I was born in Bolton in 1964. My mother was the Captain of Red Lane Pilots and so I attended Pilots camps even before birth! When I was seven I became a Pilot and stayed as a Pilot until I left Bolton at age 18. I then went to live in Halifax, and soon joined Heath United Reformed Church, where I became a Junior Church teacher and Elder. When my children were old enough they started Pilots at Lightcliffe, and a couple of years later, in 1996 the time was right at Heath for my wife Janet and I to start our own company.

Initially we had three Pilots - including our own eldest two, but this soon grew to a reliable and enthusiastic seven or eight. After a few years we split our group into 5-10 year olds and 11-17 year olds, and at the end of 2007 for a variety of reasons we had to close the younger group.

Our 11-17 year old group now has 7 Pilots and we are very much enjoying visiting other companies and trying to build Pilots at the Regional level.

I work for Lloyds Banking Group in IT.

I too was born in Bolton and was a Pilot as a child. I moved over to Halifax in 1985 to train as a nurse in Calderdale. I married Alan in 1986 and in 1988 we had our first child, Christopher. Zoe and Hannah arrived in 1990 and 1993. I am the Junior Church Secretary at Heath, and am also a serving Elder.

I work as a Staff Nurse in the community with the school nursing team three days a week.

In our first year as RPOs we met all but one of the Yorkshire Pilots Captains, we organised our first Regional Fun Day, visited a Pilots Camp and attended the National Pilots Longleat event as part of the crew.

In our second year we visited as many Mission and Care groups as we were able (these replaced districts in Yorkshire) with a view to growing awareness of Pilots across Yorkshire.  We were pleased when in 2011 a new company started up in Scarborough.  We are keen to help more companies start up, as Pilots is a great mission resource, and wherever there is a Pilots company, great things are achieved.

This is the bookings we have in our diary at the moment:

13th Jan to 15th Jan 2012 - Pilots exec and RPO training weekend in Leeds 
10th February 2012 - Lightcliffe Pilots
14th March 2012 - Pilots Management Committee
15th March 2012 - Scarborough Pilots
26th June 2012 - Pilots Management Committee
19th October 2012 - Pilots Management Committee

In 2012 we hope to visit all the companies in Yorkshire.  As dates are booked I will add them to this site.  Please get in touch if you have a prefered date.

yorkshire@pilots.org.uk