Our Deputy Chair of Trustees, Angela Ward, represented The Pickering Cancer Drop-In Centre at The Goldsmith’s Centre in London on the morning of Tuesday 3 June at an event for trustees, organised by the law firm Stone King LLP. Held as part of Volunteers’ Week, the event welcomed David Holdsworth, CEO of the Charity Commission as guest speaker.
Attendees were welcomed by Tim Rutherford, Partner at Stone King, who reminded the room that volunteers are not paid because they are ‘worthless’ but, rather, because they are ‘priceless’!
Harriet Broughton, another Partner at Stone King, then talked about ‘when a volunteer is actually a worker or employee’.
David Holdsworth, who has been in his post at the Charity Commission for around a year, said that charity trustees – of which there are 800,000 in England and Wales – hold ‘extraordinary responsibility’ and that often, as they are ‘behind the scenes’, their contribution can go ‘unrecognised’.
He shared figures including the fact that the average age of a trustee is 65 and there are now 43% of female trustees (an increase from 36% in 2007).
He added that volunteers are the ‘bedrock’ of our charity sector and what they do for our nation is ‘astounding’.
The event concluded with a Q&A session with David Holdsworth, compered by Rosamund McCarthy Etherington, Head of the Charity Sector at Stone King, which covered topics including how to attract younger trustees.
