News from the Board: a summary of our February meeting

I’d like to update you on our Board meeting which was held on 27 February.

Prior to the Board meeting trustees attended a “Meet the staff” session with CIEH colleagues. All trustees welcomed this opportunity, it really was great to meet staff members and spend time answering their questions and getting to know how they contributed to the working of CIEH. Some have been with CIEH for more than 20 years and such commitment to the organisation is quite humbling.

Social media training

We then received social media training from Lucy Salvage, Digital Content Creator for CIEH, who went through CIEH’s approach to maximise opportunities and make the most of social media networks. This training has been delivered to all CIEH staff with committees and advisory panels coming soon. Delivering this is regarded as good practice by the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

Openness, transparency, and accountability

We spent time discussing openness, transparency, and accountability and how, as an organisation, we ensure we achieve this; it is an overarching theme which runs across all the Board’s priorities. We have made some changes to publishing minutes for over a year now, introducing a clear redaction policy, dates of Board meetings but, as a Board, we think it goes beyond this – it relates to everything we do.

Board members felt we needed to know more about what members want so we can get this right. We have no intention of being secretive in anything we do, confidentiality should only apply to those matters which, either by their very nature, legal or contractual restrictions, members would not expect to be shared. Initially, we are planning to engage with members through with our committees and advisory panels and there is a member survey planned which will ask, amongst other things, where you feel CIEH should do more.

Working with our committees and advisory groups

We received a paper from the Membership, Learning and the Profession Advisory Group (MLPAG) regarding changes to membership in relation to the experience route to Member/MCIEH grade and also admission to membership with outstanding CPD or fitness to practice issues. These changes to regulations have been publicised and are now in place.

The Board recently undertook a skills audit and the Appointments and Remuneration Committee reviewed the outcomes and made recommendations to the Board on skills that would be complementary to those of current Board members. Trustee elections are underway, and we encourage any member to put themselves forward to be a trustee. We need a wide range of skills on the Board and we are particularly interested in skills relating to finance, commercial development and property, although this should not discourage anyone from putting themselves forward.

We are really sorry to confirm that Kathryn Preece is standing down from the Board but we are so very grateful to her for putting herself forward to be a trustee and for the contribution she has made to what we have achieved so far.

Trustees have also been busy outside of the Board meetings:

• Meet the Leaders event. The President, EMT members and I attended this event and invited questions from members. I want to thank those who attended, it was very positive in terms of questions and feedback. We intend to repeat this event later in the year and encourage you all to attend.
• A meeting with the consultant who is advising on the role of the CEO moving forward and the skills and experience we should be looking for in the recruitment process. The same consultant is also progressing work as a result of the AGM motion of assessing the benefits of the CIEH operating as a charity It is hoped we will be able to report back on this before the next AGM.
• Shortlisting of candidates for positions on the Risk and Audit and Finance Committees. Interviews will be held this week with recommendations going to the Board thereafter.
• An initial meeting with the proposer and seconder of the motion in relation to disclosing interests and contracts has taken place and a meeting with the proposer and seconder of the motion relating to qualifications is due to take place this week. We thank them all for giving their time to have these conversations about progressing the motions.

In addition, Fran and I had a very productive and positive meeting with REHIS and we are making plans for more frequent meetings to establish closer working relationships for the benefit of both organisations. Thank you to Jackie, Martin and Louise from REHIS for your time and we look forward to meeting up again.

The next Board meeting will be held on Thursday 14 March. 

As always, you can get in touch with myself by emailing [email protected].