Treasurer – Board of Trustees Brighton Unemployed Centre Families Project (BUCFP) Volunteer (unpaid role)

Brighton Unemployed Centre Families Project is a small but vital charity supporting severely disadvantaged families and individuals in Brighton. We run a busy community centre with around 8 part-time staff and over 100 volunteers, delivering a wide range of services to improve lives and tackle inequality. Our annual turnover is approximately £250,000. 

We are looking for a volunteer Treasurer to join our Board of Trustees. This is a key role in overseeing the charity’s finances, helping to ensure we remain financially sustainable, compliant, and able to continue our work in the community. 

Main Responsibilities 

Oversee the financial affairs of the charity and ensure they are legal, constitutional, and within accepted accounting practice. 

Work with staff to ensure proper financial records, systems, and policies are in place. 

Present clear financial reports to the Board to support decision-making. 

Oversee preparation of annual accounts. 

Monitor budgets, and funding to ensure the charity remains financially healthy. 

Act as a financial sounding board for the staff team and trustees. 

Commitment Required

Attend at least 6 of 12 monthly trustee meetings (in person at the centre or remotely). 

Attend 4 quarterly development days per year (in person or remote). 

Occasional additional availability for financial queries, especially around budget-setting, audits, or funding applications. 

What We Offer 

A rewarding voluntary role with real impact in Brighton. 

The chance to use your skills to support a well-loved local charity. 

Experience of charity governance and finance. 

Being part of a passionate, supportive trustee team. 


Company number 1069236

Charity number 03537262

Please contact -

Claire Harrison

volunteers@bucfp.org

September update.

Another busy month at the centre, our cooks did an amazing job of holding things together while we had problems in the kitchen. They put together some wonderful cold buffet style lunches and we are so grateful for their patience.

With the closure of the centre on Wednesdays we have noticed that the days we are open are getting busier, this creates a great atmosphere in the centre but sometimes a longer wait for lunch. Remember we start serving at 1pm so make sure you get here in time.

We are making changes to our emergency food process. We are no longer giving out food ad hoc. Instead we will be supporting people to make referrals to the food bank, signposting to other services and help to access our computers to look at budgeting skills. Please remember you can only receive a supermarket voucher from us once, if you have had one from us please do not ask again. We know these changes can be difficult to process but we want to ensure we always have enough food to give people in food crisis. Always remember we offer a low cost lunch Tuesday/Thursday and Friday and we usually have lots of goodies on the free table so help yourself. 

We had a Citizens advice workshop here on the 24th, we are hoping this will be a monthly and ongoing addition. We will have more information about this in the October update. 

In October Friday Yoga will now be on a Thursday at 11.30. No need to book, just turn up. 

Janina’s creative expression is a hit with our centre users, again no need to book, just turn up and Janina will guide you. No experience needed. 

On the 24th October our first Winter warmer workshop starts. We have a great line up for you including games/ raffles/cooking/dancing and fun. This is being offered to current centre users and hopefully will bring in some new people too!

We had a lovely group of students from Brighton college visit our allotment this month, they did a great job of working together and painting the shed. We’ve had some great produce from the garden recently, apples, salad, chilli’s and coming soon squashes. 

Have a great month. 

August/Summer update

What a great summer it’s been at BUCFP. We’ve had lots on to keep us busy both in and out of the centre. The playroom has enjoyed various outings and picnics and of course we had our annual trip out. This year we opted for Tilgate Park which was a great success, the sun shone and everyone had a great time. We had some great feedback including 

“ It was so lovely to meet up with other Mums who speak the same language as me, I’ve already made friends and feel less isolated”

“ It’s so nice to get out of Brighton, this is the first trip out I’ve had in a long time and it’s nice to be in nature”

“It was good to socialise with others and great to see my children happy with other children”

For Autumn/Winter time we have a few things lined up including a Basic computer skills course starting in November. James is one of our IT support volunteers who will be running these workshops, so if you are a little rusty, need a refresher or are a complete beginner please do sign up by speaking to staff. Have fun, learn and gain a free qualification.

From October 24th we will be holding our warmth and winter club at 2pm and will run every other Friday. As with everything we run it's free and will include talks and workshops, games and be a good chance to socialise. We hope to see lots of you there.


The next centre meeting will be on 3rd October at 11.00am. Please try and make it if you can.


As always a massive shout out to Rosie Derwick and friends who collect for our emergency food parcels and drop it to us monthly. We are beyond grateful for all that you do.

Are you a mum under 26?

Are you a mum under 26?

Want to feel more confident about looking for and returning to work? Our FREE 5 week Realise Your Potential course with FREE creche will help discover ideas and possibilities for future work or study. For more information or to book a place get in touch.

10:30-12:30 (non-mobile babies welcome in group)

Friday 12th September

Friday 19th September

Friday 26th September

Friday 3rd October

Friday 10th October .

BUCFP, 6 Tilbury Place Brighton BN2 OGY

We can also accept those who became mums under 26 and are still under 30.

FREE group with creche (settle in session needs to be booked in advance)

07907 492992

admin@mothersuncovered.com

Centre Closure on Wednesdays 

Due to a large increase in costs of running our centre over the last three years, against a smaller income from funding and donations, we have had to make staff cuts and some reduction to our opening hours. 

We hope this is temporary and continue to fundraise to meet this shortfall.

Monday we have an afternoon at our nearby allotments

Tuesday we are open between 10.00 and 4pm

Wednesday we will be closed from September (please email info@bucfp or call us on 01273 671213 if you have a crisis situation and need help.

Thursday we are open between 10.00 and 4pm

Friday we are open between 10.00 and 4pm

We will been having some extra group and centre events over the winter as well.

From 24th October we will be running a new free session called "Warmth and Wellbeing" it will be in the main area after lunch from 2-3.30pm we will have healthy food ideas, games, talks, workshops and interactive activities. All are welcome and it will be free, we hope it will bring some fun and happiness into peoples lives over the winter. 

June/July update

It’s been a busy month at the centre. We held our AGM during June and all centre users were informed that as from September we would now be open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We will still run all our services/ groups and lovely lunches over the 3 days but be closed on Wednesday. Remember the allotment runs on Mondays so if you want to get involved then please speak to staff. We are so lucky to enjoy the fresh produce from the allotment so the more people involved the better. 

BESCO joined us in June to discuss energy crisis issues. This is always a really popular workshop and further dates will be coming up soon. These sessions are really useful to keep up to date with any changes and offers that may be able to help with your energy bills.

Last week we held our Volunteer celebration day to say a huge Thank you to all our volunteers who support us in running the centre. It was nice for people to get together and have fun. Volunteers are the heart and soul of the centre and we couldn’t manage without their dedicated loyalty to us.

We have a centre meeting coming up on the 16th July at 12.pm, please do come along, we would love to hear your thoughts. - details here