RAS Steering Group

Lynne Chapman BA, CMRS, formerly a librarian, Lynne fell accidentally into group recruitment through a friend of hers as the role was, then as now, the world’s best-kept secret!

In 1984, at a training day run by QRS, she met Marilyn and for 32 years they worked as a team recruiting groups in Nottingham.

In 2013, Julie Fuller announced her idea for a Recruiter Accreditation scheme. Lynne volunteered to become involved; this eventually was taken over by the MRS and AQR and she has been on the working party from its inception. Lynne was the first independent recruiter to take the Recruiter Accreditation and managed to gain a Distinction.

In recognition of her work she was made a Certified Member by the MRS. Also a member of The Independent Consultants Group for many years, Lynne is a longstanding Committee member and runs their Knowledge Share events monthly.

Phyllis Macfarlane, FMRS has been involved in RAS pretty much from the beginning, when it was first brought to the MRS CPS Board. She has worked in market research throughout her career, managing GfK’s UK company from 2000-2009, then spending several years working on the GfK Verein’s University Cooperation Programme in Africa and Asia. During this time she was also twice Chair of the MRS, and served on the MRS Board, and could often be heard declaiming that ‘The future of research is qualitative!’
The main ‘drivers’ of her current work are improving data quality and education. Apart from the MRS her other interests are Better Statistics CIC, ESOMAR Foundation, the Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR) and supporting small arts and education charities.

Rachael is a Director at Criteria Fieldwork and has been an AQR board member since 2018.
Joining Criteria in 2007 Rachael is responsible for a team of project managers and has lots of experience managing qualitative research projects across a range of methodologies including consumer, business & social research. She is passionate about working closely with clients, becoming an extension of the research team to help ensure recruitment and the project runs as smoothly as possible.
As well as being part of the Recruiter Accreditation Scheme working group, Rachael helps to organise AQR events and parties and is the AQR representative at the IQCS.

Penny Steele, FMRS is the Managing Director of Steele Fieldworks Ltd, a Qualitative recruitment agency Steele Fieldworks is an MRS Company Partner.

She has over 35 years’ experience of qualitative recruitment project management. Penny is the current Chairman of the IQCS Council and has responsibility for minimum fieldwork standards and their annual Quality Awards. She has held this role since 2005. Penny is also the IQCS representative on the Market Research Quality Standards Advisory Board and its role is to develop and maintain minimum standards for market, social and opinion research, data collection and data processing in the UK.

Penny has been involved with the MRS/AQR Recruiter Accreditation Scheme Working Party since it was set up and is personally accredited under the Recruiter Accreditation Scheme.

Since the first Operational Awards in 2015, Penny has chaired the MRS Operations Awards Judging panel. Previously, Penny has served on the AQR Committee, the MRS Accredited Interviewer Training Scheme and the Respondent Interviewer Interface committee.

Debrah is responsible for all MRS operations and leads the Society’s standards, policy and public affairs activities. Debrah graduated from Southampton University in the early 90’s with an honours degree in Geography.
She first worked in accountancy and then moved to the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) in 1994. After working in auditing and compliance for ABC, she joined the management of MRS in 1999 to establish a new Standards and Policy department.
Debrah is the co-author (with Peter Jackson) of the book, Quality in Market Research: from Theory to Practice and is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Samantha has worked at MRS since 1991 in a variety of roles and Departments, including Conference & Events, Training and Qualifications.

She is now responsible for the delivery of all detailed operational and service development relating to both individual membership and MRS qualification programmes