Could you help fight for a healthy and resilient River Severn and shape our charity for the coming years?
Can you help us in our mission to restore, protect and enhance the river and its catchment for people and wildlife?
Are you a leader with a passion for protecting the environment and would like to be part of a committed team working to preserve one of the most precious resources in our community?
The River Severn is one of the UK’s most iconic and vital waterways and the work to protect its health and resilience has never been more important. The Severn Rivers Trust is committed to ensuring the long-term well-being of this incredible river and its tributaries, its ecosystems, and the communities that depend on it.
As our Trust matures and grows we recognise the need to strengthen our board of trustees and there is an exciting opportunity to join a passionate group of people dedicated to the future of the river to help steer our mission and take on new and exciting challenges ahead.
Your experience, insight, and commitment would be invaluable as we shape the future of our work – from enhancing biodiversity and improving water quality to fostering climate resilience and engaging with local communities. As a trustee, you would play a key role in guiding our strategy, ensuring our governance is strong, and helping us create lasting, positive change for the Severn and its surroundings. Your input would include:
· Participating in regular meetings and decision making
· Acting as a role model and advocate for the trust
· Assessing and managing risks
· Ensuring the trust’s resources are used appropriately
Your voice could help drive projects that safeguard this vital river for generations to come and we’d love to talk more about this opportunity and hear your thoughts. You can find more details about what the role involves by clicking on the tabs below.
Please let us know if you’d be open to a conversation!
Severn Rivers Trust: The Basics
Nearly every river in the country has a Rivers Trust. Each is an independent charity dedicated to improving the state of our rivers and reconnecting people to the very lifeblood of those communities which so often grew up around a source of water. While we are all independent, we are also members of The Rivers Trust, a national umbrella body that provides support and campaigns on behalf of rivers throughout the UK and Ireland.
Severn Rivers Trust (SRT) was created in 2008 as non-profit making charitable company with limited liability. We get involved throughout the catchment, from the source of the river in the Welsh hills above Llanidloes to its estuary in the Bristol Channel. Having grown substantially in recent years from modest beginnings, by the end of the current year (2024) we will have achieved a total income of over £2m. The growth has been catalysed by a range of partnerships with organisations and communities with projects ranging from a few thousand through to half a million pounds and more.
As a charitable organisation, we cannot deliver our ambitions alone. We get results working in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders to seek and deliver collaborative solutions to the challenges in the catchment. We have working relationships with government-related bodies like the Environment Agency and Natural England, also with other environmental non-government organisations including Wildlife Trusts, local authorities and the Severn Trent water company.
We additionally achieve results via our wholly owned trading subsidiary Severn Rivers Ecology. This means we can offer ecological and land management-based services whilst managing the overall risk to our business operations in tax efficient ways.
We are currently seeking enthusiastic and skilled volunteers to join our team of SRT trustees. As a trustee, you’ll have the opportunity to shape the future of the River Severn and its surrounding environment. You’ll work alongside a dedicated group of fellow trustees and senior managers at the trust to protect and preserve this vital ecosystem. That means it can be demanding but it also has many rewards and it has never been a better time to be involved with SRT.
Being a Trustee and Your Time Commitment
The role of a trustee
SRT’s trustees oversee everything the charity does. They make sure we are fit for purpose and can rise to challenges faced by the river, its tributaries and the related communities. By working together, the trustees to steer and shape what we do – with ultimate legal responsibility for SRT’s success or failure.
The six core responsibilities of any charity trustee are:
· Ensuring your charity is carrying out its purposes for the public benefit
· Complying with your charity’s governing document and the law
· Acting in your charity’s best interests
· Managing your charity’s resources responsibly
· Acting with reasonable care and skill
· Ensuring your charity is accountable
Essentially the role is to make sure that SRT operates within the law, that we maintain the sustainability of the trust, to ensure that what we do is allowed by our charitable objects and to have overall responsibility for the available resources (financial, human and social).
Once appointed you will be both a trustee a director and member of SRT. For the sake of transparency, as a director of SRT (a company limited by guarantee) you would be liable for just £1 in the event that the trust failed.
Please note that trustee roles are voluntary and unpaid. However eligible expenses can be paid in line with our policy and at the discretion of the board.
