The Directors of the Association have, today, written to our membership to announce that Paul Fenton, our National Officer, will step down as National Officer with effect from 31st August 2021. While Paul will remain an active member of the Association, he has taken this decision in order to focus attention on his wider portfolio of consultancy work with youth sector agencies and HE institutions.

Paul has been integral to the operation and development of the Association since its formation in 2010. He was one of a small group of founding Directors that managed the transition of our network from a loose affiliation known as TAG (the Training Agencies Group) to a charitable company, ‘The Professional Association of Lecturers in Youth and Community Work’, in 2010. Paul stepped aside as a founding Director in 2014 and was commissioned as our Development Officer before adopting the role of National Officer in 2017. He has worked with colleagues to grow our membership, expand our conference activities, strengthen the subject discipline and extend our collective voice across the sector.

Paul is leaving the Association with a strong foundation for continuing our work as a membership body and sector voice. We have a growing membership and higher levels of member-led activity, an increasing presence in sector discussions, healthy financial reserves and a clear vision of wider impact through distributed agency as captured in our Project 2025 action plan.

As Paul prepares to step down he will continue to support membership activity up to 31st August with a particular focus on support for the Directors in the transition of his current knowledge and responsibilities as new arrangements are put in place for continuing the work of the Association. More announcements will follow on how we plan to move forwards with our operational structure from September 2021.

On behalf of the membership, the Directors wish to publicly thank Paul for all he has contributed to the development of the Association and we wish him well as he prepares to step down as National Officer. There will be occasion to thank Paul ‘in person’ and we will provide details of this when confirmed.

If you have any questions related to this announcement then these can be addressed to: chair@tagpalycw.org