CCS Team
Jan Ryan
Director
One of CCS’s founders, Jan Ryan is a creative producer and festival director with more than 40 years’ experience of presenting work that is diverse, inclusive and socially engaged. She established UK Arts International in 1992, working with venues from village halls to the West End and collaborating with organisations such as the Barbican in London, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and the Market Theatre of Johannesburg. On moving to Margate in 2014, her focus has been on working with local artists. She co-founded and led the Power Of Women festival until 2020 and produced the Making Waves festival for Margate Now in 2019.
Eli Seath
Partnership and Engagement Manager
Elinor has lived in Thanet for five years, having previously co-founded the award-winning Art4Space in Stockwell. With twenty two years’ experience of setting up, project managing and delivering community arts projects across London, she is now developing relationships across the local and wider community, ensuring we create a relevant space that brings people together.
Christina Michaels
Thanet Bookkeeping (Accounts)
Christina is a fully qualified and Nat licensed MTD ready bookkeeper, a Xero advisor / migrator and Quickbooks pro advisor. She has been providing bookkeeping services in Margate and surrounding areas since 2016 - thanetbookkeeping.com
Trustees
Stephen Miller
Chair
Stephen is Director of Delivery and Impact at Power to Change. He is passionate about supporting organisations develop innovative responses to 21st century challenges, with a particular focus on inclusive growth. He has fifteen years experience of putting insight into action, working with others to design new products and services, evaluate their impact or tell stories through data. As well as Chair of the Cliftonville Cultural Space, he is a trustee of the Charity Evaluation Working Group and sits on an advisory board for the V&A Dundee.
Joanna Alpe
Joanna is chief commercial officer at Bild Studios. With a rich background in global business development for creative technology companies, she oversees Bild’s commercial strategy and development. Having previously founded an award-winning branding agency and a live event technology start-up, Joanna has a wealth of experience working as an independent business consultant to a host of successful start-ups.
Maurice Bitton
Maurice managed the historic Bevis Marks Synagogue in the city of London for 20 years and was instrumental in successfully applying for a substantial capital grant to renovate the building. He has extensive knowledge of how to run and maintain a historic building and has also been involved with the Montefiore Synagogue in Ramsgate for a number of years.
Adam Bolton
Much of Adam’s 20 year-business career has been in the not-for-profit sector, primarily in management roles in membership organisations and trade associations. He has worked extensively in sales, marketing and communications and currently Sales Director for the Recruitment and Employment Federation. He was previously Head of Membership at Dreamland and has a strong interest in the arts, in particular music, having worked for many years as a sound engineer in the music industry.
How Cliftonville Cultural Space began
In October 2020, Margate Synagogue was put up for auction. Four local residents, Francesca Ter Berg, Kate Gillespie, Lucy Lyons and Jan Ryan, passionate to preserve this last reminder of Cliftonville’s Jewish past, set out to save the building from demolition or commercial development.
A crowd funder was set up and thanks to huge support from local residents as well as well-wishers from around the world, the building was rescued and Cliftonville Cultural Space was founded.
In January 2022, we became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (charity number 1197525) and are now embarking on the process of turning this beautiful building into a resource which will contribute to the social and cultural life of Cliftonville West.
Photograph: Lisa Valder