community-based settings.

From 2014-16, she formed part of the EU project, Towards European Societal Sustainability (TESS), researching community-led transition initiatives in Scotland. In 2015, she began a three-year Leverhulme Trust fellowship exploring the effects of energy decentralisation and local participation in wind power schemes across several sites in Scotland, but with a particular emphasis on the Isle of Lewis. The research considers how local actors navigate existing regulatory, political and technological dynamics in pushing forward off-grid and community-owned turbine projects, or in negotiating meaningful local benefits arising from large-scale commercial windfarms.