Student Trustee
Job Title Student Trustee
Zone Central
Reports to Students’ Union President as Chair of the Board of Trustees
Responsible for Not applicable
Grade and salary Reasonable expenses
Introduction:
The Surrey Students’ Union is the sole representative body for University of Surrey students. Our charitable mission is to enrich students’ lives, the community in which they live and the University of Surrey by creating the changes they want and to enable them to achieve their ambitions. We represent approximately 16,000 students on every level of their University experience, led by a team of elected student representatives and a dynamic staff team. We take pride in the outcomes we achieve for our members, and are currently ranked 5th best Students’ Union in the country in the National Student Survey. We strive to be an employer of choice, where staff enjoy working in a varied and flexible environment. Culturally we foster inclusivity, openness and a friendly workplace where all employees are valued and understand the contribution they make to the organisation’s strategic objectives.
The Role:
The Board of Trustees is the highest decision-making body within the Union and is ultimately responsible for making decisions that impact the overall direction and success of the Students’ Union. The role of Student Trustee is pivotal on the Board of Trustees, providing the perspective of the student body and ensuring that grass-roots student opinion is feeding decision making at the highest level within the Union. Student Trustees actively participate in governance and decision-making processes that contribute to the overall student experience at Surrey. Being a Student Trustee is a great role for any member of the Surrey student community as it not only offers great training and experience of being a trustee of a multi-million pound turnover charity, but also the ability to affect great change to the Union and its services.
Key Responsibilities:
- To contribute to the Board of Trustees role in giving firm strategic direction to the Union, agreeing and monitoring overall strategy, setting targets and evaluating performance against agreed targets.
- To attend and actively contribute to Board meetings, including sub-committee meetings as necessary.
- Making sure the Union operates within and complies with its governing documents
- To ensure the Union uses its resources effectively, within its agreed aims and remit.
- To ensure the financial stability of the Union
- To safeguard the reputation and values of the Union
- Trustees are expected to use any specific skills, knowledge of experience they have to help the board reach sound decisions, this will involve:
- Scrutinising Board papers
- Leading and contributing to discussions
- Focussing on key strategic issues
- Providing guidance on new initiatives
- Providing guidance in which the Trustee has specific expertise
- To portray a positive image, internally and externally in line with the values of the organisation
A key part of our mission as a Union is to ensure students feel a sense of belonging, and we want to foster a sense of community in our whole team. We aim to recruit talented people from all walks of life and backgrounds who recognise the importance of embedding equality, diversity and inclusion, and share our values. We are working to improve the diversity of our workforce to ensure that our team is as relevant and representative of our student membership as possible. As part of this goal, we are actively encouraging applications from underrepresented groups.
Application Timetable:
Applications open: Monday 9 September
Applications close: Friday 27 September 17:00
Interviews: Approximately 1 week later