Catherine Williams – Executive Officer

Catherine grew up in Sheffield learning to climb on Peak gritstone. Since then, climbing has taken her to some of the most incredibly beautiful places but every day she feels lucky to call North Wales home.

Catherine has a background in outdoor instructing, psychology and psychotherapy and is particularly driven by the connection of people to nature and the benefit it can bring to both which is reflected in projects she’s involved in.

Catherine joined Snowdonia-Active in 2012, initially to launch the North Wales Environmental Charter. Since then her work with the team has included tourism-focused projects such as Pop up adventures, creating environmental resources and training for outdoor instructors. She has led a number of consultancy projects, all with a focus on developing the outdoor sector in Wales.

After her first child, now joined by a second, Catherine came up with the concept of Babi Actif, acknowledging her own difficulties getting back outdoors with a baby in tow. Babi Actif now delivers an ongoing programme of outdoor activities for the under-twos (and their adults!) with free sessions taking place across five counties in North Wales.

Emma Edwards-Jones – Executive Officer

Emma has 25 years experience, as a project manager, academic and consultant in the environmental sector. Particular areas of interest include stimulating behavioural change towards sustainability in industry and society. Following graduation in 1991 from Imperial College, London Emma worked for the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Edinburgh and Scottish Natural Heritage, Edinburgh. In 1992 she joined Scottish Wildlife Trust as a River Valleys Officer where she developed management plans for The Water of Leith and the River Almond, West Lothian. Working on these projects required facilitation of stakeholder opinion and actions, public consultation, communication with the media and environmental research.

She moved to Heriot Watt University as Lecturer in Environmental Modelling in 1995, where she completed her PhD ‘A participatory approach to integrated catchment planning’. From 2006-2010 Emma ran the Green Snowdonia Project for the Snowdonia Society to promote sustainable tourism in North Wales involving facilitation of knowledge transfer within the tourism industry and marketing activities promoting sustainable tourism including website development and marketing literature.

Emma joined Snowdonia-Active as Projects Manager in 2010 and has led on the delivery of a portfolio of projects with a focus on fostering behaviour change and engendering creativity in tourism development, sustainable tourism and product innovation.  Emma is joint-lead for the national outdoor safety campaign, AdventureSmart.UK.

Jeanette Wooden – Babi Actif Officer

Jeanette’s early life was in south-east England and her early career in theatre management in London, but with a grandfather born in Holyhead (a proud Welshman and a native Welsh speaker), she has always felt an affinity to North Wales.

She and her husband met while working in a London concert hall and discovered a mutual love of Snowdonia. When their daughter was born they took the momentous decision to pack up their lives and move to Llanberis. In order to be able to support her daughter’s bi-lingual education, Jeanette started learning Welsh and is conversationally fluent.

The move to Wales also afforded her the opportunity to study as a mature student for a degree in English Literature at Bangor University. Since graduating she has worked in the third sector managing a number of community projects and specialising in volunteer management and community engagement. She has worked on the Babi Actif project since October 2019 and finds it really rewarding to hear about the positive impact the project has had on new parents.

Jeanette loves to get outside to enjoy the local landscape and in her spare time can be found on hills or beaches, walking her border collie or running (very slowly). She is also a recent convert to sea swimming.