The links below offer some great resources, guidance, and case studies if you would like to read more about what it means to be a trustee: 1. The essential trustee: what you need to know, what you need to do 2. Charity trustee: what’s involved 3. Trustees Week: becoming a Trustee 4. The Young Trustees Movement
Time Commitment
We hold quarterly board meetings (normally lasting a morning) and occasionally work through sub-committees to explore specific aspect of our operation or development. Currently, three of the board meetings are held in a hybrid format. So, you have the choice of attending those events in person at our Martley office or online. Our Annual General Meeting (around September) is always face to face and is held in Worcester.
We encourage our trustees to take interest in their own particular areas of expertise in SRT’s activity and, as guide, we would hope that means you would be committing perhaps a few hours per month to the role, or more depending on how much you want to get involved. So, your time might focus on board meetings to begin with then as your involvement develops so may the time you invest. The more you are able to commit, the more you can get out of the role.
How Your Skills and Time Can Help
The basic platform for success as a trustee is to be interested in and committed to improving the environment. At present, we do have some specific areas where we would welcome additional expertise to ensure continuity within the Severn Rivers Trust board’s operation, also means that we are currently looking for expertise in:
· the legal side of how we operate and deliver our programme of work
· land management or the field of farming and agriculture
· communications, charity affairs and fund raising and –
· with around one third of the Severn located in Wales, we are looking for someone who has key connections with Wales and with skills in the areas above or wider.
However, this list is not exhaustive and if you think you can offer us the benefit of you own areas of expertise, then we’d love to hear from you.
With less than 3% of trustees being under 30, we think it vital for us, as an environmental charity, to engage young people who can help shape the future of the trust and we are committed to diversity in all its forms. We recognise that our current board can be better representative of young people and the multi-faceted ethnicity in the catchment. So, we would especially welcome applications from you if you identify with any of these groups.
What’s In It for You
Being a trustee offers the opportunity for professional development. It can let you gain experience of strategy and leadership, and boost your CV. It will give you experience of being a non-executive director, such as setting a strategic vision, influencing and negotiation, and managing risk.
Other reasons you might want to get involved include:
Giving something back
Becoming a trustee is a fantastic way to contribute your skills to a cause you care about. You’ll be playing an integral part in the way the charity is run, ensuring it remains sustainable and financially viable. The help you provide will be invaluable.
Meeting new people
Joining a new organisation or charity is a fantastic way to meet new people from a range of different personal and professional backgrounds. There will be the Annual General Meeting to attend where we invite the trust’s staff to attend part of the meeting to showcase on-going work. You will also have the opportunity to see some of our projects on the ground that are underway or completed via trustee away days. Away days happen around three times a year and will give you the chance to get your wellies wet!
Learn new things
Getting involved as a trustee with the Severn Rivers Trust is a great way to put your professional skills to use and can also be a fantastic opportunity to learn new things. You’ll get great insight into what’s involved in the management of a growing charity and gain skills on working within a leadership role.
Improve your CV and enhance your professional development
Recent research shows that over 55s are most likely to become Trustees. With just 0.5% of all charity trustees being between the ages of 18 and 24. While there are many reasons for this, young people are increasingly being encouraged to get involved as trustees due to the fantastic opportunity it provides for professional development.
However, from learning how organisations are run to planning finances and attending meetings, whatever your age or working experience, being a trustee can be the perfect way to boost a CV and set you apart from the crowd.
The Severn Rivers Trust Trustee Recruitment Process
We aim to keep the process of trustee recruitment as informal as possible. But it needs to be consistent with the requirements of the law and that fact that you are seeking a post with significant responsibility. We therefore look to move as quickly as suits both parties and this will normally be related to our meeting cycle (our board meets every three months).
The four steps outlined below illustrate how our recruitment process works:
- We encourage you to read all the information above- which should give you enough information to know whether you want to go further. If you need more or feel you would like to go forward with an enquiry, then please complete the form on our website via our ‘Get in Touch‘ page or email us at admin@severnriverstrust.com and we will get back to you to see how we can help.
- Following an initial chat with the chief executive and chair of the board we will ask you for more details. We will need a CV which we can circulate to other trustees. (Please note there will also be legal processes will have to follow regarding you becoming a trustee and company director that will happen after Step 4.)
- We will invite you to meet our other trustees by attending one of our quarterly board meetings. We can then get a feel for each other and have a discussion around our mutual aspirations and motivations. You will also have the chance to see how we operate at a business meeting.
- If all legal requirements can be met and each party is happy to progress, the chair will propose you be elected to the board and a vote will take place to duly elect you. Once the vote is passed you will become a board member and start in the role. There will be legal forms to complete and an induction process tailored to your needs so you get as much support as you need in your role.
