Head Of Family Events And Engagement

BMC Recruitment is delighted to be working exclusively with Scotty’s Little Soldiers, the charity for bereaved British Forces children, to assist them in finding a Head of Family Events and Engagement to join the team on a permanent basis.
Background
Scotty’s Little Soldiers are a UK national Charity which provides support for bereaved military children and young people aged 0-25. They currently support over 600 children and young people and have a long-term goal of supporting over 1,000 by 2030. They deliver 4 family programmes; SMILES, SUPPORT, STRIDES and SPRINGBOARD, which provides a range of emotional and education support for bereaved military families.
The role will have accountability for overseeing and organisation all of events that form part of the SMILES scheme, such as respite holidays, events for bereaved families to meet each other and making sure bereaved children never feel forgotten on birthdays and anniversaries.
This role might suit someone who is looking to take their skills and make a career change into the charity sector. It could suit someone who has worked as a project or programme coordinator (where there are lots of moving parts that need to be delivered), a great administrator (who is used to working with a lot of people – such as in a university), or as an executive assistant to someone who hosted a lot of events.
Duties & Responsibilities
You will be responsible for best determining how to achieve the below, but key responsibilities will include:

• Project management of the birthday cards/gifts sent to each member (currently we have 672 members and growing), and anniversary cards and Christmas cards/gifts to all members.
• Strategic planning and delivery of the respite breaks offered to families at one of the seven Scotty’s owned lodges (currently 105 family holidays per year). This includes managing the maintenance of lodges, oversight of the booking systems and procedures, and dealing with any arising emergencies during stays, including out of hours.
• Strategic planning and delivery of respite breaks at externally owned locations, including booking externally owned locations
• Event planning of the Winter Festival for families (approx. 200 children and young people attend each year). This includes negotiating contracts, booking venues and equipment, approving all activities, planning and oversight of logistics, and holding vendor relationships. This is a weekend long event in December.
• Event planning for the Remembrance events in London (November weekend event) This includes liaising with key stakeholders, planning and oversight of logistics, booking travel and accommodation for families, and oversight on the weekend itself.
• Development of and management of all budgets for the SMILES programme. Including tracking and reporting expenditure across Events, respite breaks and the cards and presents programmes.
• Direct Support of team members (we do not use the term managing because we prefer leadership).
• Development and delivery of new Events for example for our older members (18yr -25yr old).
• Adhoc Events and social opportunities for members.

  
  
Person specification

• Extremely well organised and capable of delivering multiple competing priorities
• Experience of event management
• Attention to detail
• Excellent communication and customer service skills
• Thrives in a paced environment

  
Remote working:
All team members are required to spend a minimum of 6 days in East Anglia for team building days, strategy sessions etc. This role will also require days to attend Council meetings, and events with a strong bereavement element, some of these events may take place at weekend or evenings but are planned well in advance. Team members are typically expected to be available to work on key events that involve our families and members including Remembrance weekend and our Winter festival weekend. Scotty’s believe the role would benefit from being in their King’s Lynn office at least once a week to support the other SMILES team members but are open to discussing how you would achieve your goals if wanted to work more remotely
The Scotty’s Way & our non-negotiables:
At Scotty’s, personal performance is only 50% of what success looks like. Their culture is as important as anything else. If you agree to join the team, you are signing up to The Scotty’s Way.
At the heart of The Scotty’s Way are our four core values as created by the whole team.
Our values are:

• Families Come First.
• Everyone a Supporter, Every Supporter a VIP.
• Love What You Do.
• Remember, Every Day.

Safeguarding is of the utmost importance to Scotty’s. All employees may come into contact with our beneficiaries and therefore have a duty of care to safeguard and promote their welfare. There is a legal duty placed upon us to ensure that all adults who work with, or on our behalf, with our children and young people are competent, confident, and safe to do so and all employees will be required to have an enhanced DBS check completed.