The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (“the College”) seeks to appoint a Membership Governance Officer to co-ordinate matters in relation to the governance of Fellowship and Membership, working with the Membership Manager to ensure that changes can be managed and implemented. The post holder will implement College decisions relating to Council elections and Fellowship and Membership issues and determine how they can be applied within the College calendar and Laws.

The College is a professional membership organisation and registered charity, which supports the medical profession to deliver the gold standard in healthcare provision. We have a network of over 14,500 members worldwide and help hospital doctors throughout their careers through leading an effective and supportive physicians’ community as well as providing our world-renowned education and training programme which helps qualified doctors pursue their careers in specialist medicine.

The Role

This is a new role in the department of Global Engagement. Please refer to the Job Description for full details.

Key responsibilities include:

• Organising the election of multiple Office Bearer roles within the College including the co-ordination of all relevant processes, correspondence and advertising to the wider Fellowship.
• Designing processes, interpreting changes to policies and the Laws, navigating changes to the College calendar in order to facilitate elections in a timely manner.
• Assisting with drafting policy papers for Council on behalf of the Honorary Secretary as required.
• Collating paperwork on Regional Advisers appointments/elections to seek Council approval and tracking appointments by Regional Advisers of their Link Fellows.
• Maintaining the ‘master’ set of the Laws of the College and Royal Charter.
• Helping to support wider team activities such as events, New Fellows Day, administration and meetings on an ad hoc basis during busy periods.

Person Specification

• Experience of supporting committees/project teams to deliver operational goals.
• Demonstrable experience of working with the governance or legal documents of an organisation, such as charters, laws, terms of reference, memoranda of understanding, articles and deeds.
• Ability to deal with highly sensitive matters and enquiries with tact.
• Experience of maintaining contact with a wide variety of stakeholders through regular communication.
• Ability to build and maintain effective working relationships.
• Strong numeric, administrative and communication skills.
• Exceptional levels of attention to detail, and an ability to respond immediately to changing demands.
• Competent computer skills including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, and member databases.
• Experience of organising significant governance related activities, such as elections and office bearer appointments.
• A general understanding of the structure, role and importance of Royal Colleges.

Remuneration Package

The salary for this role will be £ 25,962 per annum plus benefits. Additional benefits include:

• Pension: with employer contributions of 9%.
• Holidays: 23 days’ annual leave (with incremental increase over five years to 28 days) and 11 days’ public holiday/College close downs.
• Life assurance scheme.
• Long-term income protection scheme for those unable to work due to illness.
• Cycle to Work scheme.
• Discounted rates for use of the venue for personal events.

Join Our Board and Contribute Your Expertise

The Scottish Childminding Association (SCMA) is the national voice of childminding in Scotland. SCMA is a national Third Sector and membership organisation that promotes childminding as a quality childcare service. Working on behalf of its 2,500 childminder members, SCMA helps to improve the wellbeing and outcomes for Scotland’s children and aims to influence policy to ensure that it is informed by the experiences of childminding. SCMA provides a wide range of support and professional services for members including training and events as well as delivering local services. For more information visit childminding.org.

We are currently seeking a skilled individual to act as the Treasurer on our Board of Trustees The Treasurer will be responsible for overseeing financial matters on behalf of our Board and will be responsible for ensuring that the organisation has robust financial processes to ensure it meets its legal and constitutional requirements.

This role could appeal to a finance professional (accountant or auditor) who is mid-career and wishing to undertake some personal and professional development or to a later career stage professional who is perhaps adjusting their work/life balance or is recently retired, and wishing to use their experience, make a difference and give something back to the community.

This voluntary role would include three/four board meetings a year (currently a mix of in person and online), one of these being our Annual Vision Review Weekend held in March. Attendance at our AGM held online).

If you possess financial expertise and our organisation’s mission resonates with you, we invite you to apply for this important role.

Are you passionate about supporting young people – especially those who have experiences of care or need extra help to make the transition to adulthood, parenthood, employment and education?

Dean and Cauvin Young People’s Trust is one of Scotland’s oldest charities – working in Edinburgh since 1733. Today, we exist to be a place of hope for vulnerable and care experienced children, young people and families in Edinburgh and the Lothians and we do this via our interconnected services which include:

• 2 residential houses for young people aged 15-21 and young mums and babies

• Our Community and Transition team which delivers support to young people and families in the community

• Our Wellbeing Hub and outings, breaks and activities

• Room 4U our teenage fostering service.

We have been working hard in the last few years to redesign our services to best meet the recommendations of The Promise. We are now looking for new trustees to join us on the next stage of our development as we seek to deliver high-quality care and support with the voices of young people at the heart of all we do.

Join us

This is an incredible opportunity to make a difference with young people and build your skills alongside our other trustees. Our Board will always contain those with experience in key areas of work with young people including social work, education and fostering as well as finance and organisational governance. As a part of our origins, we also have representatives from:

• The Sheriff Principal of the Lothians and Borders

• The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh

• The Royal High School of Edinburgh

• The Presbytery of Edinburgh of the Church of Scotland

• The Councillors of the City of Edinburgh Council

• The Faculty of Advocates

Skills and experience

It is important that we continue to build and diversify our board to ensure we have a range of voices and experiences represented to help us reflect and understand the needs of young people in Edinburgh today.

