Citizens Advice

Facilitating a trustee away day for a Citizens Advice service

We worked with a local Citizens Advice service to design and facilitate an away day for trustees and senior staff to develop a sense of shared purpose and help the executive team turn the agreed strategic objectives into key elements of a plan for the next year.

The Chair and CEO highlighted some challenges in advance, including that previous sessions had lost focus and been unsuccessful in agreeing concrete actions. We therefore decided to speak to all trustees individually in advance, to allow them to air their views, and to clarify which subjects were out of scope.

During the session, we facilitated attendees to review the core offer of the work, and came to a clear view on a particular issue (charging for services) which had previously been a sticking point.

Feedback from trustees was very positive, and the Chair was clear that the session would make the charity much more effective in the coming year. Fiveways was engaged for a follow up away day a year later.

“Fiveways helped organise and facilitate an Awayday for our Board of Trustees. They quickly built the confidence of our senior management and board and demonstrated a good understanding of the key strategic questions we needed to discuss. Their approach to the day itself enabled us to stay focused and to work together to agree an agenda for the organisation’s key priorities. Working with Fiveways was both a productive and enjoyable experience and we would highly recommend them to other charities.”

Ian Bretman, Chair of Trustees – Barnet Citizens Advice.