Women’s Environmental Network is looking for new members for its Board of Trustees. In particular, we need to appoint people with experience in finance work, fundraising, employment practice and charity law in general.

Trustee person specification
We are looking for women with the following qualities:

• Commitment to the organisation and alignment with its aims and principles
• An understanding of environmental and gender issues
• Willingness and ability to devote the necessary time and effort
• Strategic vision
• Good, independent judgement
• Ability to think creatively
• Willingness to speak their mind
• Understanding and acceptance of the legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of trusteeship
• Ability to work effectively as a member of a team
• Ability to form close working relationships based on honesty, respect and trust
• Ability to offer strong support to staff, while standing back from everyday activities.

Trustees have the ultimate responsibility for the organisation. However, the major energy of the organisation is with its workers. In WEN, as in many charities, the trustees delegate the day-to-day running of the organisation to the staff, especially the Co-ordinator, who is officially the equivalent of the Chief Executive, and whose duties include policy and financial overview. In practice, decisions are made by the WEN Management Team, which includes the Co-ordinator. The WEN staff are mindful of the vulnerability of the trustees and we accept any risks together.

Board duties
In addition to the statutory duties, each trustee should use any specific skills, knowledge or experience they have to help the board of trustees reach sound decisions. This may involve:

• Scrutinising board papers
• Leading discussions
• Identifying and focusing on key issues
• Providing guidance on new initiatives
• Other issues in which the trustee has special expertise

We would like our board to reflect the diversity of our community, and at this time we would especially welcome applications from Black and Minority Ethnic women, younger women, lesbian women and disabled women. Our office has partial disabled access.

Statutory duties of a trustee
More information can be found at charitycommission.gov.uk – this site has many downloadable publications on all aspects of running a charity and the responsibilities and liabilities of the position of charity trustee.