We are recruiting for Trustees in the following areas:

• Leadership roles in children and families and child-protection focused services (i.e. social work, residential care, family support)

• Charitable / third sector – delivery and governance

• Fundraising and income generation

• Those with lived experiences of care/care-experienced

• Those from ethnically diverse and ethnic minority groups

• Young people aged 18-26

No previous board experience is necessary as full support and training will be provided.

What we do need is someone who is committed to our values and has an understanding of the current issues affecting young people, of high-quality practice approaches as well as the opportunities and challenges of the third sector.

The most important attributes of trustees joining us include:

• A willingness to ask questions

• A shared belief in our values, aims and objectives

• Energy to be an active and engaged trustee

• Desire to be a champion for young people and our organisation

Your responsibilities

Being a trustee requires a time commitment to the role. Duties/tasks include:

• Attend 4 board meetings a year (quarterly)

• Take part in our annual Development session with staff and/or trustees

There are additional opportunities to attend and contribute to our Finance sub-group and/or Care & Support sub-group. These meet 4 times per year (1-2 weeks before a Board meeting).

If this sounds like an opportunity you can bring your time, skills and passion to – we would love to hear from you.

ABOUT EAST LOTHIAN COMMUNITY RAIL PARTNERSHIP

Community Rail Partnerships (CRP) were first established in England in the 1990s as a formal mechanism to reinvigorate local and rural railways. CRP status provides a framework for community involvement in strategic planning, development and operation of a specific railway line.

Since 2014, the East Lothian Community Rail Partnership has been pulling together a wide range of local organisations with an interest in communities and sustainable transport, to fix the link between railway stations, town centres and the surrounding areas, and realise an integrated transport network accessible to all. We work with four train operators (ScotRail, LNER, TransPennine Express, and Cross Country), Transport Scotland, East Lothian Council, the Regional Transport Partnership (SEStran), local businesses and community groups towards the following aims:

• Supporting the local economy by promoting rail use and rail facilities
• Actively promoting the use of rail and other public and low carbon-emitting transport
• Supporting safety, security and access initiatives relating to railway use
• Working with ‘station adopters’ (individuals and groups) to provide a more pleasant environment within the station areas.

ABOUT THE VACANCY

Harry Barker has been chairing East Lothian CRP since its inception in 2014 and is now preparing to pass on the reins of a well-established and respected organisation. In addition the time is right to expand the Board and also appoint a vice chair. Examples of projects completed to date include:

• restored the murals at Prestonpans Station (best community project 2023)
• improved signage to stations
• provided information boards for display in stations promoting local attractions and historical information
• supported many local events in the North Berwick and Dunbar areas
• producing a line guide and leaflets to encourage tourism
• working with bus operators to improve integration between bus and rail

Projects have always been dependent on external funding which to date has not proved problematical, and, as such, the incoming Chair will have the flexibility to pursue their own agenda. The CRP is financially sound and new ways of operating are being explored by The Community Rail Network and the new Chair will be well placed to provide input to these.

East Lothian CRP has no paid staff, and projects are led by volunteers under direction from the Board, and therefore the amount of work involved can vary but can be expected to be around 10 hours per month for the Chair.

DUTIES OF THE CHAIR

Responsibilities include:

• Ensuring that the CRP is run in accordance with the constitution
• Guiding and encouraging projects that will be undertaken from time to time
• Ensuring that the Action Plan is kept up to date
• Chairing four meetings per year, including the AGM (normally held in November)
• Producing an annual report for the AGM
• Ensuring that the activities of the CRP are within the guidelines produced by the Train Operating Companies in all respects particularly including safely

BENEFITS

You will receive a ‘staff’ rail pass from ScotRail permitting free rail travel throughout Scotland when travelling on ScotRail trains.

Reasonable expenses will be paid if required to travel on other rail services and/or stay overnight.

REQUIREMENTS

The successful applicant will be expected to support public transport in general, with a keen interest in integration between modes such as buses, active travel and rail.

A willingness of Board members to attend committees and conferences is essential (expenses will be covered) and these will give valuable access to professional railway staff and management on the front line, where your views can be heard. These include:

• the local ‘Rail Forum’ involving MSPs, Councillors and Train Operating Companies - twice a year, usually virtually
• in-person or virtual annual conferences of the four local Train Operating Companies (ScotRail, Cross Country Trains, TransPennine Express, and LNER) which may be held anywhere in the UK
• An annual event in Scotland sponsored by Modern Railways magazine which is attended by many high profile railway managers and senior representation from Transport Scotland
• Virtual attendance (via Zoom) at the national Community Rail Network meetings
• In-person Community Rail Networks Awards ceremony, if the CRP is short listed for an Award – this year’s was in Swansea over three days
• Six Community Area Partnership ‘On the Move’ groups consider local transport in East Lothian – CRP representation on one or more of these groups is important for a full appreciation of issues surrounding each station. Each On the Move Group meets every two months

A knowledge of railways and their workings is desirable but not essential.

Living in East Lothian and using the county’s rail services from time to time would be advantageous.

You will be expected to liaise with the station adoption groups from time to time. They have a separate relationship with ScotRail.

You will be expected to be pro-active in instructing the website to be kept up to date via the CRP’s appointed webmaster, and in responding to public enquiries which come via the website. You will not be required to answer complaints from the travelling public but direct these to ScotRail for attention.

From time to time it may be necessary to communicate with the local Press (East Lothian Courier and occasionally Edinburgh Evening News).