Convene is the leading Board Portal provider to the Housing Sector. Read on to find out why.

With more and more organisations transitioning into remote and online meetings, traditional in-person Board meetings are becoming a thing of the past. 

In order to maintain order within your organisation, effective Board reports are key to keeping things running smoothly. 


What Is A Board Report?

A Board report is information from several departments or committees condensed into a short and readable format. These reports are kept as records and are a part of the Board meeting minutes. These reports are useful as they document the actions of the Board and so can be called upon at any time, especially if there are any legal issues. 

Board reports should be reviewed by every member of the Board of directors and it should be made sure that the details of the report remain intact.

Board reports are usually prepared by the executive committees, as the organisation's executive branch reports to the Board.


What Is The Purpose Of A Board Report?

A Board report can serve a lot of different purposes. It can be used for setting milestones in fundraising or for financial reporting. 

They are useful tools for bringing Board Members up to speed, reminding said members of the commitments they have made to the organisation and creating a space for discussions and questions to be initiated. 

It condenses the information from committees reporting on their tasks and the executive director’s report on the performance of the entire company into a single, easy to digest document. This is then sent to the Board and presented during the Board meeting.

Board reports are crucial documents for every organisation. Knowing how to effectively communicate your organisation's performance, processes, activities, and direction is an important part of good governance. 

It informs the Board about company performance, what’s happened since the last meeting, and where the organisation is headed. They can really help in establishing the big picture for an organisation.

Here’s our Top Tips for ensuring your Board reports do their job:

Over the 2nd and 3rd of February 2023, Convene sponsored the NHF’s Board Excellence in Housing Conference. We want to thank all of the speakers and attendees for their engagement, as well as the NHF for putting on a fantastic conference.

This year, the conference was an online event. As a Board Portal, we were especially excited to be involved, as we are dedicated to pioneering virtual collaboration and communication. 

NHF’s online platform allowed us to participate in a number of informative talks and workshops on topics surrounding Board effectiveness and housing.

A central theme of this conference was flexibility, and the need for housing associations to be open to change due to the uncertainty of this year’s financial landscape.

Speakers were focused on exploring the challenging road ahead, and preparing associations for mitigating this unsteady future, with rising rates of inflation and the cost of living crisis within the housing sector.

Another key theme of this conference was sustainability and monitoring decarbonisation practices for housing associations.

Convene’s Associate Consultant Arturo Dell spoke about the Sustainability Reporting Standard (SRS) and the challenge of reaching decarbonisation targets with the current speed of progress within the sector.

He spoke about Convene ESG, and the importance of data integrity and quality for housing associations to manage their sustainability.

With Convene ESG, the aim is to alleviate some of the challenges of ESG data gathering, performance tracking, and reporting for ESG factors so organisