How to pan for gold and treasure it! #TrusteesWeek

I’ve got a rare day out of the office today. I’m off to Airdrie to attend the Trustees’ Week Conference. It’s a great opportunity to meet up with existing and potential new trustees from across Scotland. With over 200 people in attendance, and a packed programme, I’m looking forward to celebrating the great work that trustees do. To mark Trustees’ Week, we’ve revised our governance information by introducing a new one stop shop for all things linked to trustees and boards. We’ve focussed on:

1. Roles and responsibilities
2. Recruitment and induction
3. Meetings
4. Developing Your Board
5. Jargon Buster

Being a trustee is not only an important and exciting role, it's also a fantastic way to volunteer. For an individual, as well as being a way to advocate for others, it can help personal and career development. So it really is a ‘win win’ situation for all involved. But despite this, many organisations find it hard to recruit the right people for their board. This is something I looked at in a blog last year. It’s vital for your board to have a good mix of skills and experience. Young trustees can be particularly valuable, bringing tons of enthusiasm and a unique perspective. They’re underrepresented on boards across the UK, and there’s a great new report from the Charities Aid Foundation, which gives some useful solutions to the challenges faced by young trustees. Of course, once you’ve got a great board, that’s just the first part of the hard work done. You then have to work to motivate, engage and retain good trustees. This can be done through regular training and trustee away days to encourage a culture of accountability. It can be a challenge is to get your board to work together as a team, but we’ve got plenty of hints and tips on how to do this. I hope you can celebrate Trustees Week. But if you missed today’s conference, don’t worry, there’s lots of other events going on this week. Maybe we can catch up at one of those.