1. Legal responsibilities
To manage the overall business of the Society.
To ensure that the Society’s work remains true to its objects
as set out in its Articles and Memorandum.
To act rationally, sensibly, carefully and lawfully in financial matters.
To ensure that the Society acts in compliance with the requirements
of both Charity law and Company law.
2. Skills
To encourage trustees to develop the necessary skills to take an informed
and sensitive view of the management and work of the Society and not
to rely simply on their professional competence or commitment and enthusiasm.
3. Knowledge
To strive to ensure that trustees understand the Society’s work
and its vision.
To strive to ensure that trustees do not make decisions on complex subjects
with insufficient information.
To strive to ensure that trustees do not vote on an issue unless they
fully understand it, and are not affected by personal interests.
To strive to ensure that trustees give sufficient time to study and
absorb the information provided or to seek out better information.
To strive to avoid an individual trustee rejecting information that
is not consonant with the data, convictions and beliefs that they may
already hold.
4. Teamwork
To strive towards a clear commitment to partnership between Council,
staff and members.
To focus, in council meetings, on the process of coming to an agreement.
To strive to reduce the influence of personality factors in decision-making.
To ensure that, when new trustees are introduced because of their known
skills, they are not prevented from using them, and that all trustees
have an equal say at meetings and are encouraged to speak.
To utilize the resources of the Council team in terms of ability, motivation,
and diversity of experience.
5. Strategic planning
To work with the Chief Executive and the staff management team in strategic
planning and policy making.
To ensure that the strategic planning which guides the Society’s
operations makes best use of its actual and potential assets in meeting
its defined aims.
To translate the mission of the Society (the “why” values)
into specific goals, so that progress made in pursuit of that mission
can be monitored.
To regularly review:
a) The Society’s aims and objectives.
b) Council’s effectiveness in meeting these.
To resist a culture of anti-change.
To recognise where change has already occurred – particularly
change in the world outside.
6. Management
To exercise due diligence in the management of the Society’s affairs
and safeguard its assets, doing so in a way that seeks to maximise its
effectiveness.
To review the performance of the Chief Executive, and to support him
or her in this pivotal role.
To work with the Chief Executive and the staff management team in implementing
policy, budgeting, decision-making, setting objective, prioritising,
planning, monitoring progress and problem solving.
To have a shared view with the staff management team of what are matters
of policy and what are matters of implementation.
To establish with the staff management team exactly where the responsibilities
of Council and staff each begin and end.
7. Procedures
To strive to optimise the quality of the decision-making procedures.
To periodically review the Council structure to ensure that it continues
to provide the best way of meeting the Society’s objectives.
To acknowledge that Council and/or the Society cannot be “owned” or
controlled by any one individual trustee.
To create an improved flow of information and discussion, including
active participation in the trustee’s egroup.
8. Electoral
To continually review the electoral procedures to ensure an organisational
and procedural structure that meets the Society’s needs.
To ensure that the Council team both renews itself and maximises the
use of its experienced members.
To consider what the satisfactions are for the trustees in performing
their trustee roles so that new potential trustees are encouraged to
come forward.
To consider factors that may enable trustees to attend meetings, eg
location, child care facilities, frequency of meetings etc.
To strive to ensure that the profile the Council team reflects the profile
of the membership, and is as diverse as possible, recognising that this
may conflict with the need to recruit trustees with specific skills.
To use its power to co-opt people, where appropriate, with a range of
special skills, abilities and interests.
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