Woman Chair-designate: Learning Centre - Volunteer

Are you the new Chair-designate for Reading Community Learning Centre? Do you have enthusiasm, skills and time to cooperatively govern and lead our charity that supports women learners, serving the needs of local refugee, asylum-seeking and migrant women. What difference will you make?

What do YOU get as a volunteer Trustee with our organisation?

• A chance to use your leadership and chairing skills, possibly in a different context
• An understanding of the importance of support for often-marginalised women
• An opportunity to volunteer alongside other committed trustees
• The personal reward of giving back to the community
• Boost to your career or CV, if needed
• Induction, training, support from our organisation and from charity-support organisations

What do we get?

• Your leadership skills coupled to your strategic vision
• Your cooperative communication skills
• Effective Board meetings leading to our charity’s further development
• Enhancement to our overall governance and to our Board
• Your participation in our collective decision-making
• Your enthusiasm

What do our beneficiaries get?

• The ability to continue and grow our support to refugee, asylum-seeking and migrant women
• A well-governed charity, sustainable for the future
• A forward-looking and agile organisation, with a well-informed Board

What are we looking for?

Here are some of what we would expect from our Chair-designate and thus eventual Chair. We know that you may also need training and support from employees, from other trustees and from external organisations, and that that will be forthcoming, as necessary, to build on any area.

• Understanding of the needs of our beneficiaries is desirable; an empathy with their needs and a passion about refugee and migrant women’s empowerment and advocating for equal rights and treatment are absolutely essential.
• Clear commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, and valuing differences to make better decisions and deliver better outcomes for our organisation, our members and our beneficiaries.
• Strategic vision; good, independent judgement; ability to think creatively, tempered by pragmatism and reality.
• Ability to cooperatively lead the team of trustees, bringing impartiality and objectivity to decision-making, with the ability to bring people together to build consensus.
• Ability and skills to effectively manage meetings.
• Skills and ability to listen, even to dissenting views.
• Willingness to speak your mind and to challenge other trustees and employees with good intent; able to make unpopular recommendations to the Board, if necessary.
• Skills to analyse proposals, examine their strategic consequences, and make concise recommendations.
• Previous experience of committee work, with an understanding of the role of the Chair in effective (charity or corporate) governance, would be highly-valued.

What will you be doing?

We stand proudly for equality and women’s rights, and are looking for a woman Chair-designate to take on the role of leading our Board, supported by our outgoing Chair for a handover period of no more than 6 months. Set up in 2007, we are a Charitable Company that helps often-marginalised women to achieve their individual potential, through helping them improve their English, building confidence, making friends, volunteering locally, gaining qualifications or securing a job. In 2025 we supported over 595 women from 41 different countries of origin, through our charitable spending of £244k.

We’re looking for a woman to volunteer to lead our Board of Trustees, to work with other trustees and our CEO to shape our future supporting and empowering women. Women from global-majority/minority-ethnic communities are especially encouraged to apply. If you can think and lead strategically, help us plan long-term, you have the primary skills needed by our Chair. Support from our employees is always available, as they will be dealing with the day-to-day running of the organisation. Experience of committee or similar work, an understanding of cooperative leadership and a strong focus to shape the forward-looking Board, are what we are looking for.

You don’t necessarily need prior experience of charity trusteeship, as all induction will be provided, plus specialist guidance as a new trustee, including access to external training. This is a high-profile appointment, with strong commitment to the future of Reading Community Learning Centre an essential quality, and having a good understanding of the value for the women we help.

Trustees make the top-level decisions for our charity our Board includes women with understanding, skills and experience of our support, and we require new trustees to have empathy with our cause. We are a charity not a business, but we apply business principles to governing our organisation. We encourage women from all backgrounds to apply, particularly those who may have previous experience of engaging and working collaboratively with our beneficiaries.

The Board meets online every six weeks, and we ask you for up to sixteen hours per month; this includes all meetings, correspondence, communication, etc. Our Chair does need to be able to visit the Centre regularly, so should have reasonable access to Reading (which is on the Elizabeth Tube Line).