When the former chair of the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust decided to step down, Tom Pratt, who only recently became trustee didn’t think he’d be the one taking her place. But with a mountain of support the role became a reality, as he discusses.
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Melissa: Can you tell me a bit about what the charity does?

Tom: Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust is, like the name suggests, involved with preserving and helping the Yorkshire Dales region. It’s focused around the people in the communities, the landscape and the wildlife. So all of our projects largely fall into one of those three areas.

We're involved in lots of things like apprentice schemes, green futures schemes and bringing in young people, helping them find work and remain in the communities. You can imagine, a lot of communities have got the challenge of finding jobs, especially with the cost-of-living crisis, so those projects are aimed to help out with that.

And we are involved with a lot of tree planting, developing that more and more into landscape and bio restoration. So not just planting trees but thinking about how that fits into the overall area that we're looking at. A lot of our corporate interactions can come from that as well. And there’s a couple of other projects around woodland wellbeing projects that we do, about getting young people out into nature on a more regular basis.

We've also been at grant-giving organisation for 25 years and we're just looking at how we deliver our grants at the moment. We want to make sure that we're best positioned to help people with the cost of living crisis.

There's other projects like one that takes migrants asylum seekers in the big cities in Yorkshire, Leeds and Bradford and gets them out into the Dales. Some of the stories from that project are just fantastic and the connections they build with our communities. People find so much in common. Rosie [who runs the project] will take people out and find that some of the people going were farmers from Somalia who have been displaced. They come to the UK and they are absolutely in their element chatting to a typical Yorkshire farmer.

I think one of the key things with YDMT, is that it keeps its projects running for a number of years. And the way that we were funded allows us to do that. We’ve got some great funders and it's a testament to the team in the organisation that they've that they can retain these relationships and keep these projects going.

Melissa: You became the chair after only quite a short period of time as trustee which isn't that usual. How did it come about?

Tom: became chair after just over a year of being involved. The previous chair, Karen, had been involved with the organisation for a considerable amount of time, and she had done a lot to bring a diverse set of people on the board. So me being involved with YDMT in the first place was a result of this effort that Karen was driving. But Karen felt that she was she was overdue to step down.

So I was helping with the working group to find a replacement and ideally, the organisation and the Board of Trustees both expressed the desire to recruit internally, but they were willing to look externally and we've got quite an experienced and established range of people on the board of trustees already. And I think it was just circumstances meant that all of the people that could have stepped already had commitments. So we looked at different ways of working.

It's something that I was keen to do, but I was I was conscious I didn't have a lot of experience being a trustee, nevermind, chairing.

So we came up with a program where I shadowed Karen for the last six months. I've also got a lot of support from the existing trustees as well. The previous chair might have done a lot of modern things themselves whereas the role I'm doing is much more supported.

Even going back to when I applied to be a trustee, there was a strong emphasis on support. And it's something which is well embedded within the culture of YDMT. So, to be honest, taking on this role, maybe didn't feel as daunting as it would have done in another organisation. I think if the support, and the relationship that we've got with the chief executive and management team wasn't as strong as it is, then it would have been something that I would have had second thoughts about.

Melissa: So that environment really helped you?

Tom: Yeah, it did really help me. You don't want to be a spanner in the works. You want to be somebody who enables the ongoing success of an organisation. So that was, that was really important to me as well.

Melissa: How did you find the transition between trustee and chair? You said you shadowed Karen for those six months, so I imagine that helped?

Tom: Yeah, it was a massive help. So that finished in December. You might need to speak to me again in another six months to see how it's going, but at the moment, it all seems smooth. Not too much has changed.

Melissa: Have there been many challenges, since you started chairing or moved into the role? Obviously, the cost-of-living crisis is something at the moment that's affecting a lot of charities.

Tom: It is affecting a lot of charities and we aren't exempt from that from an operational point of view and from the point of view of the communities and people who we support. I mentioned our grant giving earlier on. That's just one of the reasons why we've got that under review, is we want to make sure always that we are best placed to be helping the people who we want to help.

Previously we repurposed some of the grants to be COVID support grants. And that worked really well. So now from a cost-of-living point of view. There's questions which are ongoing at the moment, which is how do we how do we support those communities through the cost of living crisis? So it's something which we're looking at really closely.

That's probably the main challenge. There's lots of positive projects, but there's always more to do. And that's the constant question, the constant challenge in the trustee meetings I've been to.

Melissa: Yeah, I imagine it's similar for a lot of charities at the moment. So you've come into this role now, do you think there were any positives or advantages of you becoming chair after such a short period as a trustee?

Tom: I think I can. You take the things which you think might be a shortcoming and turn them to advantages. I don't necessarily know the way things have always been done which gives me that fresh pair of eyes and I'm able to make suggestions. I'm not as entrenched in the organisation as I could have been so that makes could make some things harder but it can be an advantage as well.

Melissa: It sounds like the shadowing was itself an advantage for you?

Tom: Yeah, it was invaluable. If it had just been dropped on me a few weeks beforehand. I don't think the outcome would have been as positive. As chair that's one of the things that I'm keen to keep going is that culture and getting as many trustees involved in as many different areas as possible. So that when I step down as chair, my ideal situation would be that there’s a handful of people who could quite easily and quite confidently to step up into that role.

Melissa: Is there anything you encountered that you're like, Oh, I wish I would have known that before I take on this role or any tips or advice that have been useful?

Tom: I think Karen has always encouraged to encourage people to ask questions and we've had a lot of training about the role of trustee. I think this could be daunting for a lot of people who are maybe still working on themselves or younger people looking to get involved as a charity trustee, but there is loads of good advice and training out there.

Most people have got something to offer charity and I think that if the roles are made clear and a bit more accessible, then uptake would be higher. But to be honest, it's been a very positive experience for me.

I guess the advice for anyone looking to become a chair or to become a trustee would be just to do it – go for it.

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