Our team

Sue Dahl has held senior policy management positions in the Ministry of Health, Department of Labour and NZQA. Her consulting career has included temporary management roles, project management, and policy project work across social sector agencies. Sue has also managed the National Library, Archives and Information Management Policy team.

Before co-ordinating the establishment of the OCVS, Diana continued her exploration of community and voluntary sector issues at the Ministry of Social Policy (now Ministry of Social Development). Here she investigated barriers to volunteering and ways to enhance participatory processes.

Diana’s exploration of the government-community relationship started during her 12 years at the Department of Internal Affairs. During her time as a senior policy analyst there, she was involved in recreation and sport, community work training, grant funding, crime prevention, social capital, volunteering and youth development.

She has also worked as an analyst in the Transition Education Unit, and at the Secondary Examinations Council in London.

Diana stepped down from the Aro Valley Community Council in late 2008, after many years of voluntary service. She has previously worked part time as a counsellor at the Wellington People’s Centre and many years as a co-counselling teacher. Diana has also been involved in several groups related to women’s issues, peace, aid and development, building heritage, conflict resolution and counselling.

Mike has been with the Department of Internal Affairs for 18 years, mainly in gambling policy but he has also worked on policy issues relating to censorship, identity (citizenship, births, deaths and marriages, and passports), and dam safety. He has a LLM degree from Victoria University of Wellington and a Bachelor of Arts in History from James Cook University of North Queensland.

Judith joined the OCVS team full-time in May 2009 to work on a fixed-term basis while Kat Paton is seconded to Minister Turia's office as Private Secretary.

Judith will be familiar to many of you as she has previously assisted OCVS on projects such as the regional funders forums and the Building Better Government Engagement project.

Judith has extensive managerial and senior analyst experience in government, particularly in housing and social policy, and more recently has worked as a contractor/consultant to government and the community and voluntary sector. Judith's qualifications include a Master of Public Management degree and a Certificate in Public Participation from the International Association for Public Participation. 

Sara joined the Department of Internal Affairs in 2009 and worked in the Gambling, Racing and Censorship Policy team. She is passionate about animal rights issues.

The work of the OCVS has been influenced by all those in our team - past and present.
We acknowledge the contribution former staff have made to the impact our work has had since OCVS's journey began in September 2003. 
They include full-time, part-time and long and short-term team members:

• Alasdair Finnie
• Alison McDonald
• Ann Walker
• Brenda Ratcliff
• Cath Sim
• Caroline Bridgland
• Felicity Wilton
• Gabrielle Benson
• Glenda McCallum
• Grant Aldridge
• Hugh Lawrence
• Iris Webster
• James King
• Jo Boyle
• Jo Scully
• Jo Woods
• Joyce-Anne Raihania
• Karen Upton
• Kat Paton
• Laura Benedict (Ian Axford Fellow)
• Laurie Coetsee (intern)
• Madhu Narayan
• Penny Harding
• Richard Davis
• Rosie Pears
• Sally Jackman
• Sue Driver
• Susanna Robinson (intern)
• Thijs Van Lierop
• Victoria Hinson