The FOFL Committee

Please come and say hello at our events.

About the committee – and why we got involved

Ann Fraser – FOFL Chair

I was one of the founder members of FOFL in 2012, when our aim was simply to campaign against the possible closure of the library.  I’m proud that since then we’ve become an established and respected community organisation providing entertainment, activities, and social engagement opportunities of all sorts and raising lots of money to support and develop the library’s offerings in so many ways.

After leaving university with a degree in French and Italian I worked in Toronto for a year and took a temporary job in hospitality when I returned.  Seventeen years later I had worked my way up from Restaurant Manager, Regional Trainer, Regional Director to Systems Director for the Little Chef and Travelodge Division of Forte PLC, by then at its biggest with over 500 restaurants and around 100 hotels. While there I also gained a masters degree in business administration.  I then spent nearly 5 years with a global logistics organisation as a Systems Director and later spent seven happy years working part time for English Heritage, based at Osborne House, before taking early retirement in 2011.

Maggie Sumner -Treasurer

Volunteering for something so special to our community as Freshwater Library has been a surprise to me; I thought I was just doing my bit to stop a valuable local resource from being closed, but I’ve discovered that volunteering gives something back to the volunteer: a sense of belonging to your locality while working with a great crowd of people.

My professional life was spent as a Sales and Finance Director, building my own communications company, employing 50 people, at the same time enjoying my son and daughter, plus doing a bit of sailing and travelling.

Brenda Hobbs – Minutes

I moved to the island in 1963 from Potters Bar, finally settling in Freshwater. I was an early supporter  of the West Wight Swimming Pool and helped campaign for its construction. I am a Freshwater Parish Councillor and, being an ex school librarian, I am an avid bookworm. My working life has been as a licensed victualler and in senior secretarial roles.

I believe that care must be taken to ensure that libraries remain available to all. A library is a fantastic free educational resource, which improves knowledge, language, literacy skills as well as recreational escapism. Long may libraries exist!

Helen Wood – Website updates / Media communications

I’m a retired teacher, currently working as a tour guide. Before having my children I worked in advertising on a leading journal before moving to a large newspaper group as a sales trainer.  I gained a First Class Honours degree, as a mature student, in Applied Social Science (Criminology), before I went on to complete my teacher training in 2004. I have been a Parish Councillor since 2016.

I joined the FOFL committee in 2014, shortly after I started campaigning to reopen the Totland sea wall path after a landslide had made it inaccessible. Being involved in this community project underlined to me how much I care about the local community and I wanted to be involved in something positive to which I could add value. I love being a part of FOFL, particularly putting on our fundraising events and seeing the subsequent investment in the library.

Fern Presant – Memberships

Before moving to the Island I worked for over 25 years supporting and facilitating mental health initiatives for companies, groups and individuals.

I have always enjoyed reading so when I discovered our library could close I joined FOFL to do what I could to retain this valuable resource. Now FOFL  plays an active role in putting on regular films, talks and events. It gives me great pleasure to be involved in FOFL and to help make the Library a focus for the West Wight community.

Paul Longman

A large part of my working life was spent with Royal Mail in their London engineering division, and the last 18 years of my Royal Mail career was spent in their design and consultancy office as a lift engineer.  Following a period of self employment as a lift consultant working on major refurbishments.

My partner and I moved to the Island in 2013 and we both became users of Freshwater Library.  We had attended the film shows and other events that FOFL had organised as a means of raising funds to assist in the continuation of the library service.   I felt that I wanted to become more involved in order to support the aims and work of FOFL and I joined the committee in the summer of 2017.

We also have the generous support of members who help at events