Margaret Wightman - Chief Executive

Margaret Wightman is the Chief Executive of VONNE (Voluntary Organisations Network North East)

Q. What was your background before working for VONNE?

A. Before working for VONNE Margaret worked in quite a lot of different organisations. One of her jobs was running the Community Accountancy Project in Gateshead, and another was running a community arts organisations in the 1980’s and 90’s.
In between these roles Margaret worked for funders such as Futurebuilders, as well as local authorities and the national government.

Q. Please tell me a little about your company and the role that you play.

A. Margaret Wightman is the Chief Executive of VONNE which is an organisation that works with voluntary and community sector organisations across the whole of the region.

“We help them to work together more effectively and build on what they have in common”

VONNE tries to get voluntary sector organisations to work together in order to learn from each other and to develop new areas of work.

“My role, at the moment, is looking at what is going to happen in the future”.

Q. Why did you choose this career path?

Margaret mentioned that having a career path implies that you had something planned from the outset, but the path that she followed was because Margaret wanted to do things that interested her.

“Working with charities, and specifically the arts, I did because I thought it was interesting, the arts give a really nice way of communicating with people”

Previously, Margaret had worked for the National Audit Office and trained as an accountant, but left because she didn’t enjoy the work she was doing. Margaret swore she would never do accountancy again unless she was doing it to help charities, which is why she applied for the role at the Community Accountancy Project.

Q. Have you attended any training that has specifically helped you in, and outside, of your work?

Margaret mentioned that she has done lots of training but does find it difficult to differentiate between training and education. For example, if you want to be an accountant you have to study accountancy. More recent training that Margaret attended included a 3 day course with ACIE (Association of Charity Independent Examiners).

“The course was down to earth, but good in terms of information, and very enjoyable”

Other courses that were mentioned included, Dealing with the Media, Press Releases, Managing People and courses on how to deal with difficult situations.

“They all helped in terms of improving your confidence and making you feel more comfortable in your role”

Q. What can you do now that would have been more difficult before your training?

A. The ability to manage people and knowing more about the psychology of people was described as paramount to a successfully run organisation, and is something that Margaret has learned from her training courses.

Q. Do you have any plans for the future related to training?

A. Margaret Wightman admits that there is a lot of training that she could do, but is looking for items of training that are related to IT and the Internet, but specifically PowerPoint.

“I look at other peoples presentations and think ‘I wish I could do that’”

Q. Do you have any advice for people thinking about taking part in some training in the future?

A. Margaret Wightman believes that you need to do training that fits around your job, but also develops you as a person.

“There’s nothing more frustrating than going on a training course to do something you are interested in and then you don’t get a chance to put it into practice”