The Village Halls Podcast
A podcast for anyone involved in the running of Britain's 10,000 village, church and community and anyone interested in the vital community services they provide.
The Village Halls Podcast
Empowering Trustees Young and Old in Village Leadership
This episode uncovers the role of village hall trustees, delving into their responsibilities, the importance of governance, and how they can engage younger members of the community. Through dialogue with community expert Caro Hart, listeners learn about the journey of becoming a trustee, the collaborative nature of the role, and the joys and challenges associated with it.
• Exploring who can and cannot become a trustee
• Understanding the legal responsibilities of trustees
• The significance of governance in village halls
• Strategies for resolving disputes among trustees
• Encouraging younger community members to become involved
• Resources available for prospective trustees
Hello, my name is Marc Smith and welcome to the Village Halls podcast sponsored by Allied Westminster, the UK's largest specialist provider of Village Hall insurance, and the home of Village Guard. So there's a slightly different format for this podcast. I recorded this a few weeks ago, where we were diving into the world of Village Halls, committees and what it takes to step into the role of a trustee. So I approached this topic with very little prior research and this is not by accident but by design. I wanted to explore the process as someone who's curious, asking the questions many might have when considering this kind of responsibility. So, whether you are already part of a committee or simply wondering what it takes, join me as we uncover the ins and outs of becoming a trustee within a village hall. So welcome to Season 5, Episode 2 of the Village Halls podcast. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Caro Hart, an accomplished community training consultant with Dorset Community Action. Welcome to the podcast, Caro.
Marc Smith:Thank you for having me.
Caro Hart:Thank you for having me.
Marc Smith:Well, today, as we've discussed, I am going to wing it because I do a lot of research for my other podcasts, but for this podcast I thought my ignorance is going to be a benefit, because this podcast is all about trustees' responsibilities, so I have no idea where we're going to go for this. So hopefully my ignorance is bliss. So I do have a first question. I've not got too many questions going to let it take a natural course, this podcast. But obviously there's some people that can be trustees and some people that cannot. So first of all I kind of like to focus on who cannot be a trustee um, yeah, that's a really good question.
Caro Hart:Um, some people can't be trustees because they've been convicted of particular crimes, such as terrorism or financial fraud or something like that, which is fairly self-evident. There's also some restrictions on whether or not you can be a trustee in the Charities Act. So most charities you can't have trustees under 18, but the new form of charity, the Charitable Incorporated Organisation, you can have trustees over 16 years of age.
Marc Smith:What would be the difference between those two types of organisations then, if one could be 18 and one?
Caro Hart:could be 16?. We could do a whole podcast on that alone. The brief answer is that many village halls have trustees, or governing documents, as they're also known, going back to the 1900s, the 1920s, 1950s. A lot of them were rewritten in the 1970s and 80s and these these are trustees. They may be part of a lease, maybe very ancient.
Caro Hart:I've seen them sort of written with curlicues and all sorts yeah in um in 2011, when the charities act uh came into force, there was a modern form of charity uh introduced, called the charitable incorporated organization, and you'll appreciate that a charity, an incorporated charity, um has a is is a thing on its own. It's like a business um. You don't talk about um the board of marks and spencer. You talk about marks and spencer because marks and spencer is a thing over and above the people who work in it, and this is what a village hall is, if it's become a registered charity and the village hall itself can have contracts, can employ people and so on.
Caro Hart:And the big advantage apart from I I mean some of the provisions of the older trustees are sort of you've got to have somebody um on your board from the parochial gardening society, which, of course, is long gone, so that can be quite confusing um and it, it um updates all of that stuff. But but mainly, the advantage is that it gives it limits the liability of trustees. All right, if it's not an incorporated body, the trustees are personally liable all right right that's very interesting actually yeah, yes, it's a bit like.
Marc Smith:It's like similar, similar to a limited company that you're not. Yeah.
Caro Hart:It's the same difference between being self-employed and having a limited company, so that company is a body corporate.
Marc Smith:It's actually quite good that you can be 16, because there's a lot of people in villages that are young, that are 16, that are really keen to be involved nowadays. So having that reduced is it's just a logical next step, isn't it really to?
