Local Community Forum Chairperson

Community Forum Chairperson

Guidant Global are pleased to have partnered with an industry leading organisation in its search for a Local Community Forum chairperson.

The Company

The organisation operates in a sustainable way while positively engaging with residents, community groups and industry stakeholders surrounding the airport. It strives to build relationships with key stakeholder groups based on trust, credibility, and transparency, allowing the airport to effectively play its part in the economic and social prosperity of its local communities.

Job Description

Following the significant impact on the organisation's business from the global pandemic, the Communities & Sustainability team has conducted a review of its external forums with stakeholders to ensure engagement is streamlined and remains effective.

The revised LCF structure has been established to continue facilitating a positive dialogue between the organisation and its neighbouring communities, to build relationships and trust, and to it to be a better neighbour.

Purpose and Responsibilities:

• Providing independent chairing of Local Community Forum meetings and representing its members to ensure the organisation delivers on its community objectives and that partners appropriately support and challenge each other to do so.
• Bringing an independent view to the organisation's leadership team to enable it to focus on the interests and needs of its local communities.
• Advocating by acting as a champion of the forum and the people it represents, improving accessibility by developing relationships with the organisation's leaders to help drive changes.
• Representing communities and their key issues, by feeding members' concerns into the organisation's independent oversight body when appropriate and cascading an overview of issues downwards from this body to LCF members.
• Fostering constructive dialogue between all stakeholders and community groups.
• Applying scrutiny to decisions and processes to ensure fairness, transparency, and engagement.
• Acting independently and with integrity, giving impartial guidance as required.
• Ensuring the forum is well run through the setting of agendas, assignment and follow up of relevant actions and approval of meeting notes; ensuring meetings run smoothly and Code of Conduct guidelines are respected and followed.
• Helping to shape the revised Terms of Reference and membership criteria for the forum.
• Attending the regular quarterly council meetings and open forums held by the organisation's independent oversight body.
• Making reports or recommendations to the organisation and community stakeholders as required, including a quarterly report on the forum's activities for organisation's independent oversight body.
• Acting as a critical friend to the Director of Communities and Sustainability, empowering but also constructively challenging.
• Periodically reviewing forum membership, ensuring it remains both representative and effective.
• Maintaining up-to-date knowledge of accountability and good governance practice.

Skills, Experience and Abilities:

• You will be able to demonstrate your independence with no prior conflict of interest, you are not currently an employee of, or contracted to the organisation, and not already connected to a local community group.
• You will be able to clearly demonstrate an ability to be objective and impartial. Your career to date will show evidence of transparency and honesty.
• You will need the ability to effectively chair meetings, instigate healthy debate, motivate, and manage discussions to achieve purposeful decisions.
• The chair will lead constructive, open discussions on complex topics, requiring excellent interpersonal and communication skills with a natural affinity for cultivating relationships and the ability to communicate with tact, diplomacy, and sensitivity.
• You should be able to show strong public leadership credentials with experience of effectively chairing diverse and multi-stakeholder groups to achieve outcomes, while also being able to engage effectively at a personal level with individual members of the forum.

Ideally, you'll also have:

• An understanding of the organisation's operation and its potential impacts on its local communities.

If this sound like you then please send your CV for consideration.