It’s Trustees’ Week and we would like to take the opportunity say thank you to all our trustees, both past and present. Our trustees are unpaid and willing volunteers who give freely of their time, expertise, and experience in ensuring that the Charity is well governed and delivering its intended aims and goals. We simply cannot function without them.
This year has seen the departure of two of Chippenham Borough Lands Charity’s longest serving Trustees at the end of their tenure. We would like to say a special thank you to Huw Thomas and Marc Allum, both hard working, dedicated, proud and passionate Trustees who gave freely of their time and ideas.
Huw Thomas has been the Chippenham Chamber of Commerce’s nominee on our Board for eight years. Having him as a Trustee gave us an important link with the local business community which helps make sure we understand the challenges and opportunities that local businesses are facing, and how the Charity might respond. Huw played a large role in our grant giving as Chair of the Welfare Grants Committee for several years and was always one of the first to volunteer for giving a helping hand at our various events. Huw also brought his local experience and professional knowledge as a commercial property agent so when we needed to deal with such things, he was able to provide us with independent expert advice.
Marc Allum was our nominee from the Guild of Burgesses, another group that has a specific appointment to our Board of Trustees. Marc was a passionate advocate of the Charity becoming more ambitious in its aims and helping to spread the word about what we do. Marc played a large role in our grant giving as Chair of the Education & Arts Grants Committee for several years. As a TV personality, he was also able to promote the Charity whenever possible, acting as the “face of the charity” in our dealings with the media whenever his very busy schedule allowed. Marc was extended to serve for nine years to help see the Westmead project (The building of The Arc climbing centre and skatepark) through to completion.
Over the period that Huw and Marc were Trustees, we have seen many changes as the Charity moved forward in terms of its use of information technology and other means of working, learning to work from home during Covid and continually seeking more and better ways of delivering benefits to the people of the Town. The recent awards from the Chippenham Civic Society recognised some of the significant achievements helped to deliver such as the Arc climbing centre and skatepark, the development of Westmead Open Space and the 30,000 trees that we’ve planted.
The Charity is hugely grateful to Huw and Marc for everything they’ve done and helped to achieve during their time as volunteers.
We are delighted to formally welcome our three new members to the trustee board – Fiona Young, Sue Linacre and Jill Shadwell. They bring with them a wealth of financial and operational expertise. Welcome Fiona, Sue & Jill!