Role: Honorary Secretary
Location: 60, Great Queen St, WC2B 5AZ (mostly remote commitment)
Term:12 month initial term subject to review and extension
Commitment:2-3 days per month
Purpose of the role
The purpose of the role of Lifelites’ Honorary Secretary will be to create and maintain registers to enable the Trustees to review and update governance, statutory, and regulatory policies and reports, and to file them with external agencies as required. In addition, the role will support Lifelites’ Board of Trustees and Committee meetings, including the preparation of agendas, papers and minute taking.
About you
You are an experienced administrator or company secretary with a highly organised attitude, excellent attention to detail and strong IT skills. You will be passionate about Lifelites’ mission and keen to develop good governance within the charity.
Status
The Honorary Secretary will be a volunteer and not a Trustee. They will have no responsibility for deciding the content of policies and reports but may advise the Trustees on the basis of their knowledge and expertise.
Key responsibilities
- To create registers of all the charity’s governance, statutory, and regulatory policies, procedures, reports, and other documents as and when required.
- To create and oversee a rolling schedule of periodic reviews for each document.
- To inform the Chair, Board of Trustees and Senior Management Team of any changes in governance, legal, statutory, and regulatory and compliance requirements.
- To prepare draft agendas and papers for Board meetings with support from the Chair and CEO.
- To attend Board and Committee meetings, to take minutes and actions and provide relevant advice when required.
- To circulate agendas, papers and minutes of Board and Committee meetings.
- To file statutory and regulatory reports when approved by the Trustees.
Person Specification
- Strong track record and knowledge of charity “good governance”, and statutory and regulatory standards and requirements.
- Willingness and availability to attend a minimum of 4 half day in person Board Meetings and 12 mostly online Committee meetings (2 hours each) per year.
- Flexible and practical approach to work and willingness to travel to meetings (expenses reimbursed).
- Experience of interacting with virtual meeting platforms and other digital communication channels.
- Experience of drafting documents and minute taking.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Ability to be flexible and work independently.
- Exceptional administrative skills, highly organised and good attention to detail.
- Able to anticipate issues and bring them to the attention of others.
- Skilled use of MS Office and cloud applications.
- Strong written English and experience of drafting documents and taking minutes.
- Commitment to Nolan’s seven principles of public life selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.
- Commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.
Application Process
To be considered for this role, please email the following to Rob Lightfoot, Chief Executive – rlightfoot@lifelites.org
- Your CV
- A statement of no more than one side of A4 setting out why your motivation for the role and how you meet the criteria set out in the person specification
Should you require any further information to support your application or and access requirements to enable you to apply, please contact Rob Lightfoot - rlightfoot@lifelites.org
We will be reviewing applications as they are submitted and invite candidates to interview ad hoc.