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1. Home
2. Who We Are
3. Charity Structure
4. Board of Management

Board of Management

At CHILDREN 1ST we are governed by a board of management. The board provides strategic leadership, approves policies, plans and budgets to achieve our core objectives and monitors performance against them.

Overall the board is responsible for the governance and direction of CHILDREN 1ST and for monitoring the performance of the chief executive.

Board members are unpaid volunteers and bring a wide variety of skill and expertise to the role, which is one of responsibility and trust, and also one of legal liability. We provide a full induction and training for Trustees. It is important that people elected or co-opted to serve on CHILDREN 1ST board of management are aware of what the position involves and are adequately informed to do the job properly.

As a group the board is responsible for safeguarding the reputation and values of CHILDREN 1ST and making sure that we comply with all our governing documents, charity law and any other legislation that affects us.

The board meets seven times every year and is made up of up to 15 members. Each board member can serve for two periods of three years and after that time they have to resign. The exception is for office bearers who can stand for three periods of three years.

Board Members

Graeme Bissett, Chair

Graeme started volunteering with ChildLine Scotland with a fundraising committee in 1991. He became a trustee of CHILDREN 1ST in October 2007 and became Chair in October 2009. Graeme is a chartered accountant and currently acts as chairman or non-executive director on the boards of a number of Scottish-based companies. He is also a member of the Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Graeme is proud to play a small part in helping CHILDREN 1ST change the lives of thousands of children and young people for the better.

Nancy Robson, Vice Chair and North of Scotland Representative

Nancy is a board member of the Food Standards Agency and the former Chair of the Food Standards Agency Consumer Committee. She has extensive experience of promoting consumer involvement in food and health issues at policy and community level, such as health board performance and national standards for maternity services. Nancy supports CHILDREN 1ST campaigns and is a Development Award Assessor for the Princes Trust. Nancy has been an action group member with the Moray branch for 20 years, acting as chair for 10 years.

Stephanie Rose, Honorary Treasurer

Stephanie is currently a full time mother of 3 young children. She is a Chartered Accountant and during her professional life worked as both an internal and external auditor as well as a business manager for one of the largest equity trading and sales teams in the UK financial services industry. Stephanie was a keen swimmer, competing at an international level for several years. She is committed to helping CHILDREN 1ST achieve its aims and helping as many children as possible to have a positive childhood experience.

Rachel Edgar, Honorary Employment Specialist

Rachel runs a consultancy and training firm providing support to small businesses and voluntary organisations. Her interest in children's issues comes from her background working as a police officer, youth worker and residential worker, allowing her to see the effects of both good and bad interventions in children's lives. More recently she worked as a civil servant in the Scottish Government with responsibility for policy development in relation to adoption, looked after children and youth work.

Alasdair Docwra, Honorary Law Agent

Alasdair is a specialist in child and family law and is a Member of the Family Law Association. After fourteen years of military service he qualified in practice law and worked for a private law firm in Oban for 8 years before dealing exclusively with child and family law in 1999. He is also a trustee on the board of the Scottish Child Law Centre.

Regional Representatives

Elinor Anderson, North East Scotland

Elinor has significant experience working at board level in different sectors including health, energy and police. She has more than 20 years of management experience and runs her own niche management consultancy which delivers business development services. She brings skills in strategic development and financial performance. Elinor is committed and energetic in all her work with CHILDREN 1ST.

Patrick Ferguson, Central Scotland

Patrick is a qualified accountant and an associate member of Corporate Treasurers, and has a range of skills and experience that he brings to his work with the organisation. He has experience of financial reporting, management and information, strategic planning, risk management and corporate governance. He is passionate about all our values.

Cathy McInnes, West of Scotland

Cathy is a qualified primary school teacher and has since worked in the Department of Housing in the East end of Glasgow. She was elected as a local councillor and depute provost of East Dunbartonshire. Cathy has worked with young people for years by volunteering in guiding, teaching adult literacy to LAYP and working in children's educational theatre. She is a board member for CAB, the Volunteer Centre, an Ambassador for Girl guiding in Scotland and is the Chairperson of Contact Point in East Dunbartonshire which is an information service for people with disabilities. Cathy was a Justice of the Peace until December 2007. She is married with a daughter.

Lorna Nicholsby, Lothian and Borders

Lorna served on the children's panel for 8 years and brings all her experience of that with her to the board. She got to know CHILDREN 1ST work through the children's panel. Lorna has been a passionate supporter of the charity since it was the RSSPCC right through to the change to CHILDREN 1ST and is committed to helping the organisation deliver for children in Scotland.

Non-regional Board Members

Martin Donachy

Martin is a lecturer in Child Protection at the University of the West of Scotland. He has twenty four years previous experience in social work practice, primarily in fostering and adoption and child care and protection practice. He also has extensive experience of strategic policy development and implementation at local and national levels. Martin has previously served on the board of management of St Margaret's Children and Family Care Society adoption agency. Martin is committed to the delivery of high quality non-statutory services in meeting the needs of children and their families in Scotland.

Onyema Ibe

Onyema is a management consultant at Blake Stevenson in Edinburgh and specialises on issues relating to disadvantaged children and young people and minority groups. Her earlier roles in the public brings practical knowledge of local and central government and expertise on policies and interventions designed to improve life chances of vulnerable members of the community. She hopes to use her skills and experience to contribute and promote the work of CHILDREN 1ST and the children, young people and families which it supports.

Jeanne Mackenzie

Jeannie is Director of Conditions for Learning, an Educational Consultancy which provides pro bono services for voluntary organisations. Originally a teacher, she had extensive experience in partnership working in school and community settings before becoming a quality improvement officer in one of Scotland's leading education authorities. She has researched and published in the fields of disaffection, equalities, health promoting schools and family learning. She was a single parent adopter and is now married with a blended family of three children and four grandchildren. She is passionate about supporting children through supporting the family.

Simon Rennie

Simon is a forester who worked abroad for 9 years in the private sector  before returning to do an MBA in Edinburgh. He has since spent 17 years as a manager in the third sector in Scotland with interests in the environment and social justice. He is on the board for Greenspace Scotland and the Forestry Commission's National Committee for Scotland. He is a committed stepfather who understands the value of different family dynamics and was awarded an MBE for services to the environment in 2007.

Graham Curran

Graham has spent the last 20 years as managing director of an independent IT consultancy whose clients include many key public and private sector organisations in Scotland. His experience lies mainly in strategic ICT change programmes where he provides technical, governance and programme management services. Graham is also a committed volunteer with Samaritans, the Ocean Youth Trust and PoppyScotland. Graham hopes to use his strategic ICT and general management experience to help CHILDREN 1ST get the most from technology.

Julie Falconer

Julie is a programme manager with extensive experience of delivering national eHealth (IT in support of health) programmes across the NHS in Scotland. Her work with multi-disciplinary teams, managed clinical networks and regionally delivered services has developed a deep understanding of the ways in which IT can help to underpin and join up services. Through her voluntary work, Julie is familiar with the wide range of issues that can affect young people and the adults in their lives, gained from a lengthy period of Children's Panel membership and by provision of emotional support by text and telephone. She is married with two teenagers. Julie considers it a privilege to be able to contribute to an organisation that makes such a positive difference to the lives of vulnerable children.