Nick Toner

General Manager (nick@new-unity.org)

As General Manager, Nick leads the operational, finance and admin staff and reports to the board of trustees. In conjunction with the trustees and other staff, he is responsible for administrative and office management, financial management, personnel and HR matters, rentals and income generation, and buildings management. He also co-runs our arts and culture programme, Arts on the Green.

Nick first attended New Unity in early 2018, and has never really left. He spent that year volunteering on Saturdays with Pets Against Loneliness, and then joined the staff team in November 2018.

Outside of work, Nick is also Deputy Chair of the Abney Park Trust – the registered charity looking after the heritage, biodiversity and community life of Stoke Newington’s “Magnificent Seven” cemetery. He has lived in the local area for most of his adult life, and can often be found walking his dog in Hackney’s parks and in the Lea Valley.

Jean-Guy Sylvestre

Facilities Officer (facilities@new-unity.org)

Jean-Guy, of French Caribbean descent, specialises in music-related youth work. He volunteers and teaches music production to excluded young people, while developing the music department in youth organisation Hackney Quest. A mild compulsion to try and fix broken things, and a strong sense of wanting to work for worthwhile causes convinced him that becoming New Unity's facilities officer was the right call. After recently completing a Computer Science degree, he's now dividing his time between youth work, developing his programming portfolio, and striving to make everything work well and look nice and shiny in New Unity’s buildings -  a somewhat Sisyphean task some would say…!