About Us

Dementia Adventure is led by Neil Mapes and Lucy Harding.  We have a unique combination of skills and experience of over 30 years in both dementia care and the adventure travel industries.  Neil Mapes won an UnLtd level 1 Award for his ideas for Dementia Adventure in 2010 and Lucy Harding’s photo of Alan Carter sailing has recently won the Triodos Bank Social Vision 2011 award.

Dementia Adventure Directors

Neil Mapes, Director, has a background in clinical psychology and has volunteered and worked in a variety of health and social care positions. Neil is also a 2010 Clore social fellow and an UnLtd fellow.  He has led adventure travel holidays in the Canary Islands, Turkey, the USA, and Guatemala. Neil loves wild swimming and cross-country running and is training for the Brighton marathon.  He has led and established many social innovation projects and initiatives including:

• one of the first Alzheimer’s Cafes in the UK
• a specialist outreach service for younger people with dementia
• new qualifications in mental health
• mental capacity advocacy with older people
• multi media research into the social exclusion of older people
• personalisation and personal budgets for people with dementia

Lucy Harding, Director, has led adventure travel holidays in over 30 different countries including the Indian subcontinent, Africa, the Americas as well as all over Europe.  She led and managed overseas tours over a 10 year period with the UK’s leading adventure tour operator, Explore. She has the operational and managerial experience of recruiting, training and supporting tour leaders for their postings abroad to deliver an excellent holiday experience.  Lucy has extensive practical and cultural knowledge combined with travel industry experience and expertise.

Dementia Adventure Non-Executive Directors

Larry Gardiner has previously had a career as a director in several leading multinational businesses including British Telecom, Digital Inc, Compaq and Hewlett Packard. He has also lived and worked in many different languages, cultures and countries all over the world. Larry is now a charity trustee and a non-executive director of Dementia Adventure.

His interests include citizen advocacy, campaigning and activism.  Larry is determined that individuals with dementia should have a voice in designing and delivering the services they need. His role at Dementia Adventure is to position that input ‘front and centre’ in the development of service innovation for people with dementia.

People who have developed Dementia are frequently treated as if they have no capacity to decide things for themselves; their preferences, needs and aspirations are often ignored.  As an ambassador and as an evangelist for Dementia Adventure Larry will enthusiastically promote and publicise evidence about the benefits of enabling, empowering and encouraging individuals to continue to flourish and thrive through activities, adventures, exercise and outdoor pursuits.

Larry speaks from direct and personal experience of being profoundly affected by vascular dementia following a series of strokes. The progress he has made is powerful testimony to the potential for recovery through personal determination and the help of organisations like Dementia Adventure.

Dementia Adventure CIC Advisory Board

Our work is guided and supported by an Advisory Board comprising key individuals who bring a range of experiences and expertise to Dementia Adventure.  If you are interested in joining our Advisory board please contact us.

Chair of the Advisory Board – Bhavna Jones

Bhavna and Neil met in May 2010 at the Windsor Leadership Trust.  Since then Bhavna has committed her time to support Neil and Dementia Adventure to grow and thrive.  Bhavna is both committed to and passionate about improving the lives of people living with dementia and has also demonstrated outstanding commercial results in various senior roles in the independent healthcare sector during her career spanning the last 15 years (more on Bhavna’s previous work can be found on her LinkedIn page).  Bhavna has proven herself to be a driven, tenacious and collaborative leader with an unrelenting passion for quality and outcomes in dementia care.  Bhavna’s experience in providing quality services within demanding and competitive environments will be extremely valuable for Dementia Adventure as we plan our growth for the future.