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25 June 2021 / Roderick Ramage
Issue: 7938 / Categories: Features , Charities
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Charitable confusion

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51881
Roderick Ramage shows how parliamentary draftsmen sowed confusion by trying to avoid ambiguity
  • Charities have charity trustees and might also have trustees.

The legal structure of a typical unincorporated club or association is quite simple. The founders agree, probably informally, to form it and adopt a set of rules, which is the contract between the members. The association is not and cannot be a party to the contract, because it is not a legal person. The members elect some of their number to be a committee to manage it and, as (again) the association is not a legal person but just a body of natural persons, they, or sometimes the committee, appoint trustees to hold its property and investments.

The members of the committee or some of them could also be the trustees, but it is not uncommon for the trustees or some of them not to be members. As a simplistic description, an association of this kind consists of three components, supporters and participators (members), doers (committee) and trustees.

The structure

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