Why care? No one else does.

After an episode when I caught my committee attempting to make changes to our constitution without following the process outlined in the constitution it left me thinking. 

There wasn't some underlying plan to make something easier or subvert a process, it was a demonstration of not understanding responsibilities or just nor caring. 

On the back of a comment someone made on this site, I've come to realise that my "committee" is in reality two with not the slightest recognition of such. Every committee member is automatically a trustee without consciously realising it. There's no due diligence done to see if a trustee is legally disqualified, and if someone doesn't stand down at the end their term, no one challenges it. There's no onboarding process for trustees to understand their responsibilities. I can't find any evidence that records are kept of who the trustees are, when the joined and when they left which I think is a legal requirement though not sure. When a third party contacted the Chair and asked who were the trustees, they were told they didn't have to give out that information. I suspect trustee names will be made public next year when revised legislation kicks in.

No, my "committee" is in reality a well meaning fundraising committee with ad hoc governance that happens to fill in an annual report for OSCR. The accounts are independently audited without issue and no one ever makes comment.

My altruistic desire is to have an informal coffee with the (new) Chair soon. I'll aim to be supportive, suggest they restructure with a smaller trustee board that meets in private and a fundraising committee that meets in public. Ideally we'd undertake a governance review and recognise where significant improvements could be made.

But it's a lot of work. We're all volunteers and I suspect few will care or support it. We're a small charity with the sole purpose of extracting money from parents to give to the school. We don't have benefactors or large donors to think of. From the outside it works and parents don't care - trying to find one to volunteer for anything is like pulling hen's teeth. From the inside it works too and the school gets what it asks for with minimal questioning.

So why should I care? Why should things be done better? I can't answer the "what's in it for me?" question. I have no ambitions to be a role holder. Am I the smug git on a high horse like a character from The Archers? I can imagine the rolling of eyes and thinly guarded dispair from some. If nothing's done and I report my concerns to OSCR, they'll no doubt do nothing as they have bigger charities to worry about - worst case is a slapped wrist which wont effect funding. Why should I set myself up for a virtual kicking?