About Us

Joyce Matthews: Joyce has 24 years of experience in education in a wide range of settings. She has been a teacher, head of department, advisory teacher, lecturer and a Partnership Development Manager at Newcastle School Sport Partnership. She is now an independent consultant and works with a range of partners: The National College for School Leadership as an accredited Lead Facilitator, Tyne and Wear County Sport partnership as a Sport Maker workshop and convention facilitator, Newcastle School Sport Network as a Co-founder. She is also a Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming and the mother of two international rugby league sons. Highlights of her work with Lesley Gosling include a regular radio slot on BBC Newcastle, being consulted by the Scottish parliament, features in national trade magazines, international coverage from the Los Angeles Times, speaking at national conferences, and being a Youth Sport Trust Regional Innovation Award Winner.

Lesley Gosling: Lesley has spent most of her working life in the communications business, principally in Public Relations. She has worked for Cumbrian newspapers; in-house with a Scottish manufacturer and national retailer; many years in the North East's top integrated advertising and PR agency and as an independent consultant for the past seven years, four of which have been with Joyce Matthews and the Newcastle School Sport Partnership. She has worked with a diversity of household names and award winning clients, including The Alnwick Garden, Bellway, Blacks Leisure, Turning the Tide on the Durham Coast, Teesside TEC and the Open University in the North. She is also a director of her own company, "What's Special About...Ltd", which provides CD audio drive guides to Northumberland, narrated by NE local historian and broadcaster John Grundy.

John Tait: John is the founder and managing director of Lazy Grace, a full service design agency that has delivered innovative brand solutions and marketing campaigns for businesses such as GlaxoSmithKline and The Alnwick Garden. John was also one of the original founder directors for Culturelabel, providing an online outlet and consultancy for worldwide cultural and heritage businesses worldwide. Regularly featured in Vogue, Financial Times, Wall Street Journals and Grazia, Culturelabel has been picked as one of Courvoisier's Future 500 businesses as one of the Top 50 people making a difference in design, and shortlisted for Website of the Year 2011. John brings a pragmatic commercial view to our services, with specific insight into the use of digital media, brand positioning and development.