Trustees’ Week 2018

Hear from our CEO, Julie Whelan, as she highlights the invaluable role our Board of Trustees play in supporting our life-changing music:

This Trustees’ Week, we’re shining the spotlight on our incredible trustees, who work tirelessly to guide and shape Nordoff Robbins into the wonderful charity that it is today. Our trustees come from across the music industry, as well as from the healthcare, finance, arts, education, sport and charity sectors, volunteering their time with us to share their insight and expertise.

David Munns, Chair of our Board of Trustees, has supported Nordoff Robbins for over thirty years, and Neil Warnock, Chair of our Fundraising Committee, for over forty years, throughout their careers in the music industry. Together with Michael Miller, Jane Bryant, Perry Crosthwaite, Howard Jones, Chair of our Finance Committee, Ivan Rudd, Chair of our Music Services Committee, Karen Ann Josephides and Caroline Buckley.

Their support and guidance is immense and varied, drawing on the expertise and skills of this talented group. Just recently we undertook a comprehensive safeguarding review with Karen Ann Josephides overseeing the full process using the knowledge and experience she brings from her role at Arsenal Football Club. I was struck a couple of weeks ago at the detailed discussions we had at the Finance Committee about how we should stretch our ambitions to increase and expand services and the insights the leadership team gained from this. At a recent event in aid of us, The Music Industry Trusts Awards, I was incredibly supported with a number of trustees hosting tables, bringing new potential supporters to the event and, like me, spending their time going round to long term partners thanking them. Finally, the CEO and Chair role is often considered a critical factor in the success of a board, and I can honestly say that the relationship I have with David Munns is transparent, supportive and the right level of challenge.

We are a small and yet incredibly productive organisation, and the support our Board of Trustees provides lets us maximise our impact as a charity – in 2017 we reached more people in more places than ever before, delivering 29,725 music therapy sessions to 7,916 beneficiaries. We also opened the doors to our newly refurbished world-leading music therapy centre in London, and to our brand-new purpose-built music therapy centre in Newcastle, thanks to the generous support of the Graham Wylie Foundation.

Our successful merger with sister organisation Nordoff Robbins Scotland, along with the development of our new 2019 – 2024 strategic plan, will enable us to reach even more vulnerable and isolated people across the UK – when and where they need us most. The merger also means we will be welcoming new trustees to the unified board in 2019, when we will be joined by Heather Gardner and Graham Bell from Nordoff Robbins Scotland, as well as Sophie Guest who will lead on risk management.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful trustees from all the team at Nordoff Robbins, for their passion and dedication to our beneficiaries and our life-changing music therapy.