pages

Thursday 5 November 2015

NaBloPoMo, day 5: of job descriptions

Julia, prompting for NaBloPoMo, asks: I had a little furnace mishap at church on Sunday. What's something you've done for your work that wasn't exactly in the job description?

I think I want to put this in the file 'things they didn't teach us when we were training.'
A year into the parish and what's emerged for me is the number of small
trusts that the parish oversees - mostly due to historical accident.
As minister of this particular parish, some of the Trusts that I am Trustee for
include within their remit ensuring that one sack of coal is given to the
indigent villagers of X village at Christmas; maintaining and keeping insured the window
of a church ... that isn't actually ours anymore, and is a private home. Tricky, that one.

It both fascinates and frustrates me in equal measure, that some of these wee Trusts
are hedged about so tightly with specific remits, that we can't actually make use of
them for the more modern village contexts. And I continue to ponder on why I seem
to have inherited all these odd wee pockets of not-get-at-able funds. I suspect it's one of
those back in the day when the minister, school master, and bank manager were around
and were considered 'worthies' - responsible and respectable, and thus, most
qualified to act as Trustees, dispensing benevolence upon the 'deserving poor.'

Meanwhile, lesson here: if you're leaving a legacy of any kind, for whatever purpose,
make it flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances a little further
down the track.

2 comments:

Mrs Gerbil said...

Oh, how things have changed since 'your day'! We did get a bit of stuff about this during probation. 2 things I remeber about trusts:

1. As you wee ones sound like, the other trustees no longer exist in the parish and, realistically, aren't going to be wanting to be getting involved with stuff like coal and windows anyway. So, DO NOT be the only trustee. Find if there's something in the terms which would allow you to appoint another (this sometimes happens) of not, see point 2.

2. It is possible to get terms of trusts changed, so they are actually useful. Best people to advise on this are the lovely legal peeps at 121. They would also be able to advise re-trustees etc. Only 1 trustee is actually a dangerous legal position to be in, IMHO.

Nik said...

Ah, yes, I have been learning! Desperately trying to re-jig terms, and for a couple of them, to move them across to the specific village councils. The Law Dept at 121 are becoming friends!!