Circle of Service

Membership and Administrative Secretary - Tripuri Dunne

My Reiki journey started in the 80's after a serious car crash which changed my life. I started to receive Reiki treatments in India where I met my master Krishni Borang in a well-known yoga centre. On my return to the UK in 1991 I took Reiki One and Two,  and then joined the Association in 1994. Within a short time, because she travelled a great deal in those days, Krishni sent some of her friends to me for Reiki treatments and from there almost organically my practice grew. She suggested that I could teach and I completed my training with her in 1999, although she still mentors me to this day, and I have helped her edit the revised edition of her book The Way of Reiki.
I started supporting the Association by attending Gatherings and by encouraging my students to become part of the wider Community through the Association. Some of them also joined what we now call the Circle of Service. In 2007 I offered service to the community by answering email enquiries, and then in 2009 I started helping with membership enquiries. Gradually I became the Liasion Officer for the Association. My personal vision for the future of TRA is that it continues to provide an effective and evolving support network in the UK for Reiki Practitioners run by by the community for the community. A place where people can get the professional support and information they need but also meet in community, make lasting friendships and good connections with the help of our community website.

Webmaster - Brian Nolan

I trained in design at art colleges in the late 60s, obtained several design qualifications at the time, and more subsequently in professional practice. I have worked continuously as a designer for over 50 years. After several years as an employee, in 1979 I started my own design practice employing staff, designing and managing contract and domestic projects. I also had busy retail showrooms to aid my design practice, and even developed a couple of gift shops as a sideline. After 15 years, I was determined to avoid the worries of being an employer with staff, high street premises, VAT etc. so I continued alone as a self-employed designer completing a wide variety of domestic and commercial design projects.

In the late '80s I started practising Tai Chi and Kung Fu, which led to 5 years of college study in Chinese medicine, then Shiatsu and Craniosacral work. In '94 I was initiated into Reiki as it seemed a useful 'therapy' to add on. Gradually I realised it was something more than a therapy! I appreciated the simplicity combined with spiritual depth. I worked professionally as a complementary therapist for many years, but usually part time as design work was always more effective in paying the family bills.
I spent 7 years as a part-time lecturer in design to degree level, working at 3 colleges, where I also taught Key Skills IT and the use of computers in design. I also studied for, and obtained, an adult teaching qualification. However, my love of teaching has not led me to become a Reiki master!
I have been with TRA the last 28 years or so, attended many annual Gatherings since Cork in '96, and some workshops, and have served on Council. It was during my time on Council that we made progress in developing the website, and after leaving Council I carried on with this, helping to bring in the community website with all its features for members late in 2010. In 2016 I proposed we again needed a new website but it took until 2019 to agree I should create the beginnings of one. Unfortunately this was not developed further by Council. Since then I have tried to keep our old creaking website running whilst others, with much voluntary work over the following 4 years, have been developing a new website that should cater better for our needs in coming years.

Council Member and Reiki Care Service - Diane Tyrrell

After studying business, accounting and management in London, this led me to a working life in senior administration, being employed by Bovril, Boosey & Hawkes, and IBM, and finally working for the NHS. This is when I branched out into project management, taking a course in Leadership Management, and then finally, taking a teaching degree with Greenwich University. My calling into Reiki was in 2001, took Reiki II in 2002, and was initiated as a Master in 2006, having by then a healing practice which served both the NHS and the wider community. After 16 years in the NHS I left and set up my own company providing and teaching therapies.

I joined TRA in 2009 and became part of the Grassroots and Care Service teams, becoming the Co-ordinator for the Care Service more recently. I am enjoying  this very much, meeting such lovely likeminded people. I am also now  part of the Reiki Medic-Care group and the Reiki for Animals team. At the last Gathering I was both humble and yet gratefully happy to be accepted onto Council and my aim is to serve the members in any way I can.

However, my true passion is healing. I regularly run Reiki shares from home and offer healing to those less fortunate like ex service people with PTS, animal rescue centres and charities such as Alzheimer’s, Cancer and the Heart Foundation.

I am blessed to have Reiki in my life and have found it opens up beautiful experiences, including the meeting of such lovely, accepting, likeminded people who I am so happy to know. It has certainly helped during difficult times in my life both physically, mentally and emotionall, for which I will always be grateful.

