TRUSTEE (Company Director & Board Member)
ROLE PROFILE
Thrive is looking to recruit new trustees tojoin the Board of Trustees. The Board provides strategic oversight of the organisation andworks with the Chief Executive and Senior Managers to deliver Thrive’s5-year Strategy to widen the reach of our services and build our financial health.
Who isThrive?
Thrive isthe leading charity in the UK that uses gardening to bring about positive changes in the lives of people who are living with a disability or ill health, or are isolated, disadvantaged or vulnerable. We are a professional, caring and down-to-earth organisation, with committed staff supported by a wonderful cohort of volunteers.
Thrive offers a range of gardening-based programmes, suitable for many different disabilities and age groups, from our four centres in Beech Hill near Reading, Battersea Park in London, Saltwell Park in Gateshead, and Kings Heath Park in Birmingham. Our Head Office is co-located with our Centre near Reading.
We are the leaders in social and therapeutic horticulture (STH), which is the process of using plants and the garden to improve physical and mental health, as well as communication and thinking skills. We also use the garden as a safe and secure space to develop someone’s ability to mix socially, make friends, and learn practical skills that will make them more independent. And we have a track record of making a real difference to people’s lives.
Another key aspect of Thrive’s work is the development and delivery of training in social and therapeutic horticulture for professionals and specialists, from entry level to diploma. We are also at the forefront of research into good practice, quality assurance and impact measurement.
Established in 1978 as the Society for Horticultural Therapy, Thrive is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity. Each Trustee of the registered charity is also automatically a Director and Board Member of the company.
Who are we looking for?
First and foremost, weneed individuals who can wholeheartedly endorse and support the aims and principles of Thrive. This does not mean you need to be experts in horticulture or have experience of working with disabled, disadvantaged or vulnerable people to join the Board, although that could help.
Our current Trustees include representatives from the horticultural industry, law, education, government, armed forces, land management, corporate management and financial management. Between them they have an impressive array of skills, knowledge and life experiences that are applied in differing ways to ensure the ongoing success of Thrive.
However, we are looking to recruit Trustees whocan help in the following areas:
Education – providing an understanding of the field of learning and education, qualification and standards, and helping to guide our work with our client gardeners as well as professionals and practitioners. Stephen Davies, Principal of Moulton College, has been a Trustee of Thrive for 10 years, the maximum allowed under our Articles of Association, and must now stand down; we are looking for a new Trustee to continue this work and to help us to develop our on-line resources.
Academia & Research– to ensure that we stay at the top of the game it is important that we are able to design and run programmes in ways that enable us to identify, collect and analyse the appropriate data to evaluate the impact of our interventions. We need a Trustee who can guide us in this as well as help us understand the applicability of information coming from elsewhere in the sector.
Horticultural industry– although Thrive’sfirst priority is supporting people with disabilities or ill-health, maintaining horticultural standards and good connections with the industry is important. With Robert Hillier OBE planning to stand down as a Trustee in the summer we are seeking to strengthen our industry ties.
Public health – with the changing landscape of local authorities and public health, commissioning and funding regimes, we recognise that we need to increase our understanding of the national and local policies and organisations and would welcome applications from public health or medical professionals.
Digital – we have made good progress in recent years in embracing new strategies for promotion and fundraising, including regular email communications, Twitter and Facebook activity and an on-line shop, and we have plans to introduce on-line training modules in 2016. We want to develop our digital strategy further and are seeking a Trustee to help us to understand the possibilities and risks and how to build our digital and technology capacity.
Above all we are looking for people who share our passion for using gardening to improve the lives of others and who are willing and able to commit around 1 day per month to work with us to achieve our goals.
Thrive will provide, or meet the costs of, any appropriate training to ensure that you are equipped to execute your role as a Trustee. Thrive will also reimburse your reasonable travel expenses for attending meetings or events.
What is expected of a Thrive Trustee?
The key responsibilities are, with the other Trustees, to hold the charity “in trust” for current and future beneficiaries by:
- ensuring that Thrive has a clear vision, mission and strategic direction and is focused on achieving these;
- being responsible for the performance of Thrive and for its “corporate” behaviour;
- ensuring that Thrive complies with all legal and regulatory requirements;
- acting as guardians of Thrive’s assets, both tangible and intangible, taking all due care over their security, deployment and proper application;
- ensuring that Thrive’s governance is of the highest possible standard.
In practice this means working in partnership with the other Trustees, the Chief Executive and the Senior Management Team:
- to develop and agree the strategic plans,
- to ensure that business, operational and other plans and board policies support the strategic priorities, and
- to ensure that there are effective mechanisms in place
- to listen to the views of current and future beneficiaries;
- to review the external environment for changes that might affect the charity;
- to re-assess the need for the charity and for the services it provides, or could provide and to review regularly its strategic plans and priorities.
