Reflecting on discussions by the trustee board
Our August board meeting
consisting of the British Youth Council and members of our finance committee
was an important one for us, as it rounded off summer and moves towards Autumn
as planning which will see us host our virtual Annual Council Meeting. We do
hope you can join us.
To kick us off, we signed off
our annual board report and audited accounts for 2022. These are legal
documents made publicly available through our Charity Commission account every
year.
They give our supporters,
members and the public an in-depth view of how the organisation operated this
financial year, where our income came from and how we spent it. Our annual
accounts are reviewed by our auditor Thomas Coombs, who we brought on board
earlier this year. The accounts will be taken to the Annual Council Meeting in
a couple of weeks for approval by our members and then published on the Charity
Commission website.
At the meeting, we were joined
by our Head of Fundraising Rosie Milsom, who gave us a rundown of upcoming
challenge events to get involved with.
From 19-25 September we are
running our Big Bike Challenge, where you can ride 83 miles in support of the
British Youth Council, on your own or as part of a team. Our chair Sarah
Staples will be getting stuck in and we would love to have you involved too! Register your interest for the
Big Biking Challenge.
We are pleased to share that
for the first time ever, we have agreed as a board to set a trustee’s annual
fundraising target of £10,000, encouraging us to use our competitive spirit to
support the financial stability of our charity.
We will be taking part in
challenges led by our Head of Fundraising whilst also launching new fundraisers
of our own too. If you have an idea for how you would like to fundraise for the
British Youth Council let us know, we’d love to get involved and support you.
Our Deputy Chair Osaro led a
discussion on findings from our recent skills audit. The skills audit is a tool
we use to understand where expertise lies across the board and what gaps we
currently have which need to be prioritised through Trustee recruitment and
development. As board, it is essential that we are equipped to represent different
areas of the charity, with skills across finance, risk and people.
Results from our skills audit
are being used to inform our current round of trustee recruitment, to ensure we
welcome a diverse range of experience and talent into the board. During this
session we also looked at development pathways for our trustees and members,
discussing ways we can better support young people to develop new skills and
represent the charity in areas of their choosing. This is an ongoing piece of
work, and we look forward to sharing these conversations with you in due
course.
We rounded off the board
meeting with a kick-off strategy discussion. During the pandemic, we made the
decision to extend our current strategy to offer a sense of continuity and
retain focus during a period of austerity. As we now move into post-covid
living, we are revisiting the strategy to ensure it is fit to support us
through new challenges such as the cost-of-living crisis, whilst also
supporting young people to have their voices heard on existing challenges such
as the climate crisis, mental health and poverty. We kicked off the review by
looking at our current values and aims as a charity, discussing whether they
are still fit for purpose.
We look forward to taking this
work forward and opening these conversations up to our members to ensure the
new strategy represents the needs of both the charity and young people.
If you have any questions on
what was discussed or would like to follow up, please do feel free to reach out
to us.