Caro Hart:to allow people to take care of the community absolutely, and and a lot of village halls do get into the mindset, I think, um, because they're the people with time, are the retired people, the older people? Um, they tend to be the people who are getting involved. Although a lot, of, a lot of people in older age are still working, as I am myself, that's been the traditional and, and it's not just village halls, um citizens advice, women's institutes, they're all um, mostly retired people with experience, people with great knowledge and people with that commitment to the village. You know, even even if they're incomers they've only been there 20 years then they have that, that, that passion for the village. But that's not to say that the young people don't.
Caro Hart:People don't um, and quite often you'll find, if you've got a village hall with um a cricket club nearby or something, that they'll work together and the young people get involved in organizing things, because that's one of the things about attracting trustees um, it rarely works to just rock up at somebody's door and say, look, will you take on the legal responsibility? Oh, thank you, slam. But if you've got somebody, oh, could you come and help organise the fete, or can you come and organise the family fun day and do the stall over there and they go. Yeah, yeah, fine, that's just a couple of Saturdays work Brilliant. Get to meet some new people Fantastic.
Caro Hart:Saturday's work brilliant. Um, get to meet some new people fantastic, um. You then say, oh, and can you just come and put the chairs out for the film night or help put, um, the the labels on the jumble sale or something, and soon that person is volunteering on a regular basis and then you have the conversation. Actually, you've got a lot of potential. You seem really interested. You're asking good questions. Would you like to come and find out what's what's involved in being a trustee?
Marc Smith:yeah, I used to do that when I was 18 19 when I flitted quite a few times in Edinburgh. I used to invite my mates do you want to come around for dinner?
Marc Smith:and then it just so happened that I had them take stuff to carry down three flights of stairs. That's the hook. Once you get them in, they can't leave. They've got no choice if they want their dinner. That's a good way to do because I suppose it does show. If you do that kind of volunteering for like one or two events, it shows it is actually not just a boring trusty responsibility. It's actually quite interesting to do. You get to meet people and you get to help your community. So overall it's actually it's a good way to show them how fun it can actually be and it's not just paperwork, yeah, and most, most village halls trustees.
Caro Hart:The trusteeing part of it is the least of it. It mustn't get lost. I I always say this to village halls it mustn't get lost. The, the what's called governance, the, the financial management, doesn't get lost in the, your enjoyment of all the family fun days and organizing the film club and the gardening club and everything, because, um, it's all got to be um part of your involvement. But the trusteeing is something a little bit different and a little bit different of a role to your day-to-day sort of volunteering. And some people have a passion for it. They love the organisation and the policies and the finance and the accounts and everything. I mean, yeah, there are mad people around and some people just love the community stuff yeah um, and for some it's a balance off.
Caro Hart:Well, I'll do some of that if I, if I'm mainly doing that, yeah, yeah.
Marc Smith:So let's say, obviously I'm over 18 so I can be a trustee. So say, I do volunteer at a, at a meeting, to become a trustee. What, what? This type of thing I need to know. Like you mentioned their legal responsibilities, so I assume I, if I become a trustee, I will have a legal responsibility for my village hall. What, what does that all entail then? Is that I it sounds quite scary, in all honesty legal responsibility well, let me start by unpicking what trustees actually do.
Caro Hart:I've been throwing around terms like governance and financial and so on. Basically, your trustees of a village hall look after the village hall for both the short term and the long term. Everybody else is kind of involved in oh, let's do a Christmas thing, let's do an Easter thing, and so on on, but they're taking the longer view. They're going. Actually, in 20 years we've got to have enough money in the bank to replace the roof, because it's only on a 50-year guarantee and it's 30 years old. And they make decisions about the finances. You know the higher amounts, enough to cover our expenses for the year.
Caro Hart:Do we have a safeguarding policy? What about the, the health and safety regulations? Are we compliant? But it's it. It sounds like quite a responsible thing. But the point to emphasise is you're not doing this on your own. You're acting as a committee, as a group of people, and ideally everybody brings different skills and knowledge and experience, maybe lived experience. Somebody has lived in the village for ages, somebody may be a retired finance professional. So everybody brings something in and a passion for the village hall and for the community, and so you work together and support each other to do this, but it's essentially looking after that organisation, holding it literally in trust as a trustee for the future. As a trustee for the future, um, and it it's really lovely, because some people serve for many, many years.
Marc Smith:Some people only serve for a short time.
