Enabling a Thriving Community

What do we do?

We exist to serve as the strategic body representing the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector across Basingstoke & Deane. We fulfil this strategic remit via several key workstreams including an umbrella membership body for VCSE organisations. This is through our free membership offer, organisations can access a wide range of development, information, and guidance services to help them flourish.

We serve the community through representation & partnerships via our wide-reaching presence and connections amongst local, county, and national networks, ensuring that the voice of the VCSE sector is represented at a strategic level and our member’s voices are heard. Our Volunteering Centre of Excellence works to ensure that our members are equipped with a volunteer workforce fit to meet the needs of our community. Through our promotion of volunteering amongst residents we ensure the VCSE sector is connected to, and represented by, the people it serves.

We pride ourselves on taking lead in community action, from the coordination of large-scale community efforts to support emergency situations, through to bringing together key partners and managing consortia to design and deliver community initiatives. We identify needs and create voluntary action.

What We Stand For:

Our Vision

Healthy and happy residents backed up by first class community services.

Our Mission

‘Enabling community organisations to thrive’. As the membership body for non-profit organisations, we facilitate a vibrant, sustainable, and far-reaching voluntary sector to champion the needs of Basingstoke & Deane residents.

Our Values

Integrity – We serve our members and ultimately the residents of Basingstoke & Deane, through actions that are guided by strong principles of fairness, equity, and community benefit.
Professionalism – We continually strive to deliver a first-class customer service our stakeholders can rely upon, delivered by a competent and skilled workforce.
Empowerment – We believe our services have the greatest impact when done ‘with’ people rather than done ‘to’ people. Everything we do is therefore underpinned by an ethos of upskilling and empowering VCSE organisations to stand strongly on their own two feet. We are committed to helping communities overcome challenges as they arise.
Innovation – We understand that the needs of the VCSE sector are ever changing and evolving. As an organisation we are committed to positive development and adaptation of our services in a thought provoking and ‘outside the box’ manner to ensure we meet the needs of our beneficiaries in the best possible way.

Our Team

Governance

Basingstoke Voluntary Action is governed by a Board of Trustees that come from a variety of business and charity backgrounds and bring with them a wealth of knowledge and expertise. Click on the blue box below to find out more about our board.

Our Board

Carol Bode: Chair

Carol joined BVA as a Trustee in September 2016 having been invited by the Chairman and CEO to facilitate strategic planning sessions with the Trustee Board and consider key governance arrangements. When Carol was asked to become a BVA Trustee she was pleased to do so.

After 30 years in leadership and management roles in Sainsbury’s, Top Shop, The AA and GMAC-RFC, Carol now devotes her time to organisations which have a strong social purpose and set of core values. Today, Carol holds Board Director roles in the NHS as Chair of Wiltshire Health and Care, Chair of the Radian Housing Group, with HCC as Independent Chair of Hampshire Safeguarding Adults Board and also serves as a local Magistrate. Until December 2015, Carol was Chair of Governors at The Costello School.

Carol loves knowing that in some small way she contributes in helping individuals, some living in very vulnerable circumstances, live as independent and fulfilling lives as possible. She has lived in Basingstoke since 1979 so has seen Basingstoke and surrounding areas develop and continue to do so. Carol is married with grown up sons and loves photography!

Beth Linklater: Vice Chair

Beth is a highly experienced Education and Project Management professional with a variety of management, teaching, research, administration and leadership roles for 26 years in both academia and the wider educational sector and is a fluent German speaker.
Beth currently holds the position of Assistant Principal at Queen Mary’s College where she has worked since 2004 and where she is responsible for all areas of student support.

Having lived in Basingstoke for 14 years and been a school governor and Vice Chair at The Costello Academy, Beth wishes to continue to contribute to the town and give back to the community. At QMC she frequently has students who want to volunteer or benefit from the services of BVA and therefore she believes she would provide a useful link and bridge between the two.

David Bowers: Treasurer

David is a CIMA qualified Finance Director with 30 plus years experience of working in finance for SME’s, 25 years at board level. Joined the amazing team at BVA at the beginning of 2021 and took up the role of Treasurer in April 2021. It is an honour to play a small part in the fantastic work BVA does and it is heart warming to see first hand the care and professionalism of the whole team as they strive to to facilitate a vibrant, sustainable and far-reaching voluntary sector in the local community.

Karen Chillman: Trustee

Karen has over 30 years’ experience of working in the sector, more than 15 years of which in senior management positions and currently holds the position of Head of Volunteering at Croydon Voluntary Action. Karen has also spent 6 years as a Trustee of Greater London Volunteering and is an active member of the South London Volunteering Networks.

Since taking on her current role, it has moved from a small back street office to a prominent location in the centre of Croydon and despite cuts in funding, she has developed new and innovative ways of working that has enabled it to maintain an open access service for 6 days per week to support VCS organisations and those who want to connect with their local communities. She is recognised as a leader within the volunteering community in London receiving a Police Commendation for the work she has been doing around the appropriate adult volunteer scheme. She has many years’ experience of income generation and fundraising, and an understanding of leveraging private sector finances and support for third sector organisations.

Karen moved to Basingstoke recently to be nearer family and now wants to contribute to her local community.

Neil Morrow: Trustee

Neil has spent 30 years in Financial Services, gaining a broad range of experience from working within large corporations and many small startups. This led him to join BVA in early 2020 following the sale of his own IFA firm. Having been part of the team that sourced food, support and many volunteers during the pandemic, he was asked to become a Trustee in 2021 as his career took him elsewhere.

Nazim Khan: Trustee

Nazim Khan has over thirty years of management experience at board level, supporting a variety of organisation to restructure or refocus their strategy for the long term. Nazim has gained additional knowledge and knowhow whilst working for KPMG, Swissair & Grant Thornton. These roles have led Nazim onto supporting the NHS (Procurement, GP Services & Ambulance Contracts) and as an independent commercial contract manager in the UK, UAE and Croatia.

Nazim has a strong connection to the charity sector, with over twenty years’ experience supporting local organisations, specialising in governance, risk and project management.

He has an MBA and working through his LLM (Int Business), and has lived in Basingstoke for 13 years with his wife and child. Nazim is a Pilot and enjoys golf in his spare time.