As Trustees’ Week 2020 draws to a close, Martin Alcock (a local resident, business owner, one of our trustees (horray!) and ex-volunteer Learning Mentor for our Love to Learn education team), writes about his experience of being a trustee with Katherine Low Settlement.
“I first got involved with Katherine Low Settlement for selfish reasons. It was 2016 and the UK political climate had descended into nastiness following the Brexit vote (as it turned out, it still had a long way further to descend!). I decided to volunteer as a Learning Mentor with KLS’s Love to Learn education programme because I thought it would cheer me up. It seemed more constructive than being furious on Twitter. Thankfully, supporting young people from refugee backgrounds with their school studies was the perfect antidote, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with a number of students over the years that followed.
I got to know the KLS team and I was so impressed by their commitment to helping families in my community. So when an opportunity arose to apply for a trustee position, and help at a more strategic level, I jumped at the chance. I became a trustee in January 2019.
So far, it has been interesting, varied, inspiring and humbling. As trustees, we are ultimately responsible for ensuring KLS carries out its mission to support the community properly and appropriately. In reality, that means we wear any number of hats: enthusiastic supporter, critical friend, sounding board, fact-finder. I’m in awe of the valuable work carried out at KLS, particularly the way they have managed to keep the show on the road during the current Covid nightmare. I feel genuinely proud to be contributing to it, albeit as one small spoke in the KLS wheel.
I can’t recommend volunteering highly enough. Getting started is easy. Just find a charity supporting something you care about, and offer to help. I’m sure you will find it as rewarding as I do.”
Did you know?
To find out more about KLS Board of Trustees visit here.
Read more about being a trustee here.
KLS will be recruiting in the new year
KLS’ trustees are currently undertaking a skills audit and hope, through this process, to identity the skills and expertise they need to add to the Board. They will be recruiting for new trustees in the new year. If you are interested in joining our Board of Trustees then please contact us on 020 7223 2845 and [email protected].
Find a Trustee position
Thanks to Trustees’ Week for putting this list together to help people find a suitable trustee vacancy:
Trustee training
Organisations that train trustees include DSC, NCVO and SCVO, Civil Society Media, Charity Leaders Trustee Academy, Getting on board and IoD.
There is a special free training programme, Building Resilience, for small London charities, run by Small Charities Coalition, with City of London Corporation.