Blog

A guest post by Patti Whaley, former Chair of ActionAid UK on how the charity implemented feminist leadership principles. In 2016 ActionAid UK began developing its new five-year strategy. Our ...

Webinars are a great opportunity to meet other Chairs and pick up some new ideas, without you having to travel or take hours out of your day. At Association of ...

Shining the spotlight on our lovely trainers, Ali and Janine, from The Foundation for Social Improvement, we hear what it’s like behind the scenes as they share their experiences of ...

Your charity's constitution – a new guide Do you know your charity’s objects? What about its legal form? Do you know the minimum number of trustees who need to attend ...

Responding to In Plain Sight - actions for Chairs and trustees Guest post by Dr Carole Easton OBE looking at the implications of the In Plain Sight report for Chairs ...

Finding your successor This is a guest blog post by Julie Williams, Chair of Halsway Manor Society. Halsway Manor Society, National Centre for the Folk Arts is in deepest darkest ...

The Chair’s role in building a positive working culture How would you describe the working culture at your organisation? Does it enable people to contribute and thrive? Is it the ...

Tips from Chairs: Getting strategy right in your small charity In our second Beacon Programme module – Strengthening your Organisation – we have been talking about finance, risk and strategy. ...

Lessons from life as a new Chair Company Three drama performance. Guest post from Mars Lord I am a trustee on three boards. I’m a trustee of Park Theatre, the ...

Who is sitting round your board table? Guest post by Reach Volunteering CEO Janet Thorne about addressing diversity in trustee recruitment. Do your trustees have the range of skills and ...

Working with your trustees one-to-one Do you have terrific trustees or troublesome trustees? Would you describe them as active or engaged? Or are they absent, bored or disruptive? Critically, what ...

What Chairs can learn from the Quaker Business Method Michael Preston for © Quakers in Britain Guest blog by Shivaji Shiva As a charity lawyer and trustee based in Birmingham, ...

What does the Civil Society Futures report mean for Chairs? Have you read the Civil Society Futures report which launched in November 2018? It shares findings from an independent inquiry ...

Why every board should have a Vice Chair Our Vice Chair, John Williams shares his view about the role. Vice Chair is not a required role but it is one ...

Reporting and avoiding serious incidents It's all too easy to be complacent about serious incidents - 'that'll never happen to us'. But even in well-run charities, things can go wrong. ...

Chairing through change: reflections from the William Morris Society AoC and Beacon Programme advisory group member Martin Stott shares his experience of chairing a smaller charity through a period of ...

Tips for effective chairing To mark Association of Chairs' fifth birthday in October, we asked Chairs to share one piece of advice they were given as a new Chair, which ...

What keeps Chairs of smaller charities awake at night? Being a successful Chair is not straightforward. It inevitably brings challenges, dilemmas and difficulties both in terms of running an effective ...

What makes a good charity Chair? Much is written for and about the role of charity trustees. Yet before the Association of Chairs launched five years ago, very little was ...