Caro Hart:Yeah, all of them help that resource. I mean. Many village halls these days are 100, even 150 years old, and that's a really lovely thing to be part of um. And the way they do this is um. Trustees would need to have regular meetings. That might be the beginning or end of a general planning meeting, or it might be a separate meeting, um, and they have to have a record of those meetings, either an action point or more detailed minutes.
Caro Hart:They've got to ask for information, um so they can make proper decisions, um. So that might mean um having a um the accounts, or it might mean having a report on the plumbing um alterations that are needed or something. They need to ask for the information that they need to make that decision. And so, as a trustee, you have to read the papers, make sure you're on top of the details. Ideally it doesn't always happen, but ideally all of the trustees will understand the basics of how to read the financial information, um, so they know the position, but quite often it's the like, the treasurer, treasurer or chair, who leads on that and interprets it for people would that just be like a balance sheet?
Marc Smith:is that the type of thing, like any basic knowledge or simpler than about balance sheet.
Caro Hart:often, um, but particularly when you're thinking about putting money by for the longer term, you'd probably need a written policy around what's called reserves and designated funds, so it shows what you're keeping aside for the future. And then, if you go for a bit of funding, the funders don't say look, you've got 10 years money in the bank. What are you doing, asking us for a bit of funding?
Caro Hart:the funders don't say, look, you've got 10 years money in the bank. What are you doing? Asking for a thousand pounds Because you can say, look, we've got that, we've got this against this, and actually we need a thousand pounds because we want to re-brick the paths or plant up the sensory garden for the local blind club or something like that. If there's a particular issue, what the trustee board might do like a rebuilding or a retrofitting insulation or something they've got a big project what the trustee board might do is get a kind of working party together. So that might be some trustees, but loads of other people can get involved with expertise, which is another good way of getting people on the trustee board, because you get them involved in a piece of work and then they can stay. But, um, and that may be where you bring your expertise you know if you're a retired um land agent or something you know it could be that.
Caro Hart:that's where your expertise shines. To look at the legally bit, what the Charity Commission, which is the regulatory body of the charity sector, says is that trustees have six main duties. The first one is ensuring your charity is carrying out its purposes for the public benefit. And what that means is that because every charity, whether you're a trust or whether you're a more modern form of charity, it will always have social aims at the top of the document. We are here for the benefit of the village. Sometimes it's for the relief of poverty.
Caro Hart:There's several different things. It can be um, and every time that um, you do something, it's got to be within that that object, those charitable objects, yeah, and every charity has to be set up for the public benefit. It can't just be a charity that raises money for the folks at number six, cherry Tree Lane, which the family and friends of the founders seem to think were their personal savings pot. It can't work like that. It's got to work for the public benefit. It's got to work on its purposes for the public benefit. And I mentioned this, or I didn't mention this earlier, because the second thing is it's got to comply with the governing document. The second thing is you've got to comply with the governing document so that gives the trustees, the committee, various powers to do things. So if you've got money you're saving up, you may be able to invest it. If your governing document doesn't say you can invest it, you can't invest it, and that's really important to make sure that you're following that.
Marc Smith:Is that on a per hall basis or is that overall for all halls?
Caro Hart:terms. But, as I say, because village halls have um so many different types of governing documents, depending on when they were set up, how they were set up. Where they were all right, were they set up by the parochial council? Where they? I've got one that was a grant from the local earl of the? Um of the land and then there was a public subscription to build the village hall. This was in 1922, um, and so you can imagine that the lease deed and the and the constitution is very, very old-fashioned um and not doesn't set out the sort of things you'd expect today, like um investments, um what to do if you're closing down, which is give the money to another charity um how you do um.
Caro Hart:There's quite a lot in there about how you do meetings nowadays. There's a thing about you can have meetings online if it the snow is is knee deep um, but some of the older ones you actually aren't really supposed to be able to have meetings on zoom um, so it's not a reason um. I mean, the charity commission isn't going to bother if um a village hall um in the depths of winter, has a trustee board meeting by zoom. The node is going to come banging on the door, you know, um, but if you go too far away from from what your actual governing document says, um, that could present all kinds of problems, because you're saying to the village oh, we've set up a, a, a balloon company, and they're going, but but we've been paying our higher fees and everything on the understanding you'll do stuff for the village.
Marc Smith:Yeah.