Reiki Outreach International - Soyin Tang

I was brought up in Hong Kong and came to UK in 1962 to pursue my higher education when I was in my late teens. I studied at the Royal Northern College of Music (then called the Royal Manchester College of Music). The earlier part of my life was devoted to teaching music, initially in schools, and subsequently as a private music teacher. I obtained a postgraduate degree in Education from Liverpool University. Subsequently, I became interested in psychology and obtained a master degree in Psychology for Musicians.
I joined The Reiki Association and the Reiki Outreach International (ROI) after I took Reiki One and Two in 1994 and served on TRA Council in 1995. I have been serving as the ROI Co-ordinator in UK since 1995. Mary McFadyen, one of the 22 Reiki Masters who were initiated by Mrs.Hawayo Takata, founded ROI in1990. I have worked closely with Mary on the transmission of global situations and other ROI related work within the UK. Mary initiated me as Reiki Master in 1998.
I practise and teach Reiki in my healing centre in Sheffield. With my training in psychology I became interested in psychotherapy which I now practise. I am a qualified counsellor. I practise and teach toning qigong, sound healing and other multi-dimensional healing modalities.
I am married and have two grown up sons. My husband and sons are all in the medical profession.
I am enthusiastic and committed to the work of ROI. Sending Reiki to the troubled areas and situations worldwide is my daily routine. I am honoured and privileged to have the opportunity to serve our Reiki global community.

Keeper of Archives - Louise Peeters

I was born in Coventry 1967 and graduated in Social Administration at Birmingham University in 1989.

I have worked in marketing, customer services, and run numerous motor trade businesses before I moved to Wales in 1997 in pursuit of a more balanced lifestyle. I am married , no kids (own choice) but 2dogs, 8 chickens, 1 rooster, 10 donkeys,1 horse and one pony!

Following a lifetime love of equines I began my own business Dyfi Donkeys in 2006 , which started as purely children's beach donkey rides but over the years has developed into a passion. My aim  is to give all visitors to our woodland, access to these wonderful animals. For me, they embody the concept of natural healing.
I encountered Reiki for the first time through one of my horses, when I invited an animal healer and Reiki master to come and help this horse who had some behaviour difficulties.  Reiki soon found its way into my own life in 2008 , when I met Milly Cain , who became my Reiki master and friend.

I gained my second degree Reiki in 2010 and feel it is my time to start to give something back to a community which has given me so much.

Non-executive Director - Grainne Warner

My past work as Finance Director of Pagefield Communications was supported by my spiritual practice of Reiki, as I worked to bring corporate and spiritual worlds closer together e.g. I loved to bless money before paying people (including the tax man) and send this money (energy) filled with love and gratitude out into the world! I currently serve on the Reiki Foundation International board, an international charity registered in the USA, where we are working to strengthen a movement of coming together in Reiki we call Reiki Home; fostering community and connection with love and mutual respect for the rich variety of lineages and forms in our global Reiki Family.

My Reiki journey started in 1997, the day after my eldest son was born. In the midst of my struggle with sudden motherhood, a friend came to visit me in hospital and gave me Reiki. Such a feeling of peace in the midst of so much anxiety! I was first initiated into Reiki in 2001, received Reiki II in 2002, and was initiated as a Reiki master in 2006. I’ve enjoyed gatherings when I could, my first being with Wanja Twan in Buckland Hall back in 2004. I was TRA's company secretary for a number of years and responsible for oversight of the annual accounts and Company House paperwork.

Finance Officer - Christine Studman

Reiki comes to find you when the time is right and it certainly was for me. It found me after the cataclysmic event that was my mothers’ death in 2008.  One of my cousins, who was visiting from Ireland, gave me my first Reiki treatment, it was the most moving experience of my life and I had to find out more. I was working for a publishing distributor at the time, who represented a number of health & wellbeing Publishers so I had a warehouse full of potential reading! I did Reiki 1 in 2009, Reiki 2 about a year or so afterwards & my Mastery in 2015. I never looked back. Now that I am retired from working in Accounts for that distributor I run the accounts for TRA, which I really enjoy, it keeps me in touch with all that goes on in running an association such as ours. I also volunteer weekly at two Hospice’s, the North London Hospice at the branch in Winchmore Hill (North London) which is known as the Health & Wellbeing Centre and have also recently started at The Nightingale Cancer charity in Enfield. I liaise weekly, if not more often, with Tripuri and frequently with Council and especially Grainne who oversees the accounts for me each year end. I have been married for 46 years, have 2 grown up sons and 2 very young grand-daughters. I am looking forward to my 5th Gathering in Norfolk this year.

