This blog was written by our Chair of the Board of Trustees, Kate Moreton, to mark Trustees Week 2025. We are so grateful to our Trustee Board for all their hard work and commitment. You can find out more about our Trustees here.
This Trustees’ Week coincides with our team shortlisting applications we’ve received for two open trustee positions we’ve recruited for, which has got me thinking about the joys and challenges of being a trustee, how recruitment for trustees can start years before we need them, and how we’re making sure that the Board is always prepared for a trustee’s term coming to an end. Read more to learn more about what I’ve been mulling over, if you dare!
Joys of being a Trustee
I can’t overstate how much I love being a trustee. The golden thread that runs through all my reasons for enjoying being a trustee is people. Having been a trustee since the very beginning (including informally before we registered Let’s Talk About Loss as a charity), I had the privilege of building the Board which meant lots of conversations with interested and interesting people. Our current Board is a mix of originals who joined me in 2021 at the beginning and folk who have joined at a few other recruitment points. Bringing in new people helps keep the Board fresh and bubbling with different ideas and perspectives, whilst having a constitution that allows trustees to repeat their three year term once means that there is the continuity and mentorship available from longer serving trustees.
We meet four times a year for our Board meetings and one of those is a day together which is invaluable for team-building and getting into weighty topics and decision-making (also a chance for me to both win a game of crazy golf and lose disastrously at darts… win some, lose some). Not to say that our online meetings are trivial – some of our best work is done when we gather for a focused 2 hours on Zoom, either for a deep dive or to run through pacey agenda items. For example, we went through a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) exercise online in May this year which directly fed into our soon-to-be-released new three year strategy.
As well as Board meetings, I also line manage the charity’s Director, Beth. This is a fortnightly call where we go through the charity’s current priorities and opportunities, and I focus on coaching Beth through problem-solving if needed. Wherever I look at Let’s Talk About Loss, I see team work and positive working relationships and I definitely don’t take this for granted! A trustee board is all about the charity having strong governance – which is certainly what we have at Let’s Talk About Loss, thanks to the commitment from all trustees to make decisions, inform strategy, ask important questions and design processes that keep the charity running smoothly. So, here’s to Elisha, Jon, Latoya and Amy for making the Board a joy to chair.
Pathway to trusteeship
I know that I have so many peers who should feel confident to take on a trustee position due to their range of experiences and the transferable skills they undoubtedly have, yet 2025 data from the Charity Commission (the UK Government department which oversees everything to do with charities) shows that 55% of trustees are of retirement age (over 65), whilst people aged 44 and under make up only 8% of trustees, and just 1% overall are aged 30 or under. When it comes to the socioeconomic background of trustees, just under one-third of trustees come from a working class background. There is untapped potential in the millennial and Gen Z demographic which I’d love to see unlocked – but with that, it’s imperative that recruiting Boards are prepared for joiners with no former trustee experience. At Let’s Talk About Loss, we’ve never had someone on the Board with previous trustee experience – rather, we’ve looked for people who have shown the qualities of a trustee and worked together to develop the role, assigned a budget for training, and sought wisdom from others in the sector through mentoring and one off conversations.
Now, we’re looking to current volunteers in Let’s Talk About Loss as potential future trustees – to that end, we’ll be focusing in the coming three years of developing a pathway to trusteeship. The volunteers that deliver the charity’s activities are perfectly suited to one day help govern it – they know what works, they’ll have ideas on how to improve, and they already believe in the mission. Over 35s aren’t able to be in a Meet Up due to our age restrictions, yet so many want to continue to be plugged into the charity and so ongoing volunteering is a way this can happen. Equally, we’d welcome current Meet Up members who are 18-35 to consider joining the Board to bring the perspective of someone in the thick of grief as a young adult. As part of our planning for this pathway we’ll be thinking about training, giving exposure to Board meetings, and opportunities to meet trustees to hear about their experiences. Might you be someone I meet on this pathway one day?
Moving on
Sadly, all good things must come to an end and each trustee’s term lasts for three years, with the option of repeating for another three if it’s right for the individual and the charity. This means that we need to be aware of when people are leaving and making sure we have plans in place for any needed replacements on the Board. This succession planning is something we have managed to do informally until now, but formalising it as part of our new strategy will help us keep calm when we know someone is nearing the end of their shift and ensure we are running the pathway to trusteeship and ensuring sustainable governance of the charity. With that in mind, a special thanks should be made to former trustees Debbie, Bekki, Sanisha and Rohit who contributed plenty to the Board as well as making space for new recruits.
If you are interested in becoming a trustee my biggest advice would be to start looking for positions – you could do this by finding charities you already know and like or via causes you are passionate about. Then send them an email to ask if they have any roles available now or soon – what’s the worst that could happen? If you don’t feel quite ready to sit on a board now, there may be committees you could join, similar types of volunteering roles, or a course or mentoring you could have to upskill you or instill any needed confidence. Good luck and thanks for reading!
Kate Moreton
If you’d like to find out about ways you can volunteer for Let’s Talk About Loss, please visit this page.