Caro Hart:Where? Where's the difference? So, third thing, pretty obvious act in your charity's best interests. And that can be, that can be actually more tricky than it sounds because, um, sometimes it's not. It's not easy to know what the best interests of the village hall are, the community and opposing views. So, um, that that can be, um can take some discussion, some goodwill to sort out.
Caro Hart:So false one is you must manage your charity's resources responsibly. And that's not only about making good decisions, acting in your charity's best interest, but it's also about keeping good records, having good conversations about how you're going to spend your money and what is needed for the future, like I said, keeping reserves against the roof needing doing in 20 years. And similarly, act with reasonable care and skill. And that's about what I said earlier about making sure you've asked the experts. If you've got a decision to make, ask the experts, get somebody down. There's usually somebody in a village or a neighboring village who knows this stuff. Most people know a retired builder. So if you, if you, want a first opinion on, on that naggy bit in the roof that always lets water in, somebody knows somebody. And networking is your strongest tool when you're a trustee, I assure you.
Caro Hart:And then, finally, the sixth one that the Charity Commission specifies is that your charity is accountable, and that means having your accounts, your trustees and your reports publicly available.
Caro Hart:Doesn't mean having every, every minute of every meeting or anything but your annual general meeting.
Caro Hart:If that's what your governing document says you have to do, or if you don't have to have an annual general meeting, it's always a good idea to have a one public meeting a year to get people coming in and talking, um, and at that point you might say we're in reasonable shape, or, um, actually there's a, there's a challenge coming up, so we're going to raise the higher prices and be accountable to people. And it goes back to that what I said about being an organization there for the public benefit, not somebody's personal fiefdom, you know. So that's, that's what the check, the legal bit. So your legal responsibilities are to do your best if you don't know the answer, talk to some people who might do make the best decisions you can collectively and to be transparent and open, because you're a publicly accountable organization. So that's that. Can be a bit scary about how to do that, but you do it together yeah so I mean, we've talked about um asking people whether they're interested in being trustees.
Caro Hart:But, um, some people do just pop up if they've just moved to the village or whatever and they say I'm interested. So somebody is interested in being a trustee. Um, my, my first um bit of advice would be to contact the organization directly yeah um somewhere on the on the?
Caro Hart:um the website or on the facebook page. There there'll be a contact, or just walk down the road and knock on the door um and have a chat, meet some of the people um, ideally, you want to be talking to the, the chair of the trustees, right um, who may or may not be down in person um. So have a chat with the chair of trustees, maybe meet some of the other trustees um. And if you um are slightly out of area, which isn't so much with village halls but um, sometimes a, a charity, even even a community, a community space of some description, may get trustees from out of area unless it's specifically restricted in their thing.
Marc Smith:So ah, so it'd be restricted, or you can restrict where people are, like how far away from the village?
Caro Hart:some do.
Caro Hart:But then a lot of village halls these days where, um, you know, um, maybe a parish hall closed down, so it's now covering two villages or three villages or so, so you may find people from out of area or it might be people who have moved away but their mum still lives in the village, or something like that who are interested, and they might find out um on um one of the online um uh places like reach or do it web. These are websites where you can list that you're looking for trustees ah, I was not aware that those existed.
Marc Smith:I will put a link to those on the website on the podcast page. That's very interesting.
Caro Hart:Marvelous, marvelous. Well, they're both marvelous, but do it in particular. I used to do a course about getting people interested in volunteering and I used to say there is a voluntary opportunity for everybody. And I used to back that up in real time by going right what are you interested in? And I actually one day found a job, a volunteer role that was going into the archives of the Imperial War Museum and inventorying the hundreds of thousands of uniforms that are there, and I thought somewhere there is one person for whom that is the perfect role.
Marc Smith:Yeah.
Caro Hart:So if you're volunteering, whether you choose to be a trustee or not, that is the perfect role, and I would always say about volunteering, it's so fulfilling. I've volunteered almost all my life. I'm actually a volunteer trustee at the moment for an organisation. So what do I do when I finish the day job? I go and do more trusteeing um the other thing is um to um.
Caro Hart:Sometimes organizations have um like open days to try and attract volunteers. Village halls might do that. If, for example, you've um just had a refurbishment or something and you're going to do a whole lot more stuff um the with the new premises, but you need volunteers, you might have an open day. You might have a taster session of and you're going to do a whole lot more stuff with the new premises, but you need volunteers. You might have an open day. You might have a taster session of some of your hirers, things like that, so you could attend one of those and then talk to somebody.
