New CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis

I wouldn’t be gushing over someone who lied to get a job, and ignored the wishes of the people who the resource was set up for. That would sound like a selfish, person with little empathy who puts their own wants before those who desperately need help.

Omg that's awesome, I used to know her. So pleased for her!

yeah, great. Shame about all the traumatised women who the service is supposed to protect and care about, but hey ho.

Around 600 responses to that tweet and only 10% of those are positive. Edinburgh Rape Crisis has really made a statement with this appointment. Their political activism is more important than the vulnerable women they're supposed to help.

and in the statement about her the word woman is not mentioned once

I can see that's concerning but I'm not sure if it's deliberate in that way.

Her background is law.

[quote stumbledin]re Rape Crisis England new appointment rapecrisis.org.uk/news/rcew-welcomes-new-ceo/[/quote]
Omg that's awesome, I used to know her. So pleased for her!

Completely agree with @HerewardTheWoke. I’m involved in a smallish Scottish charity in a slightly related field ( works with vulnerable adults and children ).

On our board we have

Chartered accountant
Solicitor
Banker
Local government officer ( social work )
Consultant in public health
Marketing director
2 people who have worked at director level in related charities

All very experienced - I’d guess that all are over 40.

she joins us at an exciting time

Yes because it is always exciting at a rape crisis centre.

Unbelievable.

It's not normal (but not totally uncommon) for so many trustees to leave at once, it might normally be up to a third of the board up for re-election. I've not looked in detail but it also looks like they had bit of a jump in their income in 2019/20; not a good time for a new an inexperienced board (unless the old one was worse!)

she joins us at an exciting time

Gawd that is so totally tone deaf - "exciting time" in a rape crisis centre? Well, yes, men are learning that they can pretty much get away with rape (and murder) by saying the woman asked for it.

OMG,
because SHE had had

My bad.

Also wanted to add that the lovely woman they employed spent an inordinate time in the women's restroom and we had volunteer groups of children going through the facility on the regular.

Many years ago, I worked for a social services NonProfit here ( not rape shelters, but with homeless and marginalized populations) in the US. The founder and head honcho was a feminist woman and I was warned about the incoming employee who was trans.

The head person did not want to hire her because trans people had not worked out well in community service that requires some personal humility. But she had to because he had had past experience in the field and none of the other candidates at the time did.

The Long Game.

Somewhat different skill set there.

re Rape Crisis England new appointment rapecrisis.org.uk/news/rcew-welcomes-new-ceo/

I think it is really important that people dont confuse the role of Trustees / MC members with those actually paid to do professional work and (eg rape crisis helplines) trained volunteers.

Recruiting Trustees may ask for experience of a particular fields, but this is where groups go wrong that an individual trustee then thinks that an area of work is one they control.

Any new trustees should get basic training on, for example:

• employment rights
• how to read audited accounts and budgets
• and probably most important the aims and objectives of the organisation

You may be called on as a trustee to be part of investigating employment grievances. Again this shouldn't be your personal opinion but how you weigh up the rights and wrongs of a case.

Preparing for MC meetings can be very time consuming for workers / volunteers as theoretically every agenda item should have a back ground paper which needs to reach MC members in time for them to read and if not form an opinion, come up with a list of questions to ask a relevant member of staff to clarify.

I wonder if the problem with the employment process for this job was because as it is the most senior post it wouldn't be possible for a member of staff to be part of the employment panel. But they could have asked a senior member of staff from another RCC to sit in.

And assuming they had an agreed process for doing the job interviews, they must also have agreed how points would be scored.

I dont doubt that somehow personal political believes fed into this. But it now seems to be that there isn't in fact that big a pool of properly qualified women to take on senior positions in women's groups. (I posted on another thread that Rape Crisis England has just appointed a new CEO and in the statement about her the word woman is not mentioned once!)

And, something we could all do, is take the time to become the member of a the MC of a local women's group.

Spot on @HerewardTheWoke.

I'm a charity trustee in Scotland and am shocked by the make up of this board. The seem like vanity posts to me. Given what I know of my role and board, experience in key areas is vital, otherwise the board is toothless and easily manipulated if the CEO is so inclined.

Just disgraceful. It’s intentional and political. This is the top prize for the trans community. A job advertised specifically for women under the equality act is given to a trans woman.

It’s also so racist to say BME women. They are women. They are in the sex category of women.

she joins us at an exciting time

A couple of people on Twitter commented on this. It's completely tone deaf.

Business start ups, business mergers, new arts projects, new leisure facilities etc. etc can legitimately be launched in "exciting times". The appointment of a new CEO to a rape crisis definitely cannot.

Long time worker in the voluntary sector. It’s incredibly difficult to get people to be trustees. It’s a lot of responsibility & time especially when staff, buildings, services & relatively large amounts of money are involved

Trustee roles are advertised but they’re competing with thousands of other volunteer roles most of which are considerably easier.What this leads to in practice is that existing trustees recruit new trustees from within their own existing circles resulting in Board ‘group think’. I’ve worked with boards where this is the case - any new trustees from outside the circle either leave quickly or assimilate the prevailing culture. This certainly looks like a case of that.

The chair of the Edinburgh Joint Integration Board that is funding this position is on Twitter here twitter.com/ehealthangus?s=21

Six new directors and a secretary were appointed April 2021. There are only nine members of the board.

Boards make appointments in different ways, but you would normally expect them to do some sort of skills audit to identify gaps, and include some of the things people have already mentioned in recruitment. I'd want to see practical experience of charity management and expertise of the SV/DV field as well as finance, legal, HR, marketing, fundraising, public sector commissioning etc.