Pete and Sue have three daughters, Becky, Sarah and Abi. All three have spent most of their lives working in the Centre.
Interests away from work include Charity Challenges, skiing, golf, and scuba diving combined with as much travel as possible. He is very pleased that his daughter, Becky, emigrated to Canada because she is surrounded by excellent skiing and golf, in the same season!
Sue started the Centre with Pete in 1978. Sue is an ex -deputy head of a Birmingham primary school.
When not working Sue enjoys travel, skiing, cycling and an occasional hour of golf, just to humour Pete. Sue cycled over 300 miles in Vietnam and Cambodia raising money for Diabetes UK. She had a bucket of ice thrown over her when the temperature reached 43 degrees. Sue loves Alpine paragliding in tandem especially with her young French pilot! Baby sitting for her grandson, Harry, has become a recent favourite occupation.
Jude has been ‘smiling’ at people down the telephone since 1999. Her special interests are holidays and travel, cooking, red wine, sewing and retail therapy.
Neil is responsible for Health and Safety and is Senior Instructor.
Trained initially as a teacher. Neil has been an Instructor at Red Ridge since 1984 and definitely had more hair than he has now.
Neil’s special interests include canoeing and kayaking.
Rob is our Activities Manager and if you want to moan about your programme he should be the first person you call.
Rob started at Red Ridge in 1985, taking one year out to work in Australia.
He was a passionate wind surfer for many years but became disillusioned by the amount of hours and days he sat waiting for the wind to come up. Spent most of last year building and then rebuilding his wooden canoe. Unlike Pete and Neil, Rob still has most of his hair. It is just the colour which has changed!
Linda is responsible for Human Resource Management. Her main role is to keep Pete sane! Linda joined the staff team early in 2010.
Linda’s special passion is Sea Kayaking. A skill honed during her escape from her Danish homeland in the mid nineties. Although of similar age to Neil, Joe and Rob her hair has not dropped out but we are not sure about the colour! She tells us that she is not illiterate. Apparently all Danes leave a space before a comma ( ,) or a full stop ( .) We have not checked this one out yet.
Joe left the army in 2000 before qualifying as an outdoor instructor. He joined Red Ridge staff in 2011, after seven years with Outward Bound.
His special interest is Mountain biking. Joe is the one with less hair than Neil!
Bryn is a lead instructor and started at Red Ridge in 2011.
Bryn is also a qualified electrician, very useful in an outdoor centre, and enjoys growing vegetables and flowers. If you cannot understand him it is probably because he has just lapsed into his native Welsh.
Phil is a seasonal assistant instructor.
His passion is his car that he built from a kit. The noise of his exhaust is much louder than the scooters of bikers, Marjie and Susan, mentioned later! You can also hear when he arrives and leaves the Centre. Phil particularly enjoys climbing, Alpine walking and glacier experiences. He has also cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
Tom arrived at Red Ridge on work experience in 2008.
Tom is mad about Open water swimming (a passion enforced when he first started kayaking?!!) He also loves climbing and Alpine walking and glacier experiences.
James is a seasonal assistant instructor whose first experience of Red Ridge was on college work experience in 2007.
James gets very excited about playing golf.
Graham works as an occasional Support Assistant on a few selected activities. He first came to join us in 1994 for a couple of short stays. He came back to live in the village, at the age of 18, in 1997.
Graham is mainly known as the person who assists people off the bottom of the Zip wire and for his wonderful discos.
Graham’s passion is DVD’s and films. He has the largest collection of DVDs that you will ever have seen!
Marji started working at Red Ridge in about 1993 and has long been in charge of the kitchen and cleaning department, and is therefore one of our most important members of staff.
Never having driven until in her 40’s Marji now terrorises the area on her noisy scooter. She always arrives 30 minutes early for work so as not to run the risk of having to share the country lanes with the early morning lorries from the quarry!
Marji is a member of the local ladies darts team and and plays better after a glass of red wine.
Susan shares most of the cooking and cleaning duties with her sister, Marji.
Susan is also now a ‘biker’ and arrives early to work for the same reason as her sister, Marji. Our resident groups rarely sleep after her ear splitting arrival at 06:45! Just like her very much older sister, Susan is a member of the local ladies darts team.
Marj is the other key member of our domestic team but works on more of a part time basis, having done so since 1992.
Dotty Marj is an expert dominos player and able to speak with Bryn in their shared native language.
John was as a full time assistant instructor at Red Ridge for 4 years and now works for us on a part time basis when he is free.
John was a keen Rugby player until he suffered a serious ankle injury. He now enjoys cycling, golf and travel.
Abi, like her sister Sarah, is now only an occasional instructor at Red Ridge, although she gets home to help whenever she can.
Her passion is travel, and working on the house that she bought recently with her partner, John. The great love of her life is Chunk her huge, though still only a puppy, Newfoundland/Burmese cross.
Sarah is now only an occasional instructor at Red Ridge.
She is Pete and Sue’s daughter and has ‘worked’ at the Centre almost since birth. Now a full time mum she still ‘pops’ in to help out when circumstances allow!
Jay has been a part time assistant instructor for many years.
She likes sewing and all things Celtic!
Roger runs Drummond Outdoor, a specialist Kayak and Canoe company based on the River Severn in Shrewsbury. Roger is one of our ‘frontline’ freelance lead instructors, and first worked with us in 1982.
Roger is a real ‘mountain man’ who runs a team of Siberian Huskies and Samoyeds who can ‘pull him’ through the wilds now that he is getting older. Roger acted as back up for his sons, Jamie and Alistair, on their recent 500 mile canoe, cycle and running expedition in 2011.
Jamie, son of Roger and elder brother to Alistair, works with them in the family business and is another very experienced freelance instructor, who has worked with us for over 20 years.
In 2011 Jamie and Alistair paddled from Shrewsbury Weir, down the River Severn, out to sea and around the coast to Aberystwyth. After cycling and running they then jumped back into their canoes near the source of the Severn and paddled back down river to Shrewsbury. A journey of some 500 miles!
Alistair, brother of Jamie and son of Roger, works in the family business and has provided freelance instruction to Red Ridge on a regular basis for over 20 years.
In 2011 Alistair, with Jamie, his brother paddled from Shrewsbury Weir, down the River Severn, out to sea and around the coast to Aberystwyth. After cycling and running they then jumped back into their canoes near the source of the Severn and paddled back down river to Shrewsbury. A journey of some 500 miles!
Nigel is a part time occasional instructor. He trained as a P.E. Teacher in Birmingham, with Pete, our Director, and Bob Mc Grath. If you hear any of them claiming to be ‘experienced’ translate that as meaning ‘old’!
Like Nigel, Bob is another part time occasional instructor. He is another very ‘experienced person’ who trained as a P.E. teacher with Pete, in the late sixties. Bob was a Head of P.E. before becoming P.E. Organiser for Cumbria. Now retired, he also helps out at the centre when Pete is ‘stressed’.
