Trustee for the Berkshire Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre
Do you want to support the running of the charity that improves the lives of people with Multiple Sclerosis?
You could be a trustee for the Berkshire Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre, a Reading-based charity that supports people with MS, their carers, friends and families.
Established in the early 1980s, the BMSTC now runs the Berkshire Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre, offering a range of therapies and treatments that help our beneficiaries manage their MS, as well as offering support for carers and family members. Our independent Charity and Company Limited by Guarantee is separate from the MS Society but obviously allied to the similar cause. Next year, BMSTC will celebrate our 40th year of operation.
Our turnover in 2021 was £374k, and as our face-to-face support has started to recover from pandemic closure, we want to continue to grow partnerships, especially with the Health Sector, and to market our services better.
The role and what we are looking for in a new trustee
Trustees are the people who make the top-level decisions for our charity. Our Board includes people with experience of MS, and skills in governing our operations. We’d expect new trustees to have empathy with our cause and our beneficiaries, but you don’t necessarily need full knowledge or experience of MS.
Similarly, you don’t necessarily need prior experience of charity trusteeship, as support and full induction will be provided, plus specialist support as a new trustee including access to external training.
What you will need is the ability to think strategically and plan long-term; you’ll also need to be able to work collectively with other Board members. We’re looking for trustees to bring new ideas, skills and abilities, particularly in marketing/communications, or income-generation, or people management, or even with knowledge of Health and Social Care systems; but if you don’t have these, we’re still interested in you!
We are a charity not a business, but we apply business principles to governing our organisation. We want to expand the diversity of our board, in all meanings of the word, and strongly welcome applications from people from less-represented groups.
The focus of a trustee role is strategic, and trustees will not be expected to get involved in the organisation’s operations on a day-to-day basis; however, contact and liaison with other trustees and employees is expected.
We ask for up to eight hours of your time per month, which includes all meetings, discussions, etc.? You will need access to digital communications, as much of our charity’s business is run that way.
What do you get as a volunteer trustee with our organisation?
- An opportunity to exercise your strategic planning skills, probably in a different environment or context
- An opportunity to influence and collectively-lead an organisation supporting people with MS
- A chance to expand and implement your understanding of our work
- A chance to augment your experience of charities
- A boost to your career and CV, if needed
- Satisfaction of helping an organisation that supports people with MS, their carers and families, thus giving something back to your community
- Induction training from us; training, support and assistance from local charity-support & advice agencies; reimbursement of reasonable expenses, if needed
What do we get?
- Your strategic skills, knowledge, understanding or experience
- Your abilities to influence plans for our charity’s future, especially as we come out of the pandemic and its malign influence on our beneficiaries
- Enhancement to our overall governance and the Board of trustees; improvement in our charity governance and operational growth
- Your participation in our collective decision-making, contributing to all areas of our charity work
- Your enthusiasm
What do our beneficiaries get?
- The ability to continue our support for people living with MS
- A forward-looking and agile organisation, with a well-informed and well-managed Board of trustees
How to apply
This appointment is being managed for us by inVOLve Community Services, a charity-support organisation, who offer a no-obligation discussion by phone or video. A detailed Role Description and Person Specification can be made available to you upon request.
You will need to be eligible to be a charity trustee, which we will explain. Trustee appointments are subject to satisfactory references.
Your CV or similar will be read by our existing trustees, and an interview offered as soon as mutually convenient.
I need to know more
Contact Mike Allen via the Quick Apply link below for more information and arrange to have a no-obligation initial informal discussion (Teams/Zoom/phone)