The Board

Councillor Claire Maitland is the Trustee Ambassador for Living Your Best Life.

Clare has a degree in English and Film & Television from the University of Glasgow.

She has a background at senior level in Events, Retail and Marketing and was part of the founding team that set up the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the Celtic Connections festival. She owned her own marketing company specialising in driving business from the customer experience and until 2015, she owned and ran her own dress agency. 

Clare is the Councillor for Ward 5 in Kilmarnock and Cabinet Member for Equality, Inclusion and Poverty at East Ayrshire Council. She is the Council representative for several organisations.

Married with twin daughters, Clare lives in Kilmarnock and is passionate about music, politics and words. She is currently learning to draw.

Jim is the Trustee Ambassador for Creating A Solid Foundation For Growth

Jim is a former member of East Ayrshire Council, who served between 2007 and 2022.  Prior to that, he worked in Mining and laterally the Oil and Gas Industry.

Living at Stair in East Ayrshire, he is married to Hilary and they have a Son, Daughter and one Grandson. Jim is passionate about sport and travel and is also the current Chairperson of Kilmarnock Sub Aqua Club.

He has professional qualifications in Electrical Engineering and Safety and Risk Management.

Having served on East Ayrshire Leisure previously as an Elected member, he recognises the good work carried out by the Trust in the past and in particular, the substantive challenges for the Trust going forward.

Councillor Iain Linton is a Trustee Ambassador for Leisure at the Heart of the Community.

Ian has been an SNP Councillor since being elected in 1999. 

He represents Ward 3, which takes in the west of Kilmarnock.  He is the Cabinet Member for Wellbeing. He is 54 years old, and has two sons. Cllr Linton is also a Telecommunications Engineer with BT, and in his spare time he enjoys sports and is a keen hill walker

Councillor Clare Maitland is a Trustee Ambassador for Living Your Best Life.

Clare has a degree in English and Film & Television from the University of Glasgow.

She has a background at senior level in Events, Retail and Marketing and was part of the founding team that set up the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the Celtic Connections festival. She owned her own marketing company specialising in driving business from the customer experience and until 2015, she owned and ran her own dress agency. 

Clare is the Councillor for Ward 5 in Kilmarnock and Cabinet Member for Equality, Inclusion and Poverty at East Ayrshire Council. She is the Council representative for several organisations.

Married with twin daughters, Clare lives in Kilmarnock and is passionate about music, politics and words. She is currently learning to draw.

Joe is our ex-officio Trustee

Joe trained as an accountant with Glasgow City Council and in 2001 was appointed Audit Manager at East Ayrshire Council with responsibility for managing internal audit client services.  

In 2004 he was appointed Corporate Accounting Manager and is responsible for managing the Corporate Accounting function within the Council.  He is heavily involved in the Council’s transformation strategy and in the monitoring and achievement of planned savings.  

Joe is an active member of his professional institute and has membership of UK and national accounting standards working groups.  

He is married with three boys, all of whom have a keen interest in football, and Joe spends large amounts of his weekend standing at the sidelines, usually in the rain!

Blair is our ex-officio Trustee

I am privileged to have served the social housing sector for over 20 years.  My current experience, as Head of Housing & Communities, leading a local authority that in the last three challenging pandemic years, responded to challenging homelessness pressures, that successfully welcomed and accommodated over 200 refugee, whilst at the same time maintaining the strongest possible services to existing customers and implementing and continuing our largest residential regeneration scheme in decades.

Throughout my career I have championed customer excellence and empowerment, no more so than in my role as Head of Housing & Communities. Equality for all, became my purpose and my passion, in terms of access, involvement and opportunity and I bring that focus to the new areas of my portfolio such as Waste, Bereavement, Grounds Maintenance and our early intervention and prevention offer via Vibrant Communities.

Trustee Ambassador for Leisure at the Heart of the Community.

James represents Ward 3 Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse.

Born and bred in East Ayrshire, James has a wealth of high level experience in the sport, leisure and recreation sector having worked at both the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.  James is now the Head of Learning and Skills for Sport, Fitness and Hospitality at Ayrshire College where he enjoys working to develop the future workforce of the region.  Prior to this position he successfully managed leisure clubs in the private sector and worked in Higher Education leading sports provision at UWS as the programme leader.

Educated at Kilmarnock Academy before gaining an honours degree in Leisure and Recreation Management from Glasgow University, James has over thirty year’s experience working in the public, private and voluntary sectors throughout East Ayrshire.

James is a member of the Scottish Football Association South West Development group and has been responsible for developing free football programmes for school children across East Ayrshire.  James can often be found in the gym, or playing rugby at Ayrshire Athletics Arena where he is a volunteer club coach working with young athletes.

Trustee Ambassador for Investing in our People & Embracing our Values.

Linda lives in Kilmarnock, and has worked for NHS Ayrshire & Arran for almost 20 years, her current post is Digital Services Administrator.  She is a local activist for Unite The Union, as well as being a Workplace Representative.  Linda was also a keen member and Secretary of a very active Community Council in Kilmarnock until she became a Councillor.

She has lived her entire life in Ayrshire, and almost all of it in East Ayrshire, and is very proud of her roots. 

Linda is looking forward to being involved with the East Ayrshire Leisure Trust, as she thinks they do incredible work all across East Ayrshire across a wide range of sport and cultural events, and she relishes the idea of being part of improving and expanding what the Trust offers to the residents of, and visitors to, East Ayrshire.

Graham is our Trustee Ambassador for Protecting our Environment.

Graham was a Physics teacher in local secondary schools for 28 years.  He has an interest in local history and is a member of Kilmarnock & District History Group where he developed a Town Trail Education Resource which allows all primary school pupils to explore their local history and heritage through active learning.

Graham was also the Teacher Representative in Cabinet and is a Councillor for Ward 4.  He is interested in travel, geopolitics, history, sport and nowadays Urbex. 

Jim is the Trustee Ambassador for Creating A Solid Foundation For Growth

Jim is a former member of East Ayrshire Council, who served between 2007 and 2022.  Prior to that, he worked in Mining and laterally the Oil and Gas Industry.

Living at Stair in East Ayrshire, he is married to Hilary and they have a Son, Daughter and one Grandson. Jim is passionate about sport and travel and is also the current Chairperson of Kilmarnock Sub Aqua Club.

He has professional qualifications in Electrical Engineering and Safety and Risk Management.

Having served on East Ayrshire Leisure previously as an Elected member, he recognises the good work carried out by the Trust in the past and in particular, the substantive challenges for the Trust going forward.

Melanie Swan is our Ambassador for Creating a Solid Foundation for Growth.

David Ross is our Ambassador for Sharing our Vision.

David F. Ross is an architect and writer.  He is a director of Keppie, the internationally successful design practice based in Glasgow that counts Charles Rennie Mackintosh among its former partners.  David led the team responsible for the design and delivery of Ayrshire College and The HALO.  He is an Honorary Fellow of West College Scotland.  He is a published author of fiction, with five acclaimed novels all set in East Ayrshire.

Robert is the Trustee Ambassador for Protecting Our Environment

Barbara is the Trustee Ambassador for Living Your Best Life

Andy Wilson is a Trustee Ambassador for Investing in People & Embracing Our Values and is our Trade Union Trustee.

Andy has worked as a joiner within East Ayrshire Council for over 40 years and has been a Trade Union Official for Unite the Union for over 30 years.