Consultation on Community Base's core values and policy on membership, October and November 2009

At Community Base's 2008 annual general meeting a member organisation, Brighton and Hove Community and Voluntary Sector Forum, argued that members of the charity Community Base have no duty to act or vote in the interest of Community Base at its general meetings and are perfectly entitled to use their membership of the charity Community Base to pursue their own interest.

This view contradicted the view of Community Base's board of trustees that it is fundamental to charities, as opposed to commercial companies or cooperatives, that people and organisations join them to pursue the charitable purposes of the charity rather than their own interest. The Community Base board of trustees took the view that if this matter was not resolved Community Base's governance and management would suffer.

Following the 2008 AGM the Community Base board of trustees sought the advice of the Charity Commission on the matter. The Charity Commission confirmed that members of a charity do have a duty to act in the interest of the charity they are a member of and suggested that if our rules allowed our members to act in their own interest at our general meetings our charitable status could be called into question.

In the light of the Charity Commission's advice, a meeting of the board of trustees in September 2009 approved a draft statement of core values based on our policies and practices. The board asked the Community Base director to table this draft statement of core values at the 2009 annual general meeting for consideration by the membership with a view to making agreement with a statement of core values, and agreement to act as a member in the interest of Community Base, a condition of membership of Community Base. The Charity Commission confirmed that the board would be acting within its powers if it did this.

Community Base's annual general meeting in October 2009 discussed the draft statement of core values and the proposal to make membership of Community Base conditional on agreeing to Community Base's core values and to act as a member in the interest of Community Base. The board also sought the views of Community Base's members on this proposal by email in October and November 2009.

A meeting of Community Base's board of trustees in November 2009 considered the results of this consultation and agreed a statement of Community Base's core values and a policy on membership that would make agreement with this statement of core values, and agreement to act as a member in the interest of Community Base, conditions of membership of Community Base beyond January 2010. The board invited all Community Base licencees, and all community and voluntary groups, excluding political parties, using Community Base as a postal address or regularly hiring our conference room in November 2009, to apply for membership of Community Base on the basis of the policy on membership.

The board made a number of changes to the draft statement of core values as a result of this consultation. A new section on human rights and social justice was added; references to ‘charitable objectives' were amended to ‘charity's objects'; a reference to ‘banning throwaway plates and cutlery from our conference room' was changed to ‘making our conference room a throwaway-free zone'; a list of examples of support offered to local community and voluntary groups were removed; and the number of languages our guide is translated into was removed. The board also made minor changes to the policy on relationship with participant groups and equal opportunities policy to bring them into line with the statement of core values.