Caro Hart:And once you've expressed interest in being a trustee, ideally what should happen is that you'll have a slightly more formal discussion with the chair about what the role is. Hopefully the chair will say similar stuff to what I've just been saying. What you should be given or what you can download from the Charity Commission is a wonderful little leaflet called the Essential Trustee central trustee and um thoroughly recommend that if you're interested in being um a trustee, because it just um tells you everything about it um and then what you might have unusually for a village hall you might have an actual interview, a formal interview, all right, um, hopefully somebody will give you a pack of information maybe the, a copy of the constitution, the last minutes, um, some of the policies, things like that, annual accounts and they may say come and sit in on part of the meeting to see how we operate.
Caro Hart:That's a good one, particularly if you're not particularly very familiar with the process yeah come and sit in on the meeting, um go, actually that those discussions were really interesting, that you know I'd be, I'd be interested in doing that. And then, um, at the end of it, um, you have to do a formal trustees declaration saying you're not, that you are over over 16 or 18 and you haven't been convicted of financial crime and so on, and you've never been banned from being a trustee by the Charity Commission. And trustees have to do that every year, ideally, so that the organisation can keep on the right side of the law.
Marc Smith:Yeah, yeah.
Caro Hart:And then finally and some people find this a sticking point funnily enough, you would then be added, assuming the Village Hall is an incorporated charity, you'd then be added to the Charity Commission site. Just your name and the details of any other organisations you're a trustee of would be added. You're a trustee of? Yeah, would be added, and so, um, but on the bright side, the charity commission would then contact you and send you information, and when they um update things, they let you know is that a sticking point?
Caro Hart:because people are worried about having their name on the web I think sometimes I mean they don't give any name and address, or yeah just yeah, but it is um. They do publicly tell people your middle name, which can be very embarrassing for some people.
Marc Smith:Oh, really all right. I'll need to go on the website and have a look at these embarrassing middle names so, um, it's a super thing and everything.
Caro Hart:everything I've said, I suppose, is sort of the top level stuff. Quite often village halls are a lot more informal, but it is important to remember that, however informal it is in practice, you still have those formal legal responsibilities.
Caro Hart:Yeah, yeah formal legal responsibilities. Yeah, yeah, um, I've never known um it really to um come down on people because village halls aren't big enough, for I'm not saying they should do anything they like, but they're not. They're not big enough for huge legal scrutiny, but, um, they are always under public scrutiny by the rest of the village for how they're managing. So it's really useful to make sure they're managing along the lines of good practice, as I've said about being accountable, being transparent, but it's a fantastic role and people have such fun with it in villages and, as I say, they make such a contribution for the longer term future of the village.
Marc Smith:Now it sounds obviously everyone listening, and myself included. It sounds like a lot of work. So my question is how many trustees are normally on a board, because obviously you'll have to have someone who can do finance, someone that can basically take the helm to make the final decisions. How many people are on? Is it a minimum or a maximum amount?
Caro Hart:there's usually a minimum of um two right.
Caro Hart:Um, some of the older um trustees have something like 15 or 20 right right because they they say things, you're going to have somebody from the WI, from the parochial council, from the gardening club, from the unicorn appreciation society, and they list all those, most of which are long gone. So actually you land up with oh, she'll do, she's on the gardening club, she plays golf, she'll do so. Ideally, she plays golf, she'll do so. It ideally a trustee board for my, for my money, needs to be between six and seven, because that's enough people to have a range of expertise. It's, yes, you might have a treasurer, if you're lucky enough to be able to find a treasurer, you might have a treasurer staff in the books and a chair. But the chair and the secretary can both be revolving roles, either meeting by meeting or year by year, so that you know the responsibility is spread out. Um, it's like rotary the president of a rotary is changed every year because it's quite an intensive job right you said about the time commitments for the actual.
Caro Hart:You've got to be really clear about what is trusteeing and what is other volunteering yeah if somebody volunteers to open up every day for whoever's hiring the hall, that's different from their trustee responsibility. That may take loads of time yeah, or if somebody's doing the maintenance or whatever.
Caro Hart:As often happens, the trustees need to meet, probably uh, once every three months all right for maybe two to three hours to get through everything, to agree, to check out that all the procedures are working, to agree how the budget is going and to cover any other jobs getting the accounts sorted, organising the AGM, getting more trustees.
