Gary Denton

Gary is an experienced senior leader with a wide range of experience working within organisations to facilitate positive change and implement innovative systems, modern structures and lean processes. He has the skills necessary to successfully develop and implement a wide range of integrated management solutions to deliver results and growth with both passion and focus. His background has primarily been in government funded training provision, but over the last 18 months he has been working as a consultant to support a wide variety of businesses with their growth plans. This has provided lots of opportunities to support senior leaders in everything from strategic planning, financial systems and ROI, Reporting Systems & KPI’s to bid and tenders writing. He is an experienced and natural facilitator with experience in bringing fragmented groups together with a reputation for integrity and dedication as well as for getting things done.    

Adam Paker

Adam Paker is a consultant to the sport and fitness industries. Over the past 20 years he has been involved in a variety of sports leadership roles. As a FIFA Director he was closely involved in the commercial delivery of the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cups. More recently he served as Chief Executive of Commonwealth Games England, delivering a table-topping Team England to Glasgow 2014, and thereafter as Chief Executive of Swim England (formerly the ASA), where he focused on making swimming more available to all people in the country, regardless of their background.

Adam is passionate about children's activities and recently acted as Interim Chief Executive of Swimming Nature, the UK's leading premium swimming tuition group, ensuring that as many children as possible could gain the benefits of learning to swim. Adam's 3 young daughters ensure that most of his free time is spent investing time and money in a wide range of children's activities.

Andy Peasey

Andy is the creator and with his wife the co-owner of RUGGERBUGS.  Having been coaching rugby from club to county level for over 25 years RUGGERBUGS was inspired from the need that children are not introduced to the great sport of Rugby until the age of 6+ at club level.

Establish in early 2007 RUGGERBUGS is a multi-award winning, fun and exciting pre-school sports development programme based around non-contact rugby for girls and boys, aged 18 months to Six years. It is designed to promote a fun and positive attitude to sport and fitness.

RUGGERBUGS is a leading company in this field and the first to establish close associations with local rugby clubs to ensure that children can progress to mini rugby with ease.

Andy is passionate about Rugby and the introduction children have to the sport and wants to encourage children to have a love of sport and all the positive attributes it can give young people.

When not working or volunteering as a coach at his rugby club he is either spending time with his family or playing golf (badly).

Mark Rasche - Deputy Chair

Mark Rasche runs an organisation called Sport & Activity Professionals which works with kids' activities businesses in all areas of the sector to help them grow and improve, over come their challenges and to build the business that they want and that they have the potential to achieve.

Mark has worked with hundreds of organisations in this sector from the largest down to the start ups, with all sorts of company structure from private or publicly limited companies to social enterprises and charities through the training and consultancy arms of his business.

Mark has been working with kids in this industry since he was 16 and eventually helped build a global franchisor in this sector, with an estimated 1.1m kids in 61 countries.

Mark has a huge passion for the sector, extensive experience in the business side of this industry and has helped many organisations achieve great things.

Ian Sharland

Baby Sensory was launched in 2006 when Ian and his wife Keeley joined forces with programme founder Dr Lin Day and her husband Howard. Ian is responsible for the growth of the Baby Sensory business throughout the UK and internationally.

Since 2006 the business has enjoyed strong growth and now has over 300 franchisees working throughout the UK and in many countries around the world including USA, Australia, Russia, China and India.

Ian is passionate about education and personal development and he was initially attracted to the Baby Sensory programme through the opportunity it provides for parents to share in developmental experiences with their new born babies.  He is particularly proud of the team of entrepreneurs and educators who run the Baby Sensory programme and keen to work with the CAA to provide recognition to the important role pre-school activities play in child development.

“The UK is a world leader in pre-school, parent-led education; and the diversity and creativity makes this an exciting sector to work in.  We are however, always mindful that reports of poor experiences can damage the reputation of the entire sector.  Becoming a founding member of the CAA is something we are very proud to be associated with.  We fully support its independent accreditation process and parents who attend a class which has been accredited by the CAA, can rest assured that the provider has the correct insurance, the class leaders have been DBS checked and fully trained,  and also that the programme has been developed and delivered by a team with the appropriate skills.  The accreditation also ensures that the provider has the right policies and procedures to ensure its customers are safe and well looked after.  It is a great comfort to be part of a sector that has the protection of families with young children firmly at its core.”