I am the Chair of the Trustee Board at Aberdeen University Students’ Association and a board member of the University of Aberdeen. Taking on these roles is part and parcel of being the elected Student President. This has been the case since Student Unions had to be registered as charities. Half of our Trustee Board is made up of full-time student officers and another quarter are current students. The rest of the Board are external people with experience and expertise in varying areas.
It’s definitely a steep learning curve! I
came to this role straight out of graduation and finance or HR were never areas
I had studied or knew anything about. Sabbatical officer trustees are trained
intensively in the summer when we begin our term of office. Financial management
for non-financial managers and student governor training were essential
sessions for me.
Our organization is pretty small and at the
moment we are going through a staffing restructure. This means I have more
responsibilities that Chairs of other organizations may have. I collate and
circulate papers as well as giving some reports myself. It is most definitely
challenging but I’m learning a lot and I’m confident that this is excellent
preparation for my future career trajectory.
My advice to other young trustees would be
to be inquisitive. I have learnt the most when I have taken an interest in a
specific area and done some research on it. I’ve learnt I really enjoy strategy
and monitoring risk from this experience. To those organizations that are
looking to diversify their board with younger members – do it! We might not be
experts in our fields quite yet but we are innovative, keen to learn and really
good at asking questions.
Twitter: @AUSAPres
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