We Are Looking For Volunteer Board Members
A Board plays an important strategic role in the life of any charity, and the experience, integrity and energy of Board Members are crucial to success. We seek people of varying experience (see below) to bring their skills to Counselling Highland’s Board, playing an active role in developing and guiding our overall vision. We are fortunate in having an excellent manager and office support staff to carry out development and administration.
Counselling Highland is a member of Relationships Scotland, the national network of counselling and family mediation services and child contact centres. You can find information about Counselling Highland and our services elsewhere in this website. An overview of Relationships Scotland is at www.relationships-scotland.org.uk
We are looking for volunteers of vision and integrity who have experience, knowledge and skills in their chosen field. We are particularly, but not exclusively, looking for experience in one or more of the following areas:
- Business development
- Counselling (not necessarily as a couple counsellor)
- Digital marketing
- Finance and/or Law
- Learning Development / Training
Board Members play two roles, as Trustees and Directors of RS-CH, which have distinct as well as overlapping duties. These are very briefly summarised below: helpful information is available through OSCR at www.oscr.org.uk/managing-a-charity/trustee-duties/ and Companies House www.gov.uk/guidance/being-a-company-director. All Trustee/Directors receive a full induction, with our Chair always ready to assist thereafter.
It is worth noting that Trustee Directors serve in a strategic capacity and not hands-on: e.g. a Counselling Director will bring strategic oversight and insights, but not actually counsel for us.
Counselling Highland’s Board normally meets around 3-4 times a year, for about two hours, but the workload can increase when need arises, as Covid-19 has shown! Of course, between actual meetings, much work is done in the background and this varies according to what Members have volunteered to assist with. Meetings have normally been held in our Inverness office, but online meetings have recently become particularly important and a mix of in-house and online is likely to continue.
Trustee Duties
Trustees must act in the interests of the charity, in particular in a manner consistent with the charity’s purpose and with due. care and diligence. They must comply with the 2005 Act, providing charity details for the Scottish Charity Register, reporting to OSCR, making any changes required to their charity, responsible for financial records and reporting, fundraising and providing information to the public.
Director Duties
Directors are legally responsible for running the company and making sure information is sent to Companies House on time. This includes: the confirmation statement, the annual accounts, any change in the company’s officers or their personal details, any change in the company’s people with significant control (PSC) details.
Counselling Highland can hire other people to manage some of these things day-to-day (for example, an accountant) but Directors are still legally responsible for the company’s records, accounts and performance. Counselling Highland is a Company Limited by Guarantee: in the event of it closing with debts, any Director’s individual responsibility for that debt would be £1.
Counselling Highland seeks volunteers to join its board, particularly with experience in one or more of –
- Business development
- Counselling (not necessarily as a couple counsellor)
- Digital marketing
- Finance and/or Law
- Learning Development / Training
Business Development
As a charity, we have a duty to ensure best business practice, to be sustainable and carry out our charitable objectives as best we can, thus serving our clients well. In 2016, we underwent a major restructuring exercise together with a building upgrade, improving the sustainability of the business and the quality of our service. Now on a more secure financial footing, we continue to look at new ways to develop, fund-raise and finance such essential areas as CPD for our counsellors and staff. We seek a new Trustee-Director with direct experience of building and sustaining a successful business, to bring a fresh but experienced eye to help us in this.
Counselling
While our own specialism is couple counselling, our Board Member volunteering in this area may have very different counselling experience and training, perhaps including experience in supervision, psychotherapy, mentoring, coaching chaplaincy and / or pastoral care. We are looking for someone with experience of connecting with people at challenging times in their life.
They should have an understanding of the counselling world and therefore be in a position to assist us develop our vision whilst always working within the overall policies and protocols of our national network, Relationships Scotland. Our structure includes a Professional Services Committee, who work under the Board’s supervision to develop (a) client services from a counselling angle and (b) care and development of our counsellors, supervisors and intake volunteers.
Digital Marketing
We have a new website and the beginnings of a presence in social media, but we need someone with digital marketing experience to help us navigate and develop a strategy here, taking our message across the Highlands and linking with our partners in remote and rural areas. Our Board Member volunteer will need proven experience, skills and success here. We hope to develop our outreach services to client, both face to face but significantly in online counselling and some investment has been made in hardware for this.
Finance And/Or Law
We urgently need a new Finance Director, who will play a strategic role (not hands-on accountancy) and who should have good knowledge and experience not only of finance, but of company and charity law. We are fortunate indeed to enjoy the services of a highly skilled, long-term volunteer who provides not only our monthly and annual accounts but greatly valued advice and back-up to the Board. Without doubt, our volunteer will also be a great asset to any incoming Finance Director.
Learning Development/Training
Counselling Highland is developing an ambitious training programme, to offer CPD “workshop” style and longer training courses. These are aimed not only at developing our own workers’ skills but at other counsellors / therapists and associated processionals. Currently, our main, long-term training is offered by our national office in Edinburgh, but as we develop as a counselling hub in the Highlands, we hope our training programme can be a growing and vital part of this. Our Learning and Development / training volunteer should have successful and hands-on experience of devising and organising short courses or similar events, preferably but not necessarily in counselling or a similar field.
Contact Us
If you would like to help us foster mental health and wellbeing in the Highlands and you can contribute your time, experience and leadership one morning for a couple of hours every three or four months please email Anita at chair@counsellinghighland.org to explore this volunteer opportunity and find out whether it is right for you. Our current vacancy on Goodmoves.