CNHC Verifier - Kate Jones

Reiki came into my life in 1987 when my father died.  I learned 1st and 2nd degree in 1989 and joined The Reiki Association at the inaugural meeting in August 1991, encouraged by my Reiki master Martha Sylvester who was one of the founding members.  Later that year I was initiated by her as a master.  In 1992 I became Administrator for TRA, a role I held for 12 years.

Dealing with an unprecedented number of enquiries about practitioners following a few newspaper articles about reiki, I was involved in the subsequent discussions about what makes a practitioner suitable for referrals. 

I attended 3 conferences on Public Practice of Reiki facilitated by Phyllis Furumoto in the USA and UK in the early 2000s.   What I learned at these conferences was very useful over the following years as I became involved in establishing standards for public reiki practice - representing TRA on the Reiki Regulatory Working Group and Reiki Council as it became,  in the discussions to establish National Occupational Standards for Reiki practitioners and in developing the Reiki Council core curriculum based on them.  For TRA I was also involved in practitioner support and education through what became known as the Practitioner Support Network.  I also served on TRA Council from 2009 to 2014 and was involved in organising various gatherings.

 When the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council decided to set up a register for Reiki practitioners I was elected to the Profession Specific Board for Reiki in 2011, a role which I still hold.  In this role I was involved in setting up the verification for practitioners and the creation of the CNHC core curriculum for Reiki. 

 I have always been interested in Reiki for animals so was pleased to be involved, via Reiki Council, in creating the first National Occupational Standards for Reiki for Animals with LANTRA. 

In addition to my service to the Reiki community I enjoy teaching reiki classes regularly and have also developed various opportunities for reiki practitioners to explore their practice, including my Professional Reiki Practitioner Foundation Course.  I also love to enable people to sing so lead various singing groups, including one for people with a lung condition.  I live in Shropshire near Ludlow with husband Alec, Ruby the dog and some rescued hens.

CNHC Verifier - Melanie Hoffstead

I am in my 30th year as a Reiki Master and I can truly say it is one of the best decisions I made to become a Master. I have a background as a teacher, group worker and therapist and have taught regularly, which I love, both in the Uk and internationally. I continue to be amazed and inspired by Reiki and run workshops for Reiki people to open to their creativity. I enjoy being a verifier and making sure there is good Reiki practice in the world.

Reiki Connections - Liz Watkin

I came across Reiki accidentally when, in 1995 at a conference in a hotel, I felt compelled to book in for a Reflexology session at the hotel spa. I had never had Reflexology before but the urge to have a treatment was too strong to resist.
My background was as an Occupational Therapist within Mental Health Services and I had been working as a therapist in Child and Family Psychiatry in Rotherham for about 7 years by that time and had many emotionally damaged people, adults as well as children, in my client group. I hadn’t realised quite how stressed I had become until tears began streaming down my cheeks during the Reflexology treatment. It was then that the Reflexology practitioner gently suggested that Reiki might be of benefit to me – and how right she was.
Having had many wonderful treatments with a local Reiki Master, we moved to Chesterfield in 2002 and I found my Reiki Master, Kathy Whileman, here. After two years of Reiki treatments with her I tentatively asked her about Reiki training. When she’d stopped laughing she confessed that she had been waiting for me to ask ever since our first session together. I did my Reiki I, Reiki II and Reiki Master training on a 1:1 basis with her, gaining my Mastery in July 2008. I joined TRA shortly afterwards and have gained enormously from being involved in the Association.
I had always imagined that my Reiki journey would involve teaching others, but my path has taken me down a different route which utilises my mental health training instead. I have my own Reiki practice, working closely with the local Parkinson’s Disease Support Group and the Specialist Stroke Service, offering treatments both in my treatment room at home and on home visits, depending on the needs of the clients and their mobility levels. I have learned and experienced so much with these clients along the way and I continue to learn more about the wonderful energetics of Reiki to this day.
I heeded the call to join the Circle of Service at the TRA Gathering and feel that my combined skills set is ideal for me to serve on the Reiki Connections Phoneline.