About us

Maidenhead’s Big Read is an annual event, held at various venues in Maidenhead, that aims to engage and unite local school children of all ages and backgrounds with reading, with a particular focus on those children who are currently missing out on all that a love of books can provide.

A message from our Patron
Dame Katherine Grainger
Picture
Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash

Our Team

Stephan Stephan
Chair

Helal Stephan, known to many as Stephan Stephan, is a retired civil engineer and project manager. Twice past president and a member of Maidenhead Thames Rotary Club, he promotes educational events & Rotary led RBWM primary schools competitions.  He also coordinates with local primary schools in Maidenhead for readers who visit schools weekly to encourage children to practise reading.
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Stephan is passionate about children becoming fluent in reading and love of reading at a very early stage to favourably shape their future.

Cathy Ison
Vice Chair

Cathy has been an avid reader since she was a teenager and has found reading to be a joy and a refuge during recent times. She has volunteered as a Rotary Reader in Schools for the last three years and enjoys interacting with the children through reading. She is fully supportive of the aims of the Big Read, particularly nurturing a passion for books and reading in all ages.

Cathy worked as a microbiologist at Imperial College London and Public Health England, where her main interests were teaching and research, and is now retired. She is a longstanding member of Maidenhead Athletic Club and is currently its president, is involved in coaching and is a track and field official. She is also chair of the Braywick Sports Association, which brings together representatives from all activities across Braywick Park to work together.

Tessa Allanson
Member

Tessa worked in the publishing industry for 16 years, producing illustrated non-fiction books. She liaised between printers in the Far East, editorial and sales teams, and customers all over the world to ensure books were printed and delivered on time.

She has always been passionate about books and is now a volunteer reader in a local primary school. She would like every child to experience the joy of being truly engrossed in a book, desperate to read just one more page to find out what happens next, and that is why Tessa is delighted to be involved in Maidenhead's Big Read.

Yash Maudgil
Treasurer

Yash firmly believes that being able to read well is the foundation towards good education, allowing all children to achieve their full potential. He supports Maidenhead's Big Read project as its aim is to introduce children to reading in an informal and entertaining environment and  to develop a love of reading in their own time.

Yash is a qualified and practising accountant in Maidenhead, and has volunteered to be the Treasurer to ensure that the funds are appropriately expended to give value for money. He is also a member of Maidenhead Rotary Club.

Sarah Street
Member

Sandra Barry
Member
As a child, Sarah was lucky to have someone who was always happy to read or tell her a story. This instilled her love of books and reading, and she passionately believes that every child and adult should be encouraged to read or tell stories in whatever forum they enjoy.

Her career was in early years education. She carried this passion into her work, always ensuring that children had access to stories and reading material enabling them to use their imaginations to carry themselves into places of fun and make believe. 
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Maidenhead Big Read encourages and promotes reading and Sarah is proud to be involved, as well as being a member of Maidenhead Bridge Rotary Club.
Losing yourself in a book is one of life’s greatest pleasures, a belief that Sandra has passed on to her pupils throughout the years, igniting children’s interests in different and unusual authors as well as time honoured classics.  She believes that as long as a child can identify with an author then they will find the joy of exploring the amazing range of children’s literature out there.
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Sandra supported the Rotary Readers in Schools as a head teacher and continues, now retired, to support Stephan in the annual Maidenhead Thames Rotary Club Writing Competition. She readily admits, “I can’t quite give up on teaching yet …” continuing with ‘just a little bit’ of supply in a local school.

Lara Edmonstone-West
Member

As a parent of two young children, Lara values the importance of reading as a key life skill. The ability to escape into a book supports mental health and self-confidence. This has become even more paramount as the coronavirus situation disrupts the normality of day-to-day life and makes access to reading and books even harder to achieve.

Lara is pleased to be involved in Maidenhead’s Big Read so she can support this super initiative within the local community, and help it blossom further during challenging times.

Derek Philip-Xu
Webmaster & Editor

Jeanette Kemp
Member
Derek has been involved in education for around 20 years, initially teaching English to primary, secondary and adult learners in Japan, Spain and China. He originally planned to teach for a year and take a break from his initial career of chartered surveying. But he never returned to surveying and has remained keenly involved in education, the last 10 years being in educational publishing. He also managed to find the time to complete masters degrees in applied linguistics and educational research.

Derek puts his publishing skills to good use running his own digital content creation, writing, copywriting and editorial services business called Refreshing Publishing.

In his spare time, Derek is an enthusiastic runner (and parkrunner), is chair of Maidenhead Athletic Club, and is also a track official.
Jeanette has always loved books and reading and was very lucky to have been read to at an early age. This early exposure to books and reading started Jeanette's lifelong passion for enjoying books and spreading the word.

After a successful sales career, Jeanette realised when she took time out to have her family the power of reading and sharing books was something that she wanted to engage with further.

Jeanette spent the following 12 years working for the library service where she able to deliver a reader development programme across the local school's network and also engage local reading groups in a free-lance capacity.

Jeanette is delivering, "How to encourage your child to read" sessions at the festival this year and hopes to work further on a free-lance basis.