Robert Tusler

1. First of all, about you: what attracted you to becoming a chair/trustee?

An urge to volunteer and do something useful with my time.   Volunteering is actually quite difficult, unless one wants to drive the mini-bus or pour tea!   Organisations are desperate for trustees with business skills, but as an isolated individual it is difficult to find trusteeships.

2. Which organisation(s) do you represent?

Action for Carers Surrey,  Surrey Heath Carers Support,  Age Concern Woking

3. What particularly attracted you to these organisations?

The first two were that I am a carer myself.   I am relatively fortunate in being reasonably healthy and prosperous, and wanted to find ways to help people less well off who were struggling with the caring role.   Age Concern was more in response to an invitation to join the Trustees.

4. Is there anything that would make you an even more effective trustee/Chair?

The biggest barrier to effectiveness of trustees is the fact that a bunch of people who meet six times a year don’t have the opportunity to keep in close touch with what is going on.   Add to this the fact that employees don’t always want interference by trustees.   I don’t have an answer to this, unless it is education of both trustees and staff.

5. What’s the biggest challenge you have faced in your role?

Taking over as Chairman after six months on the board when the previous Chairman suddenly resigned after major differences with the manager, and persuaded many of the board to resign so that we had a bare quorum.   Relations had to be rebuilt and also the board had to be reconstituted.   I am no longer Chair of that group as somebody else more suitable came along.

6. What do you consider the most satisfying aspect of your role?

Overcoming challenges and getting the team working productively.

7. Do you think there is enough general recognition of the value of the trustee/Chair role?

No.   Government keeps increasing the responsibilities of Trustees and the role becomes more and more onerous.   At the same time Government policy is to move many of its responsibilities, particularly in the field of social care, to the ‘voluntary’ sector.   This voluntary sector is primarily comprised of charities, with more and more need for Trustees.   There is little or no incentive for people to become trustees unfortunately.

8. Have you felt that the demands made on trustees/Chairs have grown over time?

Absolutely.   The role of the management committee of ten years ago is unrecognisable now.

9. What do you think is the ideal term of office that a trustee/Chair should serve?

Ideally a Chair should probably not serve for more than about four years but the problem then is of succession planning.    It takes two years to find out how things work!

10. What tip would you give to a new trustee?

Don’t believe them when they tell you it can’t be done.

11. If you weren’t a trustee, what would you do with that time?

Take my wife out, volunteer with the National Trust, listen to music.

12. What steps do you take to increase/retain your organisation’s membership?

As a trustee, not a lot.   The tendency of recent times has been to actually reduce the membership.   For instance, one of my charities has membership of the company limited to the actual Board members.   I am not in favour of this, but it does make administration much easier.

13. What question do you want to ask next week’s trustee?

How do you  handle the situation where there is a clash of cultures between the board and the chief executive?

To respond to Robert's question please go to our Forums page /forums/clash-cultures