There are currently nine members of our Board of Trustees. The minimum size of the board is four and the maximum is twelve. No more than four trustees can be co-opted.
Bill Wright – Chair
Bill lives with an inherited bleeding disorder and was the founding Chair of Haemophilia Scotland as an independent charity. He brings a wealth of experience in the third sector and takes a lead on the contaminated blood and blood products campaign. He also serves on the Steering Group of the Scottish Inherited Bleeding Disorders Network.
Gregor McInnes – Vice-Chair
Gregor has worn many hats in his IT career; Technical Lead, Architect, Relationship Manager, Strategist, Project Management, Support, Disaster Recovery, and Specialist. As a result, he adds some real digital savvy to the board. His experience operating his own consultancy are also very relevant to running a small charity such as ours.
John Dearden – Treasurer
John lives in the West of Scotland and has an inherited bleeding disorder. His work experience covers local authorities, property companies, facilities management and the health service where he worked as a chartered governance professional. He brings to the board knowledge of law, regulation, board procedures, risk and people management.
Joanne Kirkham – Secretary
Joanne is a carrier of Haemophilia, undiagnosed until after the birth of her twins in 2011. Her son has severe Haemophilia A with inhibitors. Joanne and her family have been active members of Haemophilia Scotland since 2013. She has participated in many of Haemophilia Scotland’s family and women’s projects, as well as family events organised by the European Haemophilia Consortium.
Joanne works as an Advocacy Worker for Kindred, a charity supporting parents of children with additional and complex needs. She is a passionate believer in supporting a person holistically, understanding the need to take into consideration a person’s physical, mental, and social well-being to assure they are fully supported.
She recently graduated with a first-class honours BA (Hons) Open degree, studying Young Lives, Parenting and Families and Approaches to Mental Health. Joanne also has a COSCA certificate in counselling skills.
Adam Davidson – Trustee
Adam is 38 and has mild type 2 von Willebrand’s. He wasn’t diagnosed until high school and feels fortunate not to have many issues as a result of his condition. He has a 6-year-old son who also has the condition and suffers from frequent nosebleeds and treatment. He joined the board because of his history of the condition and previous experience serving as a trustee with various other organisations. He is particularly focused on the needs of children with bleeding disorders, raising awareness for those who are undiagnosed, and fundraising. These are issues close to his heart and he brings a wealth of experience to the role.
Jay Gardner – Trustee
Jay is 23 and studying Acting. Over the past couple of years, he has been involved with Haemophilia Scotland, The Haemophilia Society and the European Haemophilia Consortium; all looking to pave the way for today’s youth affected by Bleeding Disorders. He has his own online web series on youtube called Diaries of a Haemophiliac where he advocates about living Haemophilia A.
Katie Mackie – Trustee
Katie has a nephew with haemophilia, and is a carrier of the haemophilia gene. Katie’s nephew lives a full life, but she has seen how living with the constant pain caused by haemophilia has affected his confidence levels.
The Infected Blood Inquiry highlighted the tragic outcome for victims infected with contaminated blood and raised the profile of haemophilia. However, Katie still feels the public has little awareness of this condition and the impact it has on individuals suffering from this rare condition and on their family and friends.
Clearly the Inquiry will have taken up a vast amount of Haemophilia Scotland’s time and resource. Now that the UK Government has announced interim compensation payments, there is an opportunity for Trustees to raise awareness of other issues impacting on haemophiliacs and to highlight new treatments that are being developed.
Katie hopes the knowledge she has gained through her work in public affairs and public relations and her understanding of Scottish Government structures would assist Haemophilia Scotland advocate with Scottish Government Ministers and officials, particularly when looking at the funding of treatments for bleeding disorders so that people with this rare condition are able to live a fulfilling life.
Kazeem Alabi – Trustee
Kazeem is a medical doctor by profession, with an interest in public health, and a PMI-certified Project Manager. Throughout the course of Kazeem’s professional career, he has worked in various capacities that have involved both clinical and non-clinical practices. Kazeem is passionate about and committed to charitable causes, especially ones that help the vulnerable people in our society, like the elderly, children, and people who are chronically ill or disabled.
Seeing the positive impacts and changes his efforts have brought about in other people’s lives is a huge source of motivation and driving force for Kazeem.
Kazeem’s experiences in medical practice and in his personal life has allowed him to understand the feelings of people who have bleeding disorders and their families. These also strengthened his decision and determination to join the board.
Becoming a volunteer trustee with Haemophilia Scotland will provide Kazeem with the opportunity to lend his support to the causes that are being advocated for by the organisation and to assist in achieving its strategic goals and objectives. Kazeem would be more than happy to offer the organisation my strategic program planning, policy analysis and development, program management, strategic partnerships, administrative, and research skills.
Kazeem will collaborate with other Board members and all internal and external stakeholders to ensure people living with bleeding disorders and their families benefit from the organisation’s projects and activities. Kazeem enjoys volunteering and motivating people.
Thomas Lorenz – Trustee
Whilst Thomas does not suffer from a blood disease, he has first-hand experience in his immediate family of how disability and chronic illness affects an individual and those around the individual.
In Q1 of 2022, The Haemophilia Society, started talking to Thomas about an advocacy piece on blood diseases and the workplace. The research on the matter really piqued Thomas’ interest as he could relate to the effects on individuals and those around them through his own experiences with his family.
Reviewing the objectives and challenges that the charity currently deals with, Thomas feels that he could add value from bringing relevant experience and skill-set gained in the corporate world. Thomas has been looking for a cause that really resonated with him and that he could support as trustee and simply ‘give back’.
The role of trustees
The Trustees of any charity provide strategic direction and oversight.
They make sure that the charity protects our reputation, manages our finances responsibly, and is focused on achieving our charitable aims and objectives.
Specifically, a charity trustee must:
- Act in the interest of the charity. Trustees should put the interests of their charity before their own interests, or those of any other person or organisation.
- Operate in a manner consistent with the charity’s purposes. Trustees should carry out their duties in accordance with their governing document.
- Act with due care and diligence. Trustees should take such care of their charity’s affairs as is reasonable to expect of someone who is managing the affairs of another person.
- Ensure that the charity complies with the provisions of the 2005 Act and other relevant legislation.
We are very fortunate to have a diverse and dedicated Board of Trustees who work extremely hard to make Haemophilia Scotland as good as it can be.
Every year the third of trustees who have served longest since they were last elected step down. We usually seek to elect 4 trustees at each AGM and those stepping down are eligible to stand. In practice, this means there are usually new trustees joining every year but our members are able to keep experienced trustees on the board.
If you would like to know more about becoming a Trustee of Haemophilia Scotland, please contact our Director, Alan Martin, for more details.
Also in this section
Our Constitution
Annual Accounts
Memorandum of Understanding
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