The new FSA board (listed below) has had its first formal meeting and agreed how the board should be structured and how it will work with the membership. Each director has a special responsibility for an area of business. We are calling these portfolios. A ‘portfolio holder’ will report to the board on the matters and activities that fall within their portfolio. They will also ‘oversee’ work areas. The work itself will be done by working groups that are set up by the ‘portfolio holders’. These working groups will comprise members and specialist non-members where appropriate.
We will start to recruit for working groups as required. In addition, we intend to set up FSA email addresses for directors so that members can contact them directly about issues that fall within their work areas (please remember that they are all volunteers so don’t expect an instant response). In the mean time, please use the enquiries@forestschoolassociation.org email address and clearly mark it for the attention of ‘the relevant name’.
Directors
- Jon Cree, Chairman of FSA Board of Trustees, and training coordinator at Bishops Wood, Worcestershire County Council
- Aline Hill, Vice Chair, working as a trainer in Scotland for the FS Training Company, and freelance FS practitioner
- Clair Hobson, Company Secretary, EarthCraftuk near Canterbury in Kent. Forest School trainer & delivery. Co-ordinating FSA Kent & Medway
- Mike Murphy, Treasurer,
- Louise Ambrose, Members and Local Groups portfolio holder, Norfolk Co-ordinator, and Forest School Training Company Trainer
- Chris Millett, Quality Assurance endorsed trainers and registered practitioners portfolios holder, IOL representative
- Jane Acton, Fundraising portfolio holder, working for a Social Enterprise in Cornwall, Forest School training and delivery plus other environmental work.
- Geoff Mason, Research portfolio holder, independent practitioner on the Isle of Wight, doing Forest School, Beach School and Bushcraft
- Beth Gardner, Profile and Partnership Building portfolio holder, Chief Executive, Council for Learning Outside the Classroom
- Chris Brunton, Conference portfolio holder,
- Adrian Goodhand, Marketing portfolio holder,
Sounds good to me Ni Ke. I think that we should set up a foum on the website where people setting up loacl groups can share experiences.
Lol, no worries, unless told otherwise I had intended (at the formal London one) in partnership with Catherine to give a little bit of feedback about the conference, and then go through the formalities of electing members for London. I was going to suggest that the first people voted in were there for six -12 months so that we can elect again when we are a bit bigger and more stable. Unlikely we will fill all the post straight away anyway but we can try. We will do all the voting etc officially (as I am sure many of us have been to similar things before). We will do some brief minutes and let you know and then we will await further instruction!! My main questions eill be practical ones about what we are supposed to do with any funds etc. For now we will have a litttle cash tin and a balance sheet (hand written) that we will make available to all to see at the meetings. II know it all sounds a bit jobs worth but we need to keep it nice and transparent in my opinion. Please tell me if we are taking the wrong path and we will happily readjust our tom tom.
Haha. We have a little working group thinking about the template contitution and agreement with the FSA at the moment – involving some of the early runners FSA SW, FSA Norfolk and FSA Essex. Louise or I can help with any pre-formalisation questions that you may have. Please be gentle.
Great, thanks for that. Shall I bug Louise now about the info on forming a network?