Christine's comment: I want to give back to my community

In our latest column, Christine Donnelly writes about being a Non-Executive Director and giving back to her community.

Hello all,

Being a Non-Executive Director for the NFSP is a very mixed role, as I hope these columns from myself and my colleagues will show.

At its most basic, I consider that my role is to represent the views and reactions of an average postmaster, in my case a single counter rural branch on a traditional contract with an Outreach.

Although not intentionally engineered that way, it just so happens that my fellow NEDs cover all types of offices. This does not mean that I can’t have an opinion on the effects of something on an urban deprived mains office, but I can maybe bring an extra dynamic to a discussion on Outreach, for example.

Although the traditional and main role of the NFSP goes back to our Trade Union days and is about negotiation for better terms and ways of working, there are so many other aspects of working in a post office.

I could have just bought a shop back in 1997 but I specifically looked at shops with post offices. I wanted to give something back to the community and be involved. For many years Post Office Ltd were at or near the top of trusted organisations, my opinion is that all those votes were about our branches and not the infrastructure that is Post Office Ltd.

With that in mind and following on from our campaign a few years ago to make our branches dementia friendly, I started to notice just how many of my customers, or a family member, were autistic and how difficult shopping and using the post office can be for them.

I then suggested that I do some research and write an article for The SubPostmaster and the article appears in this month's magazine. Please read it, I really believe that we have a chance to make a difference.

Thanks,

Christine Donnelly
Non-Executive Director North Thames & East Anglia