My friend Judy Robinson, who has died suddenly aged 73 after a brain haemorrhage, was a powerful advocate for the voluntary sector and its contribution to the welfare state, as general secretary of Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation from 1991 to 2002, and then leading Involve, its Yorkshire equivalent, until 2016.
She was chair of Navca (the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action), supporting voluntary and community services, from 2020 to 2023.
A force to be reckoned with, Judy provided an articulate, well-informed challenge to successive governments, seeking to persuade them to recognise the community sector’s experience and knowledge, and the voices of its service users.
Born and raised in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, she was the only child of Anne (nee Jackson), a homemaker, and Fred Robinson, known as Robin, a clerk in the steelworks. She was always grateful for the opportunity Scunthorpe grammar school gave her, a working-class girl.
Judy’s community work began on council estates in Sheffield while still a student at Sheffield University, where she took a combined honours degree in history and biblical studies. It continued into her first job as a community worker, employed by the Church of England, in Leigh, a declining Lancashire mining town.
She quickly began assisting local tenants in their protest against Wigan council’s plans to demolish swathes of terrace housing, pressing instead for refurbishment so communities might thrive again. She was instrumental in setting up Lamp, a lively community bookshop in Leigh town centre, to which the young Lemn Sissay was a regular visitor. The present state of Leigh, its people neglected by the state, troubled her deeply. She loyally returned there until her death, travelling 60 miles from her home in Sheffield to her dentist and hairdresser.
In pre-computer days, Judy was skilled at cutting and pasting typewritten articles for community newspapers and for Christian Statesman (later Christians Today), a radical Christian quarterly that she co-founded in 1977 and whose stance earned the ire of the Daily Telegraph.
Subsequently she worked nationally for the organisation Christians Against Racism and Fascism, and at Sacred Trinity, a multi-faith education centre in Salford.
During her Leigh days she met and married Ian Stubbs, a vicar, and moved to the Oldham area. They separated in 2002 and divorced in 2005.
In retirement Judy gave her time freely and tirelessly to chairing Navca and, from 2017, Healthwatch Sheffield. In March this year, she gave a keynote speech at the Taking Action on Poverty Summit in Sheffield, challenging the audience to tackle inequality by working together from their different perspectives.
Throughout her working life Judy mentored many of the future leaders in the voluntary sector, setting an example with her wisdom, energy, compassion, imagination and commitment to social justice, and in her defence of the north of England.
A love of nature and the arts infused her life; she enjoyed bird-watching, the theatre, visits to galleries and walks by the sea. Judy was generous in time, hospitality and carefully chosen gifts. She had several official and unofficial godchildren, and her many friends were her family.
