St Mary Redcliffe Church is a Gothic masterpiece, but also a highly diverse parish in one of the more deprived areas of Bristol and is an active place of worship and is home to a growing, inclusive congregation. This parish church has stood for over 800 years.
St Mary Redcliffe Church Lands Charity (Charity no 21109) appointed Moon Executive Search as their first ever search partner. The charity required new directors (of a Trustee style) for the organisation which provides extensive funding for the maintenance of St Mary Redcliffe Church and support of its charitable works in the parish it serves. The Trustees needed to be able to deliver the charitable objectives and to look after the resources and safeguard the values of the charity.
The Challenge
The Lands Charity required specific experience to further their goals. Sandy searched for individuals that could bring expertise in the following areas:
Historic building conservation
Investment/real estate management
Community engagement living or working within the parish of St Mary Redcliffe
The chosen Directors would be responsible to operate and manage the charity and the corporate trustee in keeping with the charity’s charitable objectives and their respective legal financial obligations and within the parameters of good governance. Understanding management of the charity’s income and assets would be crucial for the incoming Directors as well as meeting with the rest of the board to help with decision making.
The roles require the candidates to with integrity, honesty and the ability to understand and work within the legal constraints of a limited company and a charity. Crucially, the successful candidates would have a passion for preserving and enhancing this unique building and feel a duty to help to promote it going forward as a beacon of religious cultural and charitable activity within the Parish.
Our Approach
We adopted a thorough search and screening process to enable us to fully assess each candidate’s experience, background, and soft and hard skills against the search criteria. Due to the cultural and historic significance of the church, there was an exceptional response
Our team obtained expressions of interests and CV’s from prospective candidates, focusing on those that can demonstrate the ability to work within the legal constraints of a limited company and a charity. The client also required that the candidates have an alignment to Nolan’s seven principles of public life:
Selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership.
The successful candidates would also be able to evidence their enthusiasm, energy and be able to devote sufficient time to commit to the role. The shortlist was drawn up based on the candidates experience of operating on a Board or major committee in a charitable, public sector or commercial organisation.
The Solution
Moon Executive Search were pleased to place seven new appointments, including two internal applications. each with the specific criteria set by the client. Three of our presented candidates were chosen to be Directors at CLC: Orville Lynch, Jessica Jones and Susan Hayward. Orville is the Behaviour Manager at St. Mary Redcliffe & Temple School and has excellent connections with the local area. Jessica is a Development Surveyor and Heritage Specialist with Network Rail and Susan is a Curator at the National Trust.
John Dunn commented:
‘The directors to pass on their sincere thanks to you Sandy, Vanessa and all concerned at Moon Executive Search for the sterling job that you have done. The result has greatly surpassed our expectations.’
Sandy Hinks, Head of Charity Practice, said:
‘This has been a fascinating and rewarding search. Our network brought an incredibly strong shortlist to the client; all wanted to contribute towards a historic, Bristolian landmark. The three chosen directors will no doubt bring their specialist knowledge and networks to ensure this institution remains part of the city.’
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