As you may have heard, we are shortly going to be holding the Annual General Meeting of the Trust. As part of that holding our regular elections for board directors/trustees of the charity.
As a community body, our board is made up of a majority (9 out of 12) of elected members who must be Tiree residents, and whom are elected by our full members (who must also be Tiree residents). This ensures that we are always led by the community we serve.
Each year, a third of the board are required to stand down, opening up those spaces for election. If there happen to have arisen more vacancies than required, these are also elected. When the board fills a vacancy mid-year, those members are also required to seek election at the following AGM. This year, due to a combination of the above, we have five slots to elect.
Serving on the board of Tiree Community Development Trust (Urras Thiriodh) is a commitment that should not be taken lightly – we have monthly board meetings usually 2 hours long, with fairly regular email correspondence to respond to in between.
You will be taking part in important high-level decisions about how the Trust sets priorities in its work, spends its money, structures its staff team and sets internal policies for the organisation and the company group of subsidiaries.
You may also be asked to join a subsidiary board in the role of “crossover director” – a role which ensures that we have clear lines of communicaton between our various projects.
Whilst the role is unpaid, the opportunity is huge. You’ll have the opportunity to gain experience in strategic thinking, financial accountability, governance decision making, and most importantly you will be playing a crucial part in delivering vital projects and services in Tiree.
We are currently working on projects including:
- Community housing
- Cùram-chloinne
- Renewable energy
- … and many more besides!
The role is generally not very “hands-on”. We have staff to handle the fine detail and operational matters – but we need trustees to oversee things.
You will ensure that we are doing things in the best interests of the community and that we communicate about our work effectively.
If you would be willing to bring your skills and give up some of your time to help your community, you would have our very grateful thanks!
Support is available to explain how things work and help you get up to speed. We do our best to present information in ways that don’t require professional experience – so don’t rule yourself out! Ideally our board should provide a broad representation of all the groups of people within our community.
The deadline for people to put themselves forward for the election which takes place at the AGM on Tuesday December 5th December 2023 is one week before – Tuesday 28th November 2023.
We appreciate that is a short timeline, and we are here to help!
You can find more information about what is involved in being a director and trustee at this link, and you can get in touch with the General Manager at the Trust office to ask further questions, or reach out to one of the existing board members such as our current Chair, Rhoda Meek, or our Vice Chair, John Bowler, or our Treasurer Christine Coghill.