Yorkshire and The Humber

Katie Speed – Chair

Katie has worked in Emergency Planning for the past 12 years. After spending 5 years at North Yorkshire County Council she moved to City of York Council where she is was the Emergency Planning Manager until 2019. Katie is now the Emergency Planning Manager at Yorkshire Water.

Before joining the Emergency Planning world Katie qualified from York St John University as a primary school teacher. She has worked as an Operations Manager in an electrical and mechanical maintenance company as well as recruiting and training of volunteers for public events such as Illuminating York.

Katie is a member of the Emergency Planning Society and is the current Chair of the Yorkshire and Humber branch.  She is currently working towards her Masters Degree in Emergency Planning, Response and Resilience at Wolverhampton University.

She works on a wide range of emergency planning areas including community resilience, warning and informing, flooding, mass fatalities, rest centres and safety advisory groups.

In her spare time she volunteers with a number of charities including Age UK in their befriending team and Samaritans Purse working on Operation Christmas Child. She also volunteers with the York & North Yorkshire Major Incident Response Team – a team offering emotional and practical support as well as staffing rest centres in an emergency.  She is Safetalk and Asist trained and has more recently qualified to be a Mental Health First Aid Instructor with Mental Health First Aid England.

Darren Nugent – Deputy Chair

Darren is a Police Sergeant with South Yorkshire Police. His day job is running the Emergency Planning Unit: developing and maintaining emergency plans; linking in with the LRF multi-agency plans; managing the training and exercise projects; and facilitate police-led multi-agency Structured De-briefs.

Darren co-ordinates the South Yorkshire Police Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) logistics. His first experience with DVI was at the scene of the Great Heck train crash in 2001. Darren is trained in DVI mortuary procedures, field recovery, and CBRN DVI. He is a College of Policing accredited DVI trainer, and a DVI Scene Evidence Recovery Manager (SERM) – responsible for the recovery of deceased victims at the scene of a mass fatality incident.

Prior to entering the emergency planning world Darren led the Tactical Support Group (TSG) that specialised in public order, CBRN response, and open area, serious crime and defensive counter-terrorist search.

Reuben McGarry – Secretary

Reuben is an experienced emergency planner having worked within roles in the NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups in Essex, Yorkshire Water and for the last 3 years at City of York Council. Reuben holds a MSc (Distinction) in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development from Northumbria University. Through his role as an emergency planner, he has developed expertise in flood preparedness and response, health emergencies, and community resilience. Reuben is also the current interim Vice Chair of the North Yorkshire LRF Training, Exercising and Development Group.

Born and bred in North Yorkshire, Reuben appreciates how beautiful and unique a region Yorkshire is and how as emergency planners we strive to help and listen to our residents often when they may need support the most. As Branch secretary, Reuben is committed to ensuring that our committee and branch runs as smoothly as possible so that every associate, member and fellow can get as much as possible out of the society.

Jonathan Brown – Treasurer

Jonathan has worked in the world of resilience since 2013 and after completing his Master’s in Emergency Planning and Management at Coventry University moved to Yorkshire where he currently works for the Humber Emergency Planning Service both as the Secretariat to Humber LRF and as an Emergency Planning Officer supporting North and North East Lincolnshire Councils.

His work covers a wide range of resilience areas both within the Local Authority and multi-agency setting, including Business Continuity, Community Resilience, Evacuation and Shelter, Flooding, Interoperability, Severe Weather and Warning & Informing to name a few!

Wendy Muldoon – Events Co-ordinator

Wendy has worked in Resilience & Emergencies for 20 years with the North Yorkshire County Council.  This is a large local authority with an interesting mix of urban and rural areas and an extensive coastline. 

Wendy has a degree in geography and her current role involves writing plans, and responding to and recovering from major incidents in North Yorkshire. She works closely with the Environment Agency with regard to flooding from both rivers and coastal inundation. More recently Wendy has been involved with the Covid response, setting up mobile testing units, the vaccination programme, and recovery from the pandemic.

The Yorkshire & the Humber Branch of the EPS is committed to working for the YATH Branch itself and the wider Emergency Planning Society – to bring members together, professionally and socially, sharing information and best practice, and encouraging continual professional development.

Terms of Reference

Title
The name of the Branch shall be:
The Emergency Planning Society, Yorkshire & the Humber Branch
Hereinafter called the YATH Branch

Aim
The aim of the YATH Branch is to promote and facilitate excellence within the resilience profession in the Yorkshire & the Humber area, whilst supporting the delivery of the Emergency Planning Society’s strategic aims.

Objectives
• Assist the Society in the delivery of its strategic aims across the region;
• Provide a forum for the professional development of branch members;
• Assist and support the Society in its aim to influence policy and standards relating to the emergency management / resilience profession;
• Provide a forum for study and development of the most effective means of resilience planning and managing local emergency preparation and response;
• Provide a forum for the dissemination of good practice and lessons identified within the region;
• Actively recruit new members to the Society in the region.

Membership
The YATH Branch shall consist of any member of the Emergency Planning Society as defined in the current articles of the society.

Executive Committee
The business of the YATH Branch shall be managed by a Branch Executive Committee consisting of the following Branch officers:

·         Branch Chair

·         Vice Chair

·         Secretary

·         Treasurer

·         Events Coordinator