With summer in full swing and the holiday season upon us, we want to take this opportunity to update you all on a number of matters.
The Board met at Malham Tarn on Thursday 4th July, where we were superbly looked after by Jim and his colleagues.
At the formal AGM we bade farewell to three Trustees: Tara Duncan, Kim Adams and Bill Rogers. We welcomed new Trustee Amanda Craig (who is Operations Director with Natural England), the newly elected staff representative on the Board, Sophie Wild, and our new Board Secretary Susan Appleyard. We announced the new chairs and vice-chairs of committees, notably our two vice-chairs (succeeding Angela Bailey), Jenifer White having special responsibility for our properties, and Rob Marrs for engaging with higher education, Peter Anderson chairing Audit and Risk, John Thomson continuing to chair Finance and Administration, and Tom Hutchinson chairing Education Strategy.
Before the formal BoT meeting, we had two strategic presentations. Trustees and staff have asked that we more actively bring strategic items to ‘the table’, so we did. Des spoke about the ‘Climate Emergency’ and the recently published IPBES report on global biodiversity, and the implications of both for environmentalism and our own work. Tom gave a talk on the Augar Review Report to Parliament on ‘Review of Post-18 Education and Funding’, which has important implications for how we engage with the post-18 education sector.
In the BoT meeting we discussed several matters of key importance to you all. We shall have a Staff Survey in the autumn, which is key to gauging how you all feel we are functioning as an employer as well as environmental charity. Trustees will take a particularly keen interest in this as we are mindful that we have been through a demanding transition. The Risk Register and our Risk Management Policy was discussed in detail.
Trustees present at the meeting unanimously declared their support for the FSC formally working to tackle the Climate Emergency. This is excellent news, and Mark Bolland is taking steps to ensure we set out our actions in pursuit of this.
Having endorsed the Vision 2020-25, we discussed the detail of our Five Year Strategy and Development Plan to deliver this. CEO Mark carefully took us through this, and we covered aspects including the workforce strategy, other resourcing, and associated communications so that staff and our ‘customers’ are aware of our new direction. Mark will shortly be touring all Centres to detail this work and to discuss this with you all.
Peter Anderson the chair of the newly formed Audit and Risk Management Committee, presented a detailed paper and gave a presentation on the work of his committee in relation to the appointment of new Trustees and in particular the recruitment of a new Chair, to succeed Des in March 2020. The President shall chair the Appointments Panel to make a recommendation on the new Chair, and you will shortly see an advert seeking expressions of interest.
We had detailed and lengthy papers on the future of work by the FSC in Ireland (both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) and in Scotland. Clearly, there are complex matters to consider here, not least in relation to how the EU Exit plays out.
We discussed and agreed to some property disposals (already endorsed by the F&A and the A&RM committees), and formally appointed Sam Karuhanga as our Company Secretary. In this vein, we formally signed off the Annual Report and Accounts, with the F&A the previous day having had a highly favourably report from our Auditors.
We had an excellent presentation from Andy Cawthray on the new Executive Tracker. Presented with his characteristic energy and enthusiasm, we were delighted to see the early impact of tracking bookings, which we believe will make a real difference to how we develop our business.
Finally, we agreed we would formally celebrate the FSC’s 75th Anniversary on 4th December at the Linnaean Society, London. At this we will hold a full-day conference on the theme ‘The vitality of field studies for nature’, with several staff and Trustees earmarked to give talks. The President and Des are busy working through the proofs of their book Curious About Nature: A Passion for Fieldworkto be published by Cambridge University Press, and we hope to promote the book at the event as many chapters are written by people with close associations with the FSC.
Since the BoT meeting, we have set the date for the Staff Conference on Wednesday 11th – Friday 13th December, and we look forward to seeing those of you able to attend. On a personal note, Des thanks those of you who very kindly wrote regarding the award of the CIEEM Medal. We have also been delighted to see some excellent feedback from visitors to our Centres, not least an amazing email from Russian teacher: Антонина Петрова to Alex and colleagues at Millport commenting that it provided “a perfect opportunity to discover life on the island.”
You all do fantastic work, and sometimes it is too easy to take this for granted. Well, we don’t – every one of you works darned hard to provide a great educational and environmental experience, and we are very grateful for that.
Thank you, and have a great summer,
Des Thompson, Chairman
Mark Castle, CEO