Sharing Life Trust is a UK Registered Charity No 1100176 helping those who have and can, to assist those who don’t have or can’t. We are based in Thame South Oxfordshire. Through our staff and volunteer network we are able to people in need in Thame and the surrounding villages.
With the involvement of our international partners in both East & West Africa and North East India, we are also able to extend our support to people in need in other parts of the world.
Vision and Values
Our Vision
To affirm that everyone has an equal human value, and to see our local community and those of our international partners free from poverty and hardship.
Our Values
Sharing Life Trust is to be based on, shaped, and guided by principles that have strong roots in Christian teaching and practice as exemplified by Jesus’ particular compassion for the poor and vulnerable, whatever their background. We express this through these three community-building values:
Caring
We stand in solidarity with people that need our help. We want to respond to their immediate needs and look beyond them to the wider individual and systemic challenges they face and give additional support through our dedicated volunteers where we can.
Connecting
Through collaboration with other agencies, we aim to provide a way for the local community to serve those who are struggling by linking them with the wider support network.
Empowering
We are motivated by a desire to see a more just society. It’s not right that anyone should have to face hunger and poverty, and by walking alongside people in their need we aim to empower them to bring about the change they are looking for. Through advocacy and walking alongside people in need we aim to empower individuals and bring about a more just society.
Our Trustees
Ian Brown
Ian has lived in retirement in Thame since 2021. Ian is an ordained priest with forty years’ experience serving the Church of England as a College Chaplain in Cheltenham and also a Vicar in Hertfordshire, Kent and Buckinghamshire. He works in retirement as a Spiritual Director, is part of the SpiDIr Network in Oxfordshire and has Permission to Officiate in ministry at Thame Parish Church. Ian enjoys playing golf, supporting the Saracens Rugby team, walking and also singing in the Lord Williams’s Festival Chorus with wife Julie who is a printmaker. They have three lovely children and eight busy grandchildren.
Steve Eyre
Steve has lived in Chinnor for over 45 years and after a career in sales and sales management was co-founder of Sharing Life with Phil Stratton in 2003. He is a trustee of a charity supporting Rema Burundi and also founded a charity with his wife Diane in 2013. Steve and Phil also negotiated the take-over of an Aylesbury Credit Union and Steve was MD of the new organisation until negotiating a merger with a Swindon Credit Union a couple of years ago. He is currently our Treasurer.
Edward Fox
Edward has lived in Thame since marrying his wife, Julie, in 1984. After a 20-year career working in the commercial sector he moved on to serve as a director at World Vision and Oxfam. He then led Opportunity International (UK) for 12 years, as its Chief Executive, before retiring in 2020
John Hulett
John spent nearly all his working life in primary education at schools in Hampshire, Sussex and Oxfordshire. He married Janet in 1982 and they have two grown up children, now both married with families of their own. The family moved to Thame in 1995 when John became headteacher of Barley Hill Primary School. After 16 years as head he retired from the school and did some consultancy work for about 5 years. John joined the trustees of Sharing Life in 2011 and helped set up the foodbank in 2012. He is also a trustee of the Red Kite Family Centre in Thame.
Phil Stratton
Phil has lived in Thame for over 46 years and after working for various American IT Companies started his own IT Business in 1989 which he ran until he sold it in 2022. With Steve Eyre he setup up Sharing Life Trust in 2003 and in 2012 with the other trustees setup Thame Food Bank. When Phil retired in 2022, he took over managing the Thame Foodbank.
Christine Waring
Christine joined Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1974 and worked in administration in Asia and at their Head Office in High Wycombe until retirement in 2012. She moved to Thame in 1996 and is involved in the life of St. Mary’s Church Thame. She was appointed Trustee in 2018.