Several months ago, Amanda Potter became a trustee of Breakthrough, a UK charity that supports educational and cultural initiatives for under-privileged children. Potter was invited to join the board of trustees by the board chairman, a long-time friend. In the time since her appointment, Potter has begun to learn about the activities of the charity; however, there are still aspects of operations and funding about which she is not altogether clear. There is some disagreement between trustees about whether the main area of activity for the charity should be educational or whether it should focus more on cultural activities. The board of trustees has met only twice since her appointment, and Potter now understands that many of the policy decisions are made by the chief executive of the organisation and his small management team. Since her appointment, Potter feels that she has done very little as a trustee. She is also annoyed that she has twice been asked to find individuals or companies to support fundraising days, which she does not consider to be within her area of responsibility. She is aware that Breakthrough has been suffering from a decline in funding in the past year as well as rising administrative costs. She also believes that not enough members of the public are aware of Breakthrough or its activities and that falling revenues may be caused by lack of publicity. Revenues and costs are areas where she believes that trustees should be more involved with the work of the charity. You are the newly-appointed trustee secretary for Breakthrough, and Potter has expressed her concerns to you. You advise her that there is a Good Governance Code for the voluntary and community sector, and that it would be appropriate to raise her concerns about compliance or non-compliance with this Code with the chairman and chief executive.

Question:

Advise Potter on measures that she and the other trustees might take to fulfil their role as trustees of Breakthrough more effectively