Volunteer Trustees with Finance, Marketing & Digital, Charity Management or Lived Experience of Sight Loss

What will you be doing?

Essex Sight in the trading name of Essex Blind Charity. We have been operating across Essex since the 1920s and our purpose is to provide practical and emotional support and advice to enable blind and partially sighted people to enjoy a full and active life in the way they want to. Following the sale of our care home last year, we are now focussing on our community services. This includes: information, advice and guidance; assessment services; home visting; and social activities, all with the aim of helping people to improve their independence and wellbeing.  We are in the fortunate position to be partly self-funding for the foreseeable future as we look to invest the funds from the sale of the care home in the continuation and development of our community services. We also operate under a contract for Essex County Council.  We are looking to appoint several new trustees to support our succession planning process and to bring additional skills to the board. We are keen to hear from people with a range of skills and experience but we are also looking for people with some of the following specific skills, knowledge or experience (we don't expect to final all these skills in one person): 1: Finance  2: Marketing and Digital  3: Service Delivery/Charity Management  4: Lived experience

What are we looking for?

We are looking for a range of skills and experience but, in particular, would benefit from experience in the following areas: 1: Finance - to bolster our ability to scrutinise, manage, report and make effective decisions based on our financial situation, including managing our investments. This person will develop good relationships with our management accountants, auditors/independent examiner and investment advisors. 2: Marketing and Digital – to help us build our reach and amplify our impact with the visually impaired community, volunteers and local and national networks including employers and other charities. 3: Service Delivery/Charity Management – to help us ensure that the services we develop and deliver are based on a good understanding of existing needs and services and are managed in the right way. This might include experience around charity management, volunteer management and/or safeguarding. 4: Lived experience - to ensure we build lived experience of vision impairment into all our work and reflect that experience in what we do.

What difference will you make?

You will need a real passion for our work and a high degree of personal integrity, playing a key role in developing the charity as we evolve and grow. You will have a chance to help improve the independence and wellbeing of blind and partially sighted people across Essex, the opportunity to use your existing skills and knowledge to make strategic decisions, and the opportunity to develop new skills.  It is estimated that there are more than 50,000 blind and partially sighted people living in Essex and our services can make a vital difference to people's ability to live the lives they want to lead. This is an exciting time to be part of our work as we look to develop and expand our existing community services. We are looking for candidates who share our values and can help us deliver our purpose.