Caro Hart:Getting the accounts sorted, organising the AGM, getting more trustees and what they may do is include have a fifth meeting each year. That's like an away day, a planning day, looking for the longer term future, because meetings tend to be just planning a few months in advance. Once a year they might want to go, um, have a day or an afternoon, maybe involve other people, some of the volunteers, some of the hiring groups, to come and say, okay, well, for the next three years, where do we want to go? What do we want to do? Do we want to build a garden and get money to do a? Um children's play area? What do we want to do? And kind of do that long-term planning, um. So I suppose you can do, you can do trusteeing in about 15 hours a year.
Marc Smith:Oh really that's.
Caro Hart:That's an incentive right there plus plus a bit of um, a background, a bit of homework yeah, yeah but if you want to, then get involved in something, um, like one of those um task groups I I mentioned, to plan the, the refurbishment, or or um you might get involved in, in one of the projects, or volunteering to run the film club or do whatever yeah yeah, and that that is um, but it's important to, particularly when you're trying to recruit um people perhaps who work outside the village, um, and it's really important to think about well, when are they going to be available?
Caro Hart:yeah so we need to have meetings in the evenings or weekends, um, because if you're short of trustees, this is the sort of thing you need to think about. I know one trustee group who were really pleased that they got the new vicar on their committee. All right.
Caro Hart:And because they wanted to get that relationship closer with the church, except that their meetings were always on the day that was the vicar's day off, because vicar's work sunday, it turns out, and so the vicar could never come to their meetings and they were not prepared to move their meeting because everybody had got other commitments yeah so they actually excluded that person who was perfectly willing to come and help yeah yeah on that.
Caro Hart:So it's that kind of thinking don't close, close off. And if you're trying, if you've got a bit of new build on the end of the village, as so many villages do these days and there's some young families there, there may very well be um people who would like to get involved more closely in the community. People's skills that would be useful to have on the trustee board. But having a meeting at half past three when they're just picking up the kids from from school, is no use, so you have to think about, or can we have it at 11 o'clock in the morning?
Caro Hart:blah, blah, blah, um. And being flexible, being open, helps to get trustees yeah.
Marc Smith:So I was going to say, actually what's, what's your advice? This is maybe off tangent. What's the best advice you have, I suppose, for a settling dispute? So say that one for the sunday how do you?
Marc Smith:obviously you don't want to fall out with your neighbor or people on the committee. On the committee you always want to do it in a nice, amicable way, but sometimes you get people that don't want to budge. So how do you deal with that? Like it'd be quite handy for you normal life as well, actually. But how do you deal with that inside the village hall world?
Caro Hart:well, the magic answer is actually there, um most, um, um. Governing documents have the provision for voting, so um. This is why I say have six or seven people, have an uneven number of people oh yeah, that, yeah, it makes sense um, and if you've got six or seven people, you have a slightly better chance of having a range of viewpoints and ideally you'd have the meeting.
Caro Hart:What you might do is have a trustees meeting on one particular topic if there was a bone of contention, because you don't want it um, um, hijacking a normal meeting. So if it turns out there's this really contentious issue, you might have a separate meeting and say we've got two hours and do the thing I said about getting advice from experts. Yeah, because people do tend to take positions and stand by them whether or not we've got any evidence. So, actually, do they? Do they really? I could be, I could be barking mad and um.
Caro Hart:So what you might do is say, okay, at this meeting we'll have, um, this local builder come and do us a presentation about what is and isn't possible. Then they go away and we will debate the issue. And if you've got a strong chair, what they will do is something like okay, let's structure it like a debate. Essentially, you can put your point of view. You put your point of view, you can refute it, you can refute the refution, and then we'll all vote yeah um, and if you've ever done debating at school or anything, that's actually not a bad way of doing it.
Caro Hart:Everybody gets a chance to prepare and to say their point of view. The trustees have got any expert advice they need or any reports or something, and then everybody makes the decision. But the important thing, and the bit that so often gets missed is once the committee has voted and made a decision one way or the other, everybody on that committee abides by that decision. You don't go away and go. Oh, they're a load of what a shower they are.
Caro Hart:they made the wrong decision Because you are legally bound by that decision. That is the decision of the organisation.
