Dawn Brown

I have worked in the Voluntary Sector for 38 years so far. In my current work role, I am the Director of Quaggy Development Trust. In this role, as well as my previous role as CEO of Home-Start Greenwich, I have led on a range of areas associated with running a charity, such as: working alongside trustees, strategy development and implementation, safeguarding children and adults and policy and procedure development. The combination of these experiences has also given me experience in commissioning and monitoring (from both sides) and dealing with regulation such as Ofsted and CQC, staff and volunteer management, governance, finance and funding/tendering. A crucial element of this is keeping the voices of those using services at the heart of what we do. I would not say I had a specialism, rather a broad experience of working and volunteering for charities.

Outside of work, I collect rare 60s soul on vinyl, I’m a real ‘people person’, and ‘when’ I win the lottery: I would like to see much more of the world.

I joined METRO’s Board of Trustees following the merge in October 2017 with Greenwich Action for Voluntary Service (GAVS), now METRO GAVS. I am passionate about the unique abilities of voluntary sector organisations in being able to reach deeply into communities, be values-led, and make a real difference to those we serve. I have huge admiration for the staff and volunteers delivering these vital services, and want to ensure we are a good and fair employer.

Over the last two years, I have been the Chair of Trustees at METRO. Whilst these years have not been easy for METRO, I have wanted to volunteer my time to try to provide some stability, a calm approach, and to support putting in the right ‘jigsaw pieces’ together to enable METRO to thrive going into the future.

I will support our new trustees settling into their roles at METRO and play my part in enabling METRO to be sustainable, helping this significant transition to becoming a full board and making strategic decisions so that we can be around in another 40 years. In the next few months, I will stand down as Chair and I will particularly support Chris Joell-Deshields, our incoming Chair, and Hannah Ward, our incoming Deputy Chair.