Gary Nichols

I have been married to Lis for 21 years and have four teenage children. We have been attending church all our lives and through church we also were introduced to the charity Compassion, through which we sponsor two children, one in Uganda and one in Kenya.

It was also at church that we met Stuart & Caroline Johnson and started to become involved with Amazing Grace Spaces, so much so that I have become a Trustee with AGS. I have also worked as a trustee for another charity in my younger years whereby we converted a double-decker bus into a mobile youth club going around the Forest of Dean and Monmouthshire.

My day job is a Sales & Product Specialist for a Medical Equipment manufacturer, specifically resuscitation equipment such as defibrillators. And from my experience in this industry and am hoping to bring additional skills to AGS not just from a sales perspective, but also project management, people management and possibly marketing too.

I have also been a school governor at our local primary school for the last 12 years and Chair of Governors for 9 of them.  This experience is also key to understanding policy management, legislative knowledge and from time to time some human resource management as well.

My intention is to work closely with Stuart & Caroline on the formative running of AGS and support them on their business needs so that they can flourish and focus their energy on their practical and serving hearts for the charity.

In this update I now am the proud parent of two adult children and two late teenagers and been married to Lis for almost 24 years.

My day job has grown from a regional sales role to now being responsible for a team of sales people that cover the UK & Ireland, still in the area of defibrillators & resuscitation equipment.  This development of mine into a leadership role is being fully supported by the company and as such I feel the new skills I am being trained and mentored on will prove very useful for acting as a Trustee at AGS.

I continue to act as a school governor at a local primary school and the discussions and topics we cover give me great grounding in governance and how to challenge, once again supporting my role as AGS Trustee.

Being an AGS Trustee now for the last 2 years I have grown my knowledge in the area of homelessness and supported housing for vulnerable people and am looking forward to utilizing my key strengths of planning, strategizing and team building to further grow AGS as a key charity in South Wales and across the UK.

Trustees meet 6 times a year, overseeing the governance of the charity, making decisions about the charity’s finances, safeguarding, health and safety, projects, and activities to ensure they are meeting the charity’s aims and objectives. We have commenced meeting in person again also, trustees are kept up to date by emails and phone calls, if decisions need to be made regarding governance of the charity. The Director is responsible for the day to day running of the charity. Where Trustees have expertise in a certain area, they work closely with the Director on projects to ensure their development and success.

To ensure that AGS is carrying out its primary purposes for the public benefit, all trustees work with the 6 key duties issued by the Charity Commission. All trustees understand they must act exclusively in the best interests of the charity, being actively involved in decision making and the governance of the charity. Each trustee is expected to agree and sign a document to that effect.