As trustees, we’re volunteers who ultimately take on the legal, strategic and oversight responsibility for the work carried out by Pseudomyxoma Survivor. We take the leadership role in the charity, donating our time to ensure the organisation is sustainable, well managed and delivers impact for the beneficiaries and our PMP community.
It’s important for us to have a regular skills audit to make sure that we have the balance of skills we need to lead the charity strategically and, if the trustee is willing to donate more of their time, to run the charity on a day to day basis (because we are only a small charity) as well as to identify any gaps we may have.
As well as skills, we consider if our trustees’ background and experiences can help us:
- bring different points of view to a discussion
- provide insight into your beneficiaries’ needs and experience
- make contacts in the community
- think of new ways of doing things
So we are looking for a balance of trustees who have experience of pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) or appendix cancer as a patient or as a caregiver and of trustees who don’t have that direct experience and make sure we don’t get sucked too far into the bubble that is the world of PMP!
Lyn
Trustee
As someone who hasn’t been personally affected by PMP (other than witnessing my friend go through it), it has been an interesting few years as a trustee. I’m able to bring my accountancy skills and previous experiences as a trustee of a smaller charity. Being unfamiliar with a lot of the details of the illness has meant that on occasions I have been able to give an outside perspective, act as a sounding board so to speak, and this has worked well, balancing out the other trustees. One thing I’m constantly learning, having gained several friends (fellow trustees) who have been directly affected by PMP, is that this charity certainly has some amazing individuals within it and above all, we have some great fun along the way.