Governance
All organisations need to be run and managed, including charities. Victim Support has its own system of governance, set out legally in our Memorandum and articles of association(230 KB).
Our governance systems changed in July 2008 as part of the creation of a new single Victim Support charity for the whole of England and Wales. Before that our organisation was a federation of 77 member charities, each with its own board of trustees and governance arrangements.
The creation of a single charity began on 16 June 2007, when an extraordinary general meeting of the association voted in favour of Victim Support becoming a single organisation. Member charities began to transfer their assets and liabilities to the single charity on 1 January 2008. This process was completed on 18 July 2008.
Our trustees
Our board of trustees is responsible for the overall governance and strategic direction of Victim Support. They are, in turn, supported by a number of sub-committees:
Membership
Victim Support has two kinds of members:
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Company members: these are the people who carry a vote at our annual general meeting. Members of our Assembly and Board of Trustees are our company members.
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Supporter members:
are people who volunteer for Victim Support and want to be involved in the wider activities of the charity. This is a new category of charity membership which was set up with the creation of the single charity.
Involving our volunteers
Our governance is designed to create ways for volunteers to be involved in decision-making. One way we do this is through running local forums where our volunteers can discuss key issues. Information and views from these meetings is fed into our national decision-making via our Assembly.
The Assembly was set up to represent the views of our volunteers and usually has 23 members. The chair of the Assembly is also a trustee. Only supporter members can nominate and be nominated to the Assembly. The experience and local level knowledge of the Assembly is a valuable resource for the Board of Trustees. To find out more about the Assembly, read the terms of reference(161 KB).