Sean Lally
Director
City & Guilds Qualified Cycle Mechanic
CTC Accredited Cycle Instructor
Sean Lally has always been passionate about bikes. He never walks, drives or gets public transport if he can cycle. During his childhood and teenage years Sean became heavily involved in cycle sport, training intensively and riding with the Marple Wheelers racing team from just outside Manchester.
In his twenties, Sean worked on a series of environmental and conservation projects in the UK and Ireland, becoming an apprentice to Ken Fern at the renowned Plants for a Future charity in Cornwall, studying botany and horticultural research. Sean had a wide range of responsibilities within this project, including promotion and public/community relations. He was the first point of contact for visitors and led many public information talks around the grounds. He also oversaw much of the administration in his role as secretary, including membership, newsletters and mail-shots, and as part of an active fundraising team, Sean helped to secure a large amount of money for the purchase of 83 acres for a second arm of the project.
Sean’s other love has always been music, particularly traditional Irish music and, in 2000, he began what he sees as a lifelong apprenticeship in learning to play the Irish Uilleann pipes. What started out as a serious hobby soon developed into a business idea when, in 2003, Sean initiated the Annual Floating Tionol – the world’s first traditional Irish piping festival taking place on a narrow-boat up and down the River Thames.
Through these and many other events, Sean gained a wealth of experience in project management, promotion (organising public sessions and live performances), and maintaining customer satisfaction. He exercised tight budgetary control and the Tionol became a commercially successful event, drawing students and teachers from all over the world, including Israel, Eire, USA, Europe, and the UK. Sean also developed a first-class knowledge of fundraising, which enabled the creation of scholarships for promising young pipers to join the event free of charge.
In 2002, Sean trained as a City & Guilds qualified cycle mechanic and, since then, has worked in a range of bike shops, gathering mechanical expertise and experience with a huge variety of bikes, from the recycling and community venture Oxford Cycle Workshop to the renowned Condor Cycles in central London. Sean is also a CTC accredited cycle instructor and has taught classes of all ages and cycling abilities.
During his time in Oxford, Sean was involved with the hugely successful Bike Doctor project - a high quality, mobile cycle repair service which travelled (by bike, of course) to companies and organisations within the city. The service proved to be so successful and essential to cycling employees that, in 2007, Sean decided to help promote the current cycling boom in London by moving the Bike Doctor initiative to the capital in the form of Cycle Systems.
Since those early days, the services offered by Cycle Systems have expanded and improved according to clients' needs, and Sean is enjoying the challenge of being director of the company, along with working to improve and promote cycling within the city.
Most recently, Cycle Systems has been asked to be a part of a larger consortium bidding for the procurement of the Free London Cycle Hire Scheme, and Sean has been appointed a non-executive director of the cycle share system, Citybyke.
Julia Lally
Director
Julia Lally has worked in two main fields of employment during the past two decades: running a small, self-employed business in health education; and working in the arts.
Julia qualified from the Buteyko Institute of Breathing and Health in 2001, after which she ran a successful small business teaching the breathing technique, The Buteyko Method, to clients in the south-west and south-east to help them improve symptoms of respiratory disease and anxiety. Her experience with this work allowed her to develop the ability to manage finance and accounts; to run intensive publicity campaigns and sales drives (in the course of 7 years she delivered several hundred free public education talks about the benefits of learning good breathing techniques and successfully recruited many clients from these talks); how to communicate with the press through TV appearances, radio and newspaper interviews. She also learned how to effectively deliver course material in a clear and concise way, and how to adequately monitor client progress and satisfaction.
A highlight of Julia’s Buteyko career was being asked to be a part of the BIBH training programme which visited a special school for asthmatics in Havana, Cuba.
Please visit www.buteyko.info for more information.
Julia also has a lifelong passion for the arts and, since graduating with a BA in Theatre and English from Middlesex University, has written and directed two plays and several smaller theatre projects. She became highly adept at project management during her theatre work, having to focus to tight performance deadlines and draw together many elements of creativity, people management, budgetary control and production.
A common theme in Julia’s work has been a desire for sharing the arts with those who may not otherwise have a chance to participate, and all projects have involved actors from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Projects have included fundraising for, directing, musical directing and touring her first play around the south-west; running a two year fundraising campaign for her second play, which included a pilot project through Oxford House Arts in Bethnal Green, and a performance at the renowned Kings Head Theatre in Islington’s Upper St., which led her to win a large London Arts grant to perform this second play as part of a site specific theatre project in the famous St John’s Church in Bethnal Green with theatre company Bridie Productions. The play was called ‘The Hunchback of Bethnal Green’ and was part of a two month project which trained vulnerably housed actors in theatre skills, resulting in a two-week performance run and the accolade of “seriously impressive theatre” from Time Out Magazine. Many of these disadvantaged actors were given the opportunity to obtain Equity membership, and therefore a credible entry into the theatre profession.
Alongside these writing and directing projects, Julia has also produced a first-class album of her music, once again drawing on her skills in budgetary control and project management to draw on the talents of 12 musicians from the UK, Europe and Africa.
Finally, Julia has also written a novel, deciding however, since the birth of her first child, to put aside the drive for publication in order to concentrate on running Cycle Systems instead. As a result of this decision, Julia committed to moving to London with her husband and business partner, Sean, to build Cycle Systems. Julia has a lifelong adoration of the City, and is very excited to be participating in the greening of London through the promotion of cycle and cycle-based transport strategy.
Howard Barrett
Director
Howard Barrett is Director of Strategy for Cycle Systems Ltd. He has previously held senior roles in I.T. and management consulting, after starting his career in sales and marketing in the consumer goods industry.
He was responsible for the UK, Middle East and Africa consulting and system integration practice for a global system integrator and was partner in charge of the European customer relationship management practice for one of the 'Big 5' audit and advisory firms.
Howard is experienced in consumer, corporate and government sectors and focuses on strategy, developing organisational capability and business growth within both start-ups and large business units.
A passionate believer in the power of collaboration to drive success, Howard is committed to helping achieve sustainable environmental initiatives.
Married with two sons, one reading engineering at Bristol, Howard is a keen tennis player.
