Trustee Roles

Chair of Trustees:- The formal role of the chair is responsible for ensuring that all trustees comply with their duties and keep the charity well governed, including fulfilling all legal obligations and charitable objectives at all times. The chair ensures trustees meetings are properly run and recorded, and is responsible for managing the chief executive of a charity. In the case of OpenEdge, with a more Holocratic organisational model, this CE role is split between other roles in the organisation, so the chair liaises with key role holders. Crucially, the chair ensures a healthy link between trustees and staff, embodying OE’s vision, values and purpose, and nurturing this within individuals and activities.
Current role holder: Gayano Shaw
Secretary:- OpenEdge’s Secretary is responsible for governance communication (giving proper notice of meetings, timely distribution of materials etc). The secretary maintains OE’s records and related materials, providing advice and resources to the board on topics such as governance issues, amendments to laws etc. The Secretary maintains accurate and sufficient documentation to enable authorised persons to determine when, how, and by whom the board's business was conducted. The Secretary ensures documentation meets any legal requirements such as annual filing deadlines. 
Current role holder: Paul Bazely
​Treasurer:- OpenEdge’s treasurer takes the lead at board level on: 
  • Ensuring the charity keeps proper accounts 
  • Reviewing the charity’s financial performance 
  • Drawing up and reviewing financial policies
  • Ensuring the charity has robust and effective financial controls in place
  • Liaising with finance staff and with the charity’s independent auditor
  • Carrying out day to day finance functions, when needed.
The treasure ensures that all trustees have all the information and understanding they need about OE’s finances. OE’s treasurer also advises on and monitors all OE financial matters.
Current role holder: Kevin Gough
What happens if we shift from a guiding metaphor that we are providing professional services, to one that we are engaged in a vocation to nurture constructive social change? What happens to process design if we think of ourselves as artists [as well as] professional specialists with technical expertise?
~ The Moral Imagination, John Paul Lederach

Organisational and Programme Roles
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Programme Outreach and Development:- This role involves working with colleagues in Sri Lanka and/or UK, and requires skilful, in-depth sensing and understanding of diverse conflict contexts and needs, creative visioning, creating connections and resources, and developing needs-based impactful, sustainable activities. This is done through​ connecting to the experience and knowledge of groups, communities and individual
  • keeping abreast of research and developments in relevant fields
  • assessing and sensing what conflict support is needed, alongside what responses are emergent, and how OE may (or may not) be a good fit
  • embodying OE’s vision, values and purpose.
Current role holders: Sarri Bater, UK and Sri Lanka, Sophie Docker, UK
Funds and Resource Building:- This role is responsible for actions needed for generating funding and resources for sustaining OE’s work. Tasks include 

  • capturing and documenting all OE pilot and development activities
  • researching and building networks of funding and resource support
  • keeping abreast of developments in donor and fundraising practice
  • research and creative visioning for non-violent, interdependent needs-based finance and resource building systems
  • embodying OE’s vision, values and purpose.
Current role holders: Sarri Bater and Sophie Docker
Accountability, Feedback and Evaluation:- This role is responsible for developing OE’s monitoring and evaluation methodologies for our diverse activities and contexts. As part of this, this role involves creating OE’s wider accountability and feedback circles. This role undertakes research and keeps abreast of developments in relevant areas. This role holder works closely with OE’s specialist facilitators and practitioners in order to undertake their responsibilities.
Current role holder: Sarri Bater
Scholarship and Practice Link:- This role involves collaborating with peace, conflict, security, and international development schools, universities, education and research institutions, to develop initiatives that bring reflexive peace practice into scholarship. This role also focuses on bringing fundamental peace, justice and change knowledge into NVC, inclusion, activism and other personal and social change/justice praxis. This role holder embodies OE’s vision, values and purpose.
Current role holder: Sarri Bater
Website and Digital Communication:- This role is responsible for maintaining and developing the OpenEdge website and online presence. With solid understanding of the work of OE and an interdependent needs-based approach, this role requires creativity and talent to convey complex ideas and information in accessible and inspiring media.
Current role holder: Sophie Docker, Sarri Bater
Specialist Facilitator and Practitioner:- OE’s specialists facilitators employ expansive experience, knowledge, skills, tools, processes, personal capacities and embodied reflexive practice to work with communities, groups, organisations, individuals, partners, donors and colleagues.
  • Facilitators may engage in long-term projects and collaborations or short-term activities. They may works as the sole facilitator or working as a project team member with their colleagues.  Work may include workshops, coaching, consulting/advising, lectures/seminars, programme review and recommendations, systems building, mediation/restorative circles, organisational evaluation and development, or simply listening and accompanying.
  • All inputs are based on an interdependent needs-based approach, integrating applied NonViolent Communication, applied concepts and theories of formal conflict transformation, peacebuilding, transitional justice and reconciliation, with embodied practices for personal and collective conscious awakening. A variety of participatory, reflexive methods, processes and techniques are drawn upon.
  • All facilitators design their activities based on the premise that personal and systemic violences are intrinsically linked. In this way, whatever the the specific presenting issue of engagement, all OE’s work embeds processes for transforming power and inequities within existing (hegemonic /patriarchal) systems (such as race, gender, class, sexual orientation, age, ability)
  •  Facilitators embody OE’s vision, values and purpose.
All facilitators work from the understanding that they are not neutral outsiders but part of established systems of power that they themselves bring to any situation. In this way, this role requires a conscious and proactive power-with, multi-partial approach, where OE facilitators come not as outside experts to give answers, but as specialist in generating and eliciting the conflict expertise of the affected people themselves.
Current role holders: UK -Sarri Bater, Sophie Docker, Ceri Buckmaster, Thurka Krishnasamy, Paul Kahawatte. 
Sri Lanka -T. Thayaparan, M.S Safeeka, Sarri Bater.
Documentation and Communication:- The purpose of this role is to formally capture actions and activities, as well as visioning, evaluations, development action plans and proposals. This role is also responsible for communicating and disseminating documents to partners, donors, supporters,  team members and trustees.
Current role holder: Sarri Bater
People and Programme Support:- This role focuses on inputting into OE’s programme when needed, as well as personal support for individuals with empathy, counsel, guidance and accompaniment. In this role, Andy regularly offers home, rest and community to Sarri, and anyone in the team, whenever retreat and support is needed. Andy particularly supports Sarri and Thaya in Sri Lanka. In this role, Gayano is an invaluable ‘wise elder’ to OE, giving time, presence, emotional and practical support whenever called upon.
​Current role holders: Andy Mason, Gayano Shaw
Admin, Logistics and Finance:- This role focuses on the infrastructure and functioning of the organisation. It requires experience of systems building and new approaches to organising (e.g. Holacracy) and responding to organisational needs as they arise, as well as knowledge of ‘traditional’ organisational development and practices. This roles is responsible for the day-to-day running and ongoing development of the infrastructure of OE, including policies, procedures and systems. All actions in this role embody OE’s vision, values and purpose.
Current role holders: Sarri Bater, Sophie Docker
OpenEdge is looking for creative and experienced people to fill the following roles: ​
  • Admin, Logistics and Finance
  • Website and Digital Communication
  • Funds and Resource Building
  • Documentation and Communication
  • Research and Development
  • Accountability, Feedback, Evaluation

Please contact [email protected] if you are interested in joining us!
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