Meet the owls!
We don't use freelancers (
here's why), so your course will be given by one of these good people (although strictly speaking Rachel and Simone don't actually train, so you're more likely to speak to them by phone or email):
Andrew Gould
Andrew has a first-class degree in Biology, trained as a teacher, and studied for a PhD on the evolution of East African cichlid fish. He is thus one of the few people in the world who is an expert on both Lake Malawi cichlid fish and Visual Basic for Applications!
Andy Brown
Andy also has a first-class degree (Economics and Statistics, this time - clever people, these owls). He spends his work time writing web sites using ASP.NET MVC and delivering training courses, and his non-work time ferrying children around, doing crosswords and playing football and squash.
Dave Wakefield
Dave has a degree in Physics from King's College London. He has a large collection of antique scientific instruments, but reserves his main passion for gliding (although he seems to spend a disproporionately large amount of time on the ground, doing his gliding club's accounts).
Jenny Brown
Jenny has a degree in PE and computing from Liverpool. She used to play a lot of badminton and netball when she was younger, but now spends her spare time participating in and organising running events and singing in an award-winning ladies' a cappella chorus.
Rachel Brook
Rachel has a degree in Maths and PE from Reading, and worked as a teacher in the UK before moving to Zanzibar to become a teacher trainer (through VSO). Several roads later find her at Wise Owl! Out of the office she enjoys gardening, and especially watching the taddies evolve each year in her pond.
Rick Gould
Rick has a degree in Psychology from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is a qualified teacher and (prior to Wise Owl) was a Deputy Headteacher in primary education. When he’s not working, he spends his time with his two young children, tackling all manner of DIY and writing picture books.
Sam Lowrie
With a degree in Psychology from the University of Glasgow, Sam will undoubtedly be worried about the rest of the Owls' mental states! When he isn't trying to be funny, he enjoys dancing away at ceilidhs in full kilt or hunting down dragons with friends.
Shaun Wantling
Shaun left university as a qualified sound and video engineer before embarking on a career in finance. He then made the move into training, and has never looked back! Shaun divides his time between training for triathlons and entertaining his 3 children.
We don't yet have a cartoon of Simone, our new(ish) marketing manager, but are hoping to get one (along with a bio) soon.
If you want to see what we all REALLY look like here's a picture from a recent first aid course. Note that we're much smarter than this when we're training! Apologies to Rick and Simone, neither of whom were with us at the time of the course. Think of Rick as the guy with the checked shirt on the ground perhaps, and Simone as the person taking the photograph?