Governance structure of RNIB
As a Royal Charity, RNIB is governed by Royal Charter and Bye-Laws. These set out in broad terms what we can and can't do, and how we are governed. RNIB has been a Royal Charity since 1948 when we received our Royal Charter.
RNIB's supreme decision making authority is the Board of Trustees. The Board is chaired by Kevin Carey, who took up office on 23 July 2009, and he is supported by two other Honorary Officers - Derek Child, who is the Vice-Chair, and Terry Moody, who is the Honorary Treasurer. Including the Honorary Officers, we currently have 25 Trustees, 22 of whom are blind or partially sighted. They are all volunteers. The Board is responsible for taking the major decisions which affect the organisation including appointing RNIB's Chief Executive. For a list of the current Board members, see below.
We entered into an association with Action for Blind People on 1 April 2009, following which Action's Board reports to the RNIB Board. Action also has representatives on RNIB's Board, and RNIB has representatives on Action's Board.
RNIB also has a number of committees such as the Executive Committee, the Governance Committee and the Audit Committee. There are also 'Country Committees' representing RNIB Scotland, Cymru and Northern Ireland. In addition, there are now a series of 'Programme Boards' which have been put in place to support RNIB's 2009-2014 Strategy. It was also recently agreed to establish two new bodies, a UK Members Forum, supported by Regional and Country Member Forums, and a Third Sector Forum.
The UK Members Forum will be a place for representatives of RNIB Members to come together and discuss the issues of importance to them. These will go forward to the Board of Trustees. This will give Members a direct link to RNIB's most senior governing body and will help with identifying and shaping major strategic, policy and service issues. It will meet for the first time in March 2010 and then again in July 2010 around RNIB's Annual General Meeting.
To support the UK Members Forum, we are setting up local Member Forums - nine in England, and three in the devolved countries. This will help members to influence RNIB and also to provide more local events and interaction between members. All RNIB members are being invited to the Forum Meeting nearest to them. Each Forum will choose representatives to the UK Members Forum.
The Third Sector Forum is not an RNIB "owned" body, but will come under the auspices of Vision 2020 UK. It will be a body that will enable the national organisations "of" and "for" blind and partially sighted people to come together as equal partners to talk about issues of importance to the sector, including how organisations are contributing to the development of the UK Vision Strategy. Its first meeting will be in October 2009.
Board of Trustees
This is RNIB's Board of Trustees, as of 2 October 2009.
Note: Where an individual's name is listed with an asterisk (*) immediately following, this indicates that they are blind or partially sighted.
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Carol Borowski*
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Dr Gillian Burrington OBE*
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Kevin Carey* (RNIB Chair)
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Lisa Charlton*
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Derek Child* (RNIB Vice Chair)
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James Cook JP (Chair of RNIB Scotland)
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Michael Crowther*
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Gareth Davies*
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Cindy Godfrey-McKay*
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Richard Godfrey-McKay*
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Vidar Hjardeng*
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Arif Khan CBE JP*
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Anna Lawson*
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John McNamee*(Chair of RNIB Northern Ireland)
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Brendan Magill*
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Dr Amir Ali Majid*
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Terry Moody*(Honorary Treasurer)
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John Ramm*(Chair of RNIB Cymru)
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Terry Robinson*
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Robert Silbermann
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John Spence OBE* (Chair of Action for Blind People)
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Alan Suttie
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Mike Townsend*
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Louise Wright* (Representative from Action for Blind People)
Contact us
General queries on governance can be emailed to governance@rnib.org.uk or call 020 7391 2359.
For queries about getting involved in your local Member Forum or to become a member of RNIB, contact the Membership Team by email membership@rnib.org.uk or call 0303 1234 555.
For queries in relation to the Third Sector Forum, contact Mike Brace, Chief Executive, VISION 2020 UK either by email to m.brace@vision2020uk.org.uk or by post to 80 Elms Farm Road, Hornchurch, Essex RM12 5RD.