Kevin Millsip, Co-founder & Director // Next Up

In 1998 Kevin co-founded Check Your Head an organization that has worked with over 40,000 young people to get involved in global justice issues. He served as the Executive Director of CYH until 2009. In 2004 he co-founded Get Your Vote On – a campaign that registered 20,000 new voters for the 2005 provincial election in BC. He’s dabbled in municipal politics where he served as Vancouver School Board (VSB) Trustee. While on the VSB he drafted one of Canada’s strongest policies protecting students from advertising in schools, worked to increase student involvement in the VSB’s processes and helped develop sustainability related processes.

In 2005 he began working on what would become Next Up and coordinated the first two years of the BC program from 2007-2009. Since May 2009 he has been dividing his time between the VSB where he’s currently the Coordinator for Sustainability and in building Next Up across Western Canada.

ps – He loves his rooftop garden and his blue bike.

Contact: kevin@nextup.ca

 

Andrea Curtis, Program Coordinator // Next Up BC

Since riding West from the Prairies in 2005, Andrea has been making waves on the West Coast in Vancouver as a community organizer, independent producer and creative strategist. Hailing from a background in art making and arts organizing she has since fueled her passion for culture into a vehicle for social change and environmental stewardship. Andrea is a proud and active Next Up Alumni member. After completing the program in Spring of 2009, she joined the organizing team to assist in seeking out, supporting and unifying young, progressive leaders with the Next Up program.

Aside from her work as Next Up BC Coordinator, Andrea is Co-Director of creative project management company Transformation Projects. She is also is co-founder and Producer of the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret, a community based performance group staging engaging, thoughtful and stunning interactive theatre. Andrea has also played key roles in Car Free Vancouver, Public Dreams Society, Work Less Party, Pivot Legal Society and Vancouver Folk Music Festival.

Andrea brings her experience in community engagement, creative strategy, leadership and facilitation to Next Up. For her Next Up has become more than a passion and experiment in providing tools and networks to our next leaders — It’s an ever growing family and an investment in our collective future.

Contact: andrea@nextup.ca

 

Lindsay Ruth Hunt, Program Coordinator // Next Up Edmonton

Lindsay Ruth Hunt is a theatre practitioner, critical educator, community development worker and all round agitator. She is passionate about the role of arts in activism and social justice projects and believes that critical education and art can provide a necessary means to intervene in troubling social and environmental realities that we are presently faced with. In her work she aims to engage with communities working toward social change, to transform social structures in a manner that improves the capacity of individuals, communities and society at large. She envisions and works with arts as a tool for promoting such change, advocating for a more equitable and just society through a creative means. Her practice has been focused on the use of Theatre of the Oppressed but more recently is branching out to multiple modes of community engagement…all in the hopes of educating, inspiring, provoking and promoting social justice.

Her background includes a BFA specializing in theatre and development, an M.Ed. taking a critical look at the present day education system and the potential for popular education and arts, and she is presently working on a PhD investigating the role of community performance as a tool to intervene and challenge our relationship to consumer culture.

She is excited to be a member of the Next Up team and truly believes that we are at a critical moment in time and Next Up is a necessary forum to foster and develop the leaders that our communities need.

Contact: edmonton@nextup.ca

 

Mike Byerley, Program Coordinator // Next Up Calgary

Sentiment without Action is the ruin of the Soul
- Edward Abbey

Mike is passionate about the Environment, and is a bit alarmed that Alberta´s out of control Petroleum Economy is helping to push the World to the brink of either doom or transformation. He believes ‘Sustainability´ has been co-opted to mean business as usual, albeit at a slower pace of destruction. To change this path we need to embrace a more resilient approach to the environmental impact of our daily lives so that our every action is one of creation and regeneration. He practises this through environmental action and community building.

Mike´s background is varied, and includes an MSc in Earth Science, several years working and managing with a Co-op as well as working as a consulting geologist. He is a avid cyclist, back country skier, Transition Town Booster, sometime event producer, and volunteer board Director for both the Friends of Kanananskis and the Old Y Centre for Community Organizations.

Contact: calgary@nextup.ca

 

Tracey Mitchell, Program Coordinator // Next Up Saskatchewan

For the past ten years, Tracey has worked with various community-based and non-profit groups from mental health organizations to international development agencies. She has helped these organizations create innovative programming for public engagement, as well as evaluating and improving those programs. In other words, she got to write comics and make theatre about global justice issues and got paid for it. Tracey has also facilitated organizational development processes for about five years, such as visioning and strategic planning. Tracey has a BA in History and Sociology from the University of Saskatchewan and a variety of training in facilitation and evaluation methods.

Some of Tracey’s favorite things are, in no particular order: doing things that are considered impossible; building community; looking at problems from all sides; designing workshops; planning; meetings; planning meetings; program evaluation; listening; taking notes/minutes; helping people/organizations build their capacity; seeing people/ organizations discover their brilliance; being creative; playing; reading; writing; research; working with groups to create theatre about issues concerning them; thinking outside the box; laughing; hearing different perspectives; digging through archives; thinking really hard; social justice; dancing; pushing the edges; helping make things easier for others

Contact: sask@nextup.ca