Trustee

Salary: Voluntary

Scottish Queer International Film Festival, affectionally known as SQIFF, is looking for Trustees!

This is an exciting and unique opportunity to support Scotland’s largest queer film festival as it transitions into a charity. SQIFF’s Trustees will play a vital role in ensuring SQIFF achieves its core purpose and works in line with its vision, mission and values. They will support and challenge the core SQIFF team to enable SQIFF to grow and thrive.

Purpose of role

Commitment: Around 25 hours per year
Term: Fixed-term (2 years from June 2024-May 2026)

SQIFF’s Trustees play a vital role in ensuring SQIFF achieves its core purpose and works in line with its vision, mission and values. They will support and challenge the core SQIFF team to enable SQIFF to grow and thrive. Trustees (also referred to as board members) have a collective responsibility.

We are looking for people willing to bring energy, enthusiasm and commitment to the role, who will bring diversity of knowledge to our board and who are prepared to support SQIFF throughout this exciting time. We are looking for people with some experience of Board governance /a previous Trustee position, however this is not crucial and applicants without this experience will be considered. We actively encourage queer, BIPOC and disabled people to apply.

As we build our Board of Trustees, we are specifically looking for people with specific knowledge in one or more of the following areas:

• Law/legal matters
• HR
• Finance management
• Fundraising
• Exhibition of art work and art programmes
• Accessibility and disability justice
• PR, marketing and branding

Tasks and responsibilities

• Support and provide advice on SQIFF’s purpose, goals and activities;
• Approve operational strategies and policies, and monitor and evaluate their implementation;
• Oversee SQIFF’s financial plans and budgets;
• Monitor and evaluate SQIFF’s financial progress;
• Review and approve SQIFF’s financial statements;
• Ensure the effective and efficient administration of the organisation;
• Ensure that key risks are being identified, monitored and controlled effectively;
• Provide support and challenge to SQIFF’s Director in their role;
• Stay connected to the environment in which SQIFF operates as a queer international film festival;
• Contribute to regular reviews of SQIFF’s governance model;
• Attend Board meetings (4 meetings a year on average) and contribute to Board discussion and decision making;
• Attend other meetings (you may be on a sub-committee, which may meet in advance of/in between the board meeting dates);
• Attend the organisation’s own activities and other events as an advocate for the organisation;
• Attend board of trustees’ training sessions;
• Act in line with SQIFF’s Code of Conduct at all times;
• Use independent judgement, acting legally and in good faith to promote and protect SQIFF’s interest, to the exclusion of their own personal and/or any third party interests;
• Contribute to the development and promotion of SQIFF’s activity, aims and reputation by applying their skills, expertise, knowledge and contacts.

Experiences and skills required

• Genuine interest and passion for the arts;
• Willingness and ability to understand and accept their responsibilities as Trustees and to act in the best interests of the organisation;
• Ability to think creatively;
• Ability to exercise good and independent judgement;
• Ability to work well as a team, with respect for fellow Trustees and SQIFF team members;
• Effective communication skills and willingness to actively participate in discussion;
• Strong personal commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, with specific passion for anti-racism, disability-justice and trans-inclusionary work;
• Enthusiasm for SQIFF’s activity, vision, mission and values;
• Willingness to lead in accordance with SQIFF’s values.

SQIFF Priorities

The year-round activities should be open to everyone but priorities will be engaging and supporting Deaf and Disabled LGBTQIA+ people and LGBTQIA+ people in the asylum system to come along. This builds on SQIFF’s work in previous years of creating events accessible to these groups. The festival production needs to integrate Deaf and Disabled and other types of accessibility as much as possible.

Access support

We have a contingency access budget available for trustees working for the organisations. This means we can consider covering access costs people need to be able to do the roles. We are happy to discuss access requirements with people at any stage of the application process or before you apply.

Our existing team is made up of a variety of people all with lived experience of LGBTQIA+ issues. Some of us have other marginalised experiences and identities within that. We engage in ongoing work to address issues of exclusion within our organisation and at our events and welcome feedback and open discussions on this.

If you want any more information about the trustee role or SQIFF as an organisation before applying, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to have a chat with you.

Recruitment aims

We aim to appoint eight Trustees, including one young person and one member/former member of SQIFF’s Queer Filmmaking Group.

How to apply

If you would like to discuss the role before applying, please email info@sqiff.org, including how you prefer to be contacted.

Please send us an email to info@sqiff.org to apply to the Trustee role. Include in the email your CV (no more than two pages of A4) and a short Cover Letter (no more than one side of A4) or in the form of video or voicenote (no longer than 2 minutes) summarising:

• why you’re interested in the role of Trustee
• what specific skills, knowledge they are would bring to the position
• any other information they choose to share in regards to their interest in this position

Please check that your application includes this essential information:

• your full name
• your current address
• phone number and email address
• any adjustments you need to make the application process accessible to you.

After the application window closes (Monday 13 May) SQIFF will review all applications. Applicants will receive communication via email on or before Monday 20 May. SQIFF will endeavour to offer feedback to every applicant. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an interview during wc 3 June, for which questions will be sent to all interview applicants in advance of the interview. SQIFF hopes to have appointed eight Trustees by Friday 14 June.

The closing date for this position is 13/05/2024 at 17:00