MK Canals
MK CANALS TRUSTEE YOUTH & COMMUNITY - Volunteer
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This is a rare opportunity to use and develop your strengths and interests in a new charity.
Your skills in Youth & Community Engagement, and your strategic insight and judgement, will help us to create momentum and deliver a more sustainable future for the canals in Milton Keynes.
What difference will you make?
Your contribution as a Trustee will directly help both you and us to
- Create a lasting legacy: secure lasting environmental and public amenity improvements for generations to come, shaping decisions that last decades, not months.
- Make real community impact: develop Milton Keynes’ canals a resource for supporting wellbeing, inclusion, social connection, and environmental sustainability.
- Blend heritage and purpose: use the story and heritage of our canals to protect them for the future and sustain community benefit in times of growing climate change.
- Have genuine influence: play an active role in setting strategy, priorities and future direction for our organisation as an emerging local, regional, and national partner.
- Learn and grow: develop our individual and shared experiences of governance, heritage, sustainability, community development and charity leadership.
You'll be involved in the successful delivery of youth and community engagement activities for the organisation, through a growing portfolio of projects that will range from landscaping and habitat creation, festivals and walking maps, floating classroom day boats, to making access improvements for canal and canalside users, water management programmes, and more.
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What are we looking for?
We are committed to building a more diverse board and will particularly welcome interest from younger people, women, people of colour and LGBTQ+ people.
We value ambition, vision, collaboration, professionalism, respect, pragmatism and impact, and are keen to hear from people who share our values and want to make a positive contribution.
You don’t need prior trustee experience or even a knowledge of canals! What matters most is
- A genuine interest in community, heritage, climate change, and social impact
- Strategic thinking and sound judgement
- Willingness to ask questions, offer perspective and contribute constructively
- Ability to work collaboratively as part of a small, committed team
We also need you to bring to the role
- Experience of, or strong interest in, youth work, community development, partnership working or stakeholder engagement.
- Proven ability to engage and communicate effectively with a diverse range of people, including young people.
- Understanding of safeguarding principles and inclusive practice (or a willingness to learn).
Hybrid
What will you be doing?
MK Canals is a place-based, partnership-driven organisation which delivers projects that benefit local communities and advocates for the contribution our canals can make to environmental sustainability. We have made a strong start in our first two years and have ambitious plans for the future.
We currently have five Trustees (Chair, Treasurer, Charity Secretary, Volunteering Lead, Risk & Project Management Lead). To realise our plans we need additional trustees to grow with us and make a difference, in particular appealing to a younger and wider demographic than traditionally canals have attracted. We’re seeking a Trustee to take lead responsibility for Youth & Community Engagement.
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This trustee provides strategic oversight and practical guidance on youth and community engagement, ensuring the charity meaningfully involves both its beneficiaries and the wider community in its activities and development. Key duties are to
- Lead the development and periodic review of a youth and community engagement strategy aligned with the charity’s objectives and capacity.
- Develop a range of inclusive and accessible opportunities for young people and community members to participate in activities organised by the charity and its partners.
- Build and support a small team of volunteers who deliver youth and community engagement initiatives, events, and outreach.
- Create opportunities to ensure that the voices of young people, community stakeholders and partners inform decision-making by the charity.
- Overseeing the building by trustees and volunteers of relationships with local groups, schools, partners, and community organisations.
- Monitor the impact of youth and community engagement, providing reports to the board.
The current main focus for youth & community engagement is a project to acquire two day boats to run in partnership as floating classrooms providing hands-on STEAM and business learning.
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