UK Theatre Membership Votes For Change To Diversify Its Board

At a meeting on Monday 7 June, the UK Theatre membership voted to adopt new Articles of Association which give us more flexibility to improve the diversity of its Board members.

Fiona Allan, UK Theatre President, said "I am very proud that the UK Theatre membership have voted to update and to modernise the UK Theatre Articles, with nearly 100% of those who voted supporting change. This will give us the ability to broaden the makeup of our Board to be more diverse and inclusive, and to fill any skills gaps. Research shows that diverse Boards are higher performing, and this will enable us to create a stronger Board more representative of the industry we serve".

Following a recent skills and demographic audit of UK Theatre's membership and Board, the organization has identified where there are skills gaps and areas of under-representation (these anonymised figures will be published soon). The changes to the Articles voted for yesterday will enable the organization to co-opt a more diverse range of people onto the Board.

The most significant measures that have been voted for include increasing the number of co-opted (non-elected) Board members from 3 to 6, and reducing the qualifying period required for member representatives to be eligible to stand for election to the Board from 9 months to 3.

Additionally, UK Theatre has formed a working group focused on recruiting potential candidates for the newly increased co-opted places, using the skills and demographic gap information to inform their approaches. They are also encouraging our organisation members to review who their member representative is and consider appointing a new one (if appropriate), in line with their aim to broaden representation of membership, in time for the Board election in the Autumn.

UK Theatre has also emailed this information to all the member representatives of organisation members, along with information about how to change their organisation's named member rep (this email was sent at 08 June 2021 at 5pm).

Learn more at https://uktheatre.org/theatre-industry/news/uk-theatre-membership-votes-for-change-to-diversify-its-board/.

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