Volunteer Trustees with financial, building or development experience to join board of arts charity

What will you be doing?

We have been a Charitable Incorporated Organisation since 2014 although we have been providing arts based activities for young people and adults since 1964 and are looking forward to celebrating our 60th anniversary this year. Our constitution specifies that we can have up to 12 trustees who must stand down or be re-elected every 3 years and who can serve for a maximum of 12 years. Three trustees will be standing down at our AGM in June 2024. Our trustees have a broad range of knowledge, skills and expertise and contribute actively to the governance and development of our charitable aims. We want to ensure we maintain and enhance the balance of expertise across the board. As with many charities we are facing financial and logistical challenges. We have our own building, a converted church which has a main auditorium seating 145 and a studio seating 43 as well as a small foyer and bar area.  The maintenance and upkeep of the building is a constant challenge with rising energy and material costs. We rely heavily on a small number of paid staff (one theatre manager and the equivalent of 2.6 staff working with young people) and our fantastic volunteers with a range of skills and expertise. We need to maintain, update and develop the spaces and facilities we have, improve our marketing and communication to attract more interest in hiring our spaces and build our audiences, develop an effective business plan and fundraising strategy and manage our financial resources to maximise what we can offer and achieve for our community. We are looking for trustees to join our board with an interest in the arts and in young people’s health, well-being and creative development. Specific experience, skills and expertise in finance (ideally as an accountant), and/or buildings and their maintenance and development and/or strategic development would be ideal. We have six sub-committees (Human Resources and Safeguarding, Finance, Building, Facilities and Health and Safety, Marketing and Communications, Fundraising and Community and Development) and would expect the new appointments to chair one of the sub-committees and be a member of another one. Meetings of the Board of Trustees take place four times a year with an AGM in June. Sub-committees are expected to meet at least once between each meeting of the Board. As a small organisation we expect trustees to be actively engaged and involved.  

What are we looking for?

Accountancy or Legal or Change Management or Property Management

What difference will you make?

As part of our board you will support and help to shape our work and strategic direction, as well as help us achieve our mission:

To advance the arts, particularly the medium of drama, for the benefit of the public; and 
 To help and educate young people through their leisure time activities, especially in the medium of drama and the associated arts, so to develop their physical and mental capabilities that they may grow to full maturity as individuals and members of society 


This is a vital role, helping us to ensure we can continue our support for young people’s creative and personal development. This has become even more important following the reduction in opportunities for children and young people to engage in art, drama, dance and music at school and the impact on young people’s education and mental health following the pandemic. We have substantially increased our work with schools over the last few years and this is becoming an increasingly important part of our mission. Enhancing and expanding our work with adult members of our community and providing more opportunities for people from a range of backgrounds to engage in arts based activities is also an important part of our mission.  As a trustee, you will have a real opportunity to offer your unique skill set to influence the strategic direction and progression of the charity.