Trustees are responsible for agreeing how the performance of the charity is measured against its strategic priorities. They will receive regular reports from the Chief Executive and Senior Managerson progress and will hold the Chief Executive to account for the management and administration of the charity.
Trustees, both individually and collectively, have a considerable impact on the direction, reputation and effectiveness of Thrive. As such they are expected to act as ambassadors for Thrive and to ensure that organisational knowledge and expertise, intellectual property, the charity’s good name and reputation etc. are properly valued, utilised and safeguarded.
The Board of Trustees meets 4 times a year and Trustees are expected to also join one of the Committees or Advisory Groups that focus on specific topics. Our Board meetings usually take place in London or Beech Hill near Reading; other meetings are held in locations that are most convenient to the Trustees involved.
Why become a Trustee?
Being a Trustee of a Charity can be very rewarding and offers the chance to shape, support and contribute your ideas and knowledge to a meaningful organisation.
As a Trustee at Thrive you will be able tolearn new skills or use your existing skills in a new context,improve your CV and broaden your experience. You will meet interesting new people and it could open doors to all sorts of other networks and opportunities.
Being a Trustee can expose you to new experiences and new groups of people. It can present you with new challenges, constructive and exciting ones as well as some more difficult things to overcome. You are part of a team as a Trustee and will have the opportunity to add your unique skills and experience while learning from others too.
The small print …
Trustees receive no remuneration for their involvement with Thrive but are entitled to be reimbursed for all reasonable out of pocket expenses including travel to and from meetings, subsistence while attending Thrive training related to developing the trustee’s role/capacity.
EachTrustee is individually accountable to the Board of Trustees as a whole. Collectively, the Board is accountable to Thrive’s constituents and the communities in which it operates as well as to thestatutory regulators.
Trustees are responsible collectively for ensuring that Thrive has in place the appropriate policies to enable it to fulfil its obligations as set out in the Memorandum and Articles of Association and the terms of our registration with the Charities Commission.
Trustees are also responsible collectively for ensuring Thrive has in operation the appropriate policies and procedures to enable it to fulfil its statutory obligations for Health & Safety, safeguarding the need and requirements of gardeners and staff and insurance.
It is the responsibility of each Trustee to ensure that all Board members are provided with sufficient information to fulfil their roles in providing appropriate scrutiny and challenge.
To avoid any conflict of interest, each Trustee is obliged to declare any possible conflict of interest and to withdraw from making a decision on any matter in which it may reasonably be claimed that they have a vested interest.
Trustees must act solely in the best interests of Thrive and its objectives. Where, for example, a Trustee has an affinity for a particular facet of Thrive’s work it is their duty to act on the basis of the best interests of the charity as a whole rather than to benefit one particular activity or geographical area over another.
Trustees may be offered an annual ‘non-managerial’ performance appraisal to help identify any issues or training needs etc.
Trustees are expected to operate within the law and guidelines of the Charity Commission, Companies House, and other statutes that may from time to time apply.
More information about Thrive
CEO Kathryn Rossiter has been in post for 3 years. The Senior Management Team is the Head of Resources (Brian Cottrell), Head of Operations (Alex Wakefield)and Research & Consultancy Manager (Cathy Rickhuss).
A few facts and figures from2014/15:
- 52 staff in 4 locations – Reading, London, Gateshead and Birmingham
- Worked with more than 440 client gardeners
- Delivered 10,000 gardening sessions
- 78% of client gardeners showed a positive improvement in one or more quality of life indicators
- 38 client gardeners achieved an accredited qualification
- 236 regular volunteers supporting our work and over 1,000corporate volunteers on 50 CSR days – giving a total of 26,600 hours
- 14,235 unique visitors each month to our websites
- 3,500 Twitter followers and over 2,100 Facebook likes
- 608 people attended a Thrive training course; 27 students achieved the accredited Award in STH and 18 students completed the Professional Development Diploma awarded by Coventry University
- 1,6891 individuals and 297 organisation made donations to Thrive totalling £771,000
Our website, will provide you with a lot of information about what we do. Our annual accounts and Impact Report are available to download from the website.
How to apply
To apply, provide a CV and covering lettering setting out why you are interested in the role and what you can bring to the Board, to Kieran Drake, Chair of the Board of Trustees, and Kathryn Rossiter, Chief Executive, by 12 February.
Please contact Kieran Drake, if you would like to have an initial chat about Thrive and the role of the Trustees.
Kieran Drake:
Kathryn Rossiter:
Trustee (Company Director & Board Member) Role Profile:Reviewed: January 2016
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