Marc Smith:Yeah, yeah. So that's, really interesting, yeah, yeah, because you want. Once the decision's been made, whether you agree with it or not, you go with it. Because it's for this I don't want to quote from hot fuzz, but it's for the greater good, isn't it really?
Caro Hart:or in the words of the um charity commission, um act in your charity's best interests yes, that's better from the charity commission, if I'm honest well, that's very interesting though yeah so yeah, uh.
Marc Smith:So say, if you're a trustee, how? How is there like a? You know, obviously the um prime minister and president. They have a set time. They can be the president or prime minister. Is there any set times to be? If you want to be a trustee for 10 years, is there anything saying you cannot?
Caro Hart:um, usually there's no restriction on the length of time you can be a trustee, right? Um, it's all? Um should be covered in your governing document. But if it's an older one it may not say yeah, what? What is usually restricted is the length of service of the officers. So the treasurer, chair, vice chair, sometimes secretary it's not necessary to have a whole load of officers particularly, but the chair in particular. The chair in particular. It's a good idea to have a restriction on how often somebody can become chair. Quite often it's like a three year term, right, and you can renew it once or and then you can't stand again for two years or something.
Marc Smith:All right.
Caro Hart:What is more usual would be that a three-year term and then each year a third of the trustees stand down and are renewed for another three years, so that there's this continuity because a third of the trustees always are serving and have served because it's. It's a difficult one because you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water if they've got an experienced, knowledgeable person serving as a trustee. You don't want to create an artificial thing where they have to leave.
Marc Smith:Yeah, yeah.
Caro Hart:Then again with the best one in the world. Sometimes views become entrenched and sometimes it's good having new blood, so it's kind of it's what works for you. But when it comes down to it, it's what your constitution says. And if you're moving, as a lot of village halls are now doing, from the older style of of governing document to the modern style.
Marc Smith:You have the option to decide how long your officers should serve for so I was going to ask a question about that, but that's a podcast in itself. Moving from one organization. Yeah, let's leave that, let's, let's leave that for now, yeah excellent.
Marc Smith:I think uh, I think that's all the questions I have. I can't think of anything just now, uh, but I'm sure there's more podcasts in the in the mix, because there's especially that one going from one charity organized type to a different that if that's what people are doing now, or that's what whole committees are doing now, it's probably worth doing something like that. And that's what people are doing now, or that's what whole committees are doing now, it's probably worth doing something like that. And that's the one where it goes from. So you can have a 16-year-old, is that correct? Yeah, yeah, I think that's especially trying to get the younger community involved in these things. I think, if you're allowed to do it, then yes, although I wasn't responsible at 16, but some people are.
Caro Hart:Can I just do a quick plug for, of course, um, yes, um, dorset community action, um is an organization that supports village halls. I'm the village halls or and community space advisor and one of the things we've created for um all village halls, not just the ones in dorset is um some online resources, which we have on our academy. So if you, if you google dorset community action academy, you will find loads of resources about being a trustee, about becoming a cio, and what we've got is interviews with people who've done it and the legally stuff and so on. So thoroughly recommend having a little look at that. Also, I hope, as your village halls know about acre and they may know about the acre hallmark, which is the quality standard. We've got loads of resources for if you're considering going for the quality standard online, ready to download. So thoroughly recommend it excellent.
Marc Smith:Well, I will put links onto the page for this podcast to everything that you do, because it's a anything that can benefit our listeners um that's brilliant. It's going to be extremely useful uh well yeah, send you some links.
Marc Smith:Yeah, send the links, that'll be perfect. Yeah, well, thank you very much, Caro, for joining us on the village podcast. It's been a real pleasure to speak with you and I really hope to speak to you again soon about all the questions that I will have when I edit this. I should have asked this. I should have asked that. Well, I think I will.
Caro Hart:You'd be most welcome.
Marc Smith:Excellent, thank you. Thank you. Many thanks to our headline sponsor and specialist Village Hall insurance provider, Allied Westminster, the home of Village Guard, for making this podcast possible, and to online booking system provider, Hall master, who also sponsor our podcast and can be found at hallmaster. co. uk. You've been listening to the Village Halls podcast, a unique listening community for Britain's village community and church halls and anyone interested in the vital community services they provide. We'll be back again soon with another episode. For more information, please visit thevillagehallspodcastcom, where you'll also find links to our social media pages. Thanks again for listening in and until the next time. Goodbye for now.
