Trustee - Othona Community

Background and Context of the Othona Community

The Othona Community was founded in 1946 by Reverend Norman Motley.  We run two centres, one on the Dorset Heritage Coast and the other on the Essex Coast. Each has a small residential Core Community led by a Warden who is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Centre. The Warden is accountable to the Trustees for its general management and developing life. Please find a link to both Centres which will bring to life the wide variety of weekend and week-long programmes, holidays and retreats offered at each Centre.

Othona West Dorset

Othona Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex

We have recently completed a 2 year engagement and community building process to renew our purpose and discern the way forward. This has been an innovative process, combining strategic and community building elements. We are now in a new phase of renewal. We have revised our structures: to liberate new energy and provide greater autonomy to the Centres; and to provide the best set of arrangements to realise the charity’s purpose. Our recently updated mission statement is included below.   

The Mission Statement of the Othona Community (Revised March 2012)                             

Othona is an open and inclusive Community rooted in the Christian tradition and drawing on a wealth of other inspirations. We welcome people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds and beliefs to our two centres on the quiet coasts of Essex and Dorset. Through sharing in a daily rhythm of work, learning, worship and play, we seek personal renewal and glimpses of the sacred. In community we explore the relationship between faith and life and encourage one another in caring for the world and its people.  

As an outcome of our recent review of the charity we agreed to devolve more authority to the two centres. New Centre Committees, which are in the process of being formed, will have responsibility for the operational finance for the centre, for development planning, fund-raising, marketing  and for spiritual welfare – all in a close working relationship with the Warden and his or her ‘Core’ residential community.  In order for the Othona Trustees, who bear the legal responsibility for the financial, organisational and spiritual life of Othona to be able to devolve that authority, the Trustees appoint, from among their number, four Trustees to each Centre Committee, one of whom is the Chair of the Centre Commitee. These Trustees are called Centre-based Trustees.  There is a separate process to recruit other non-Trustee members to these new Centre Committees. In addition there are four General Trustees. All Othona Trustees, whether Centre-Based or General Trustees, must be committed to the good of the whole of the Community.

We aim to have 12 trustees, our constitution allows for a maximum of 14 trustees. As a trustee body we bear significant responsibility for the well-being - financial, spiritual and organisational - of Othona. Anyone proposing their services as a trustee must have the wisdom and maturity to shoulder that responsibility. From personal experience I can attest to the fact that being a Trustee of Othona is a highly rewarding role: an act of service to enable the Centres to function well and for the ethos and direction of the Charity to be maintained and find practical expression in the world. The Trustee group has a range of people with a diversity of age, life and professional experience and is a stimulating group of which to be a member.