When London Gypsies and Travellers approached me to be a trustee around two years ago, I was 27 and working in a research role in the charity sector. I’d already worked for several different charities and done lots of different things. But LGT had always stood out for me. It felt different. You could tell there was a genuine commitment.
At first, I wasn’t sure about becoming a trustee, because it all sounded a bit official and I thought that I needed to be more experienced and established. But what really cemented it for me was when I came to an LGT meeting reviewing their youth work prior to joining as a trustee. Helena (a fellow Irish Traveller and trustee) and I said we thought a mentoring scheme would work. LGT were so open to our ideas and it made me feel I could make a tangible difference. When you’re a Traveller, you sometimes get invited to these things but end up wondering whether it’s going to have any impact at all. This wasn’t like that.
The youth strand of LGT’s work was of particular interest to me, and I thought I could provide some useful input as someone who has worked with young people, so I said yes. And LGT were brave enough to take up that piece of work – because it hadn’t been done before in our sector. Now other charities are interested in finding out how it’s going on and wondering whether they should be doing something similar. So that has definitely had an impact.
Having said that, I spent the first little while as a trustee thinking ‘I’m not being very useful here.’ I was figuring it out and not 100 per cent sure what I should be doing. But I definitely feel useful now.
I’ve worked in organisations where the trustees feel disconnected from the staff team and the work, or where it’s just a matter of going to quarterly meetings. There’s a difference between doing what your role is on paper and actually feeling that you are trying to do a little bit more and being useful for them. As a Traveller trustee in particular, you can provide that extra understanding that can help shape projects or get people to think about things in a slightly different way.
Because of the nature of challenges facing Gypsies and Travellers, you can get bogged down – and it can be very hard to imagine a better future or how you can make systemic change. I always try to think about the spheres where I can make a difference – and being a trustee at LGT is one of them.
It’s important to have Gypsy and Traveller trustees, and I like the way that LGT sees this as a broader development opportunity for our communities. It’s asking: ‘How do we bring in people in at different points in their lives?’ – not just the people who already have experience of this kind of thing.
I think that joy can always be found in the work. If you’re going to undertake a trustee role you should think about how to be an active trustee and ensure that you are connected to the staff team, as I’ve tried to be. Because we’re all interconnected, and we need to ensure that what we do is in the service of the community.
You don’t have to know everything. The thing about being on a board of trustees is there are others too, and your skills combine – so if there is a gap in your skills, that’s fine. Having the confidence to step forward is important, even if it’s a bit of an unknown.
What is a trustee?
Charity trustees are volunteers who lead a charity and decide how it is run. They are responsible for making make sure it does what it was set up to do. Trustees can also be known as directors, board members, governors or committee members
Source: https://trusteesweek.org
Trustees Week is 3rd-7th November
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