Governance committee - a view from the inside

Our Governance and Compliance Officer Joy Tottman is storming ahead with her work on the Code of Good Governance (which in Dan Brown style, she just calls the 'Code'...) .Here she blogs about a recent meeting with an NGB.

Baseball Softball UK recently contacted me to ask if I would join their governance committee as an independent member.  Their governance committee is a standing committee of the board with non-board members appointed to bring an independent perspective and expertise in certain areas.

I attended my first meeting this week and learned that the governance committee has the purpose of maintaining an over-view of the organisation's governing instruments and structure.  This includes the tasks of identifying and proposing new members of the Board, arranging their induction and support, monitoring and evaluating the diversity and safeguarding work and reviewing and evaluating policies, procedures and standards.

The members of the committee are all clearly dedicated to making the organisation run better.  It was refreshing to be involved in conversations about how to move governance forward and to dedicate time to thinking about preparing the organisation for future challenges.  The governance committee seems to be a strong way for the organisation to explore opportunities and challenges and to make recommendations to the main board of the organisation. 

This could be a model that other organisations may want to explore as a way of demonstrating commitment to improving governance and ensuring that appropriate time is dedicated to governance issues.