Anne-Marie Godfrey and Graeme Price have joined the Dons Trust board.
We recently shared an update on the DT board’s plans for adding new members, to get back to full strength and to add to the board’s resilience [see here]. Today we’re very pleased to announce that Graeme and Anne-Marie have accepted invitations to join the board.
Graeme sits on the finance committee and has attended board meetings in the past, providing advice as a guest. He also has skills and experience to offer in terms of “governance” issues – the rules and the processes we follow to get things done. We’ve said that some of this will need updating this summer, and we hope Graeme (among others) will play a big role in that.
Anne-Marie will be a familiar face to many for her appearances on the 9Yrs podcast and live shows. She launched and heads the club’s Dons 4 Diversity group and is ideally placed to promote greater representation of our diverse membership. Anne-Marie will bring a different voice and perspective to the board. She is a qualified referee and completed a sport scientist internship at our club as part of her pathway to becoming a senior occupational therapist.
Graeme said: “I’m happy to be joining the board at what is a crucial time. Not only do we need to refinance the MSP loan this month, but we must have one eye on the future and what comes next. What we put in place over this summer will be crucial.”
Anne-Marie said: “I feel this is a great opportunity to contribute to the oversight of the club and to provide a voice for the fanbase. I have a huge amount of respect for the work of the current board members and look forward to adding a fresh perspective. There’s lots to do – not least deciding how and with who we fill the gap left by Joe Palmer’s moving on.”
Graeme was the highest-placed unsuccessful candidate in the 2021 DTb election and as such the board has agreed that he will fill the casual vacancy on the board, while Anne-Marie has been co-opted. Both appointments last until our annual general meeting in December. The board will continue to consider the possibility of further co-options, as well as a proposal to increase the number of elected members to ten from the 2022 elections.
For the Dons trust board, Kris Stewart added: “I’m delighted that Graeme and Anne-Marie have agreed to join us. We thought long and hard about what areas we could do with strengthening on the board, and when the opportunity came to appoint both Graeme and Anne-Marie it felt like a perfect fit. I look forward to working with them.”
The appointments were approved unanimously by the eight existing DTb members by email yesterday (19 April), with the decision tabled for formal ratification at tonight’s board meeting.