VIDEO: Community champion Saundra to become ‘only the fourth black female Toastmaster’

Luton-born Saundra, who lives in Dunstable, is a founder of the Diversity in Social Enterprise movement and has helped to create 45 new businesses since the year 2010.

Her new role, announced at a meeting of Networking at Dunstable, at the Old Palace Lodge, this morning (Friday), means she will be able to officiate at events including those attended by the Queen. Her first engagement could be at the Emirates stadium at the end of October.

Saundra, who is of Jamaican heritage, is also co-founder of the Bedfordshire Social Enterprise Network and is a champion of Bedfordshire.

Amongst other roles, she chairs ArtBeats Luton and is a member of national bodies – Voice4Change and the Federation of Small Business. She served as a board member of regional body, Social Enterprise East of England (SEEE).

Saundra said it was the achievement of a seven year dream and she intends to use her new role as a way of funding her voluntary activities. She will call herself a Toastmistress for Social Good, and believes she will be the first of a kind in the country to carry out the role not for profit.

Her other community and equality roles include 10 years of volunteering as a member of the Independent Advisory Group to Bedfordshire Police and the Interim Vice Chair of the African Caribbean Strategic Partnership, a new co-op formation with community, council, police and other strategic organisations seeking to provide solutions away from gun, gangs and knife crime in Luton.