management team and board

 

Polmont Community Hub SCIO

Governance Development Workshop

2 October 2025

Nicola Hanssen

In the lead-up to our Annual General Meeting (AGM) and year-end submissions to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), we reached out to Community Enterprise Scotland for assistance. With 35 years of experience, they specialize in providing tailored support to social enterprises, community groups, and charities to help them achieve greater sustainability and effectiveness. Their team of experts is dedicated to helping SMEs like ours navigate the challenges of turning our ideas into reality and ensuring our organization’s long-term success.

Following an hour-long Zoom meeting with our sustainability manager, Community Enterprise allocated eight hours of professional help, which proved to be invaluable. At that time, our management team was at its smallest, and we felt overwhelmed and concerned about our workload in meeting our targets. The outside support from a government body made a significant difference in helping us achieve all of our year-end goals, which we have now successfully completed.

Nicola Hanssen then assisted us with board governance after our AGM. On the run up to the AGM, some previous trustees stepped down, while a new group of trustees—including some who were re-elected and some elected for the first time—was formed. This new board is responsible for future-proofing our governing documents and governance systems to protect one another and our charity. 

While this process is ongoing, the workshop Nicola provided has equipped our board with the knowledge necessary to understand their defined objectives concerning our governing documents, our purpose and values, and, importantly, succession planning. Succession planning for the board will be essential in the coming years as our hub is now secured for the community and has a proper management team in place. 

It is crucial to ensure that anyone taking over the roles of the current management team is aware of their responsibilities. This way, we can safeguard the hub for the community by ensuring that community representatives, elected by the members, understand their roles and boundaries in relation to the values and purpose of our not-for-profit charity, which is run and managed for the community by the community in the third sector of society.

The management team and the new board are currently having weekly meetings as we prepare for the upcoming quarterly meeting of the members. It is essential for us to establish the structure of the governing board, which includes defining the roles of chair, secretary, and treasurer, along with outlining various other roles and responsibilities. This clarification is necessary because our organization is growing rapidly, and the workload is increasing daily. To alleviate some of the pressure on the current management team, the board needs to determine the composition of subgroups that will assist in this effort.