Spirit of Manchester Awards 2014 Judges

Councillor Cooley has spent the majority of her working life dedicated to social care and health, working with a cross section of the community, including older people, young adults with learning disabilities and people living with HIV and AI DS.

She served as non-executive director of South Manchester Primary Care Trust and chair of the Patient and Public Involvement Committee. She convened and chaired the first meeting of the Patient and Public Advisory Group for South Manchester.

Councillor Cooley helped found the Manchester Community Mediation Service, where she also trained as a volunteer mediator. She has a diploma in Therapeutic Counselling, which is a keen interest.

Councillor Cooley was first elected to Manchester City Council in 1996, representing the Brooklands ward. She has served as executive member for social care, chair of the Health and Well-being Overview and Scrutiny Committee, deputy chair of the Social Services Committee and on the Manchester Adoption Panel. She has served as a governor at three schools.

Since 2002, Councillor Cooley has been closely involved with Manchester’s Valuing Older People initiative and strategy for older residents based on equality and inclusion. She was also a founder member of the North West Older Peoples Champion Network and chaired their first meetings. Under her watch, Manchester became the first UK city to be part of the World Health Organisation’s Global Network of Age-friendly Cities. Her contribution was recognised in 2013 when she received the Age UK Councillor of the Year Award.

Fittingly, Councillor Cooley’s theme for her year as Lord Mayor is Age Friendly Manchester. This will allow her to highlight and celebrate the contribution older residents make to the city by working further with communities, organisations and individuals.

Councillor Cooley is married with four children and ten grandchildren. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her family, gardening and designing and making jewellery. Her son Steven will be her Consort during her year of office.

Julian Skyrme is Director of Social Responsibility at The University of Manchester. Social responsibility is one of the University's three key strategic goals and aims to ensure that Manchester's learning, research, engagement and operational activities make a positive difference to society.

Julian gained first-class honours in Political Philosophy, Economics and Social Sciences at Manchester, and following postgraduate work spent his early career as a qualified teacher in a large inner-city Sixth Form College as Head of Social Sciences and later as Assistant Vice-Principal/Senior Tutor.

He has worked in higher education since 2001 in a range of management positions. He is passionate about the social purpose and benefits of higher education and has chaired and advised on a number of national policy groups and committees. Locally, Julian supports the leader of Manchester City Council on the Board of the Strategic Education Partnership. He is also a Board member of Loreto Sixth Form College in the Moss Side/Hulme area of Manchester, chairs the Education Advisory Board of the Manchester-based Tutor Trust charity and is a Director on the Board of Trustees at the Manchester Settlement, an organisation committed to widening horizons for young people in East Manchester from less advantaged backgrounds since 1895. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA), committed Manchester United fan, husband and father to two children - Edwin and Carys.
 

In little over 12 hours and harnessing the power of social media, 1,000 volunteers armed with brushes, bin bags and gloves took to the city’s streets.

Jeremy went on to be described as ‘a true Manchester hero’ by Manchester City Council and ‘a great Briton’ by Prime Minister David Cameron before winning the prestigious Pride of Manchester Award.
 

Hayley Speed

Hayley has spent all her working life, working for charities that support people to make positive changes to their lives. Her current role is, Director of The Men's Room a small specialist charity that work with men in Manchester that are involved in sex work, homelesness and offending.

Alongside this she is currently on the board of UKNSWP a national umbrella organisation that supports agencies that work with sex workers. Previous to her current role she worked with rough sleepers for six years providing case work to homeless people under 25. Hayley was also a dedicated volunteer for MASH Manchester Action on Street Health for nine years.

Mike Mason

Mike, who originates from the East coast of Yorkshire, has been a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for over 40 years, with a career to date which has included working with food equipment manufacturers Baker-Perkins in Peterborough. At Baker-Perkins he rose to the position of Financial Controller, before moving into general management, running several businesses within the group, (now called APV-Baker) manufacturing equipment for the confectionery, cereal and snacks industries.

In 1995 one of his divisions was awarded the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement following several years of consistent export growth. Managing Director jobs at Kemutec Group and Farrel Ltd followed along with some consulting projects, it was whilst doing this project work that he became involved with the Chamber. Mike is married with two children.

Over the last year, as the Chamber’s Interim Finance Director, Mike has already been involved with the design and implementation of the Chamber’s new IT system and is closely involved with the company’s strategic development. He is concentrating on delivering a strong, commercial structure to support the Chamber’s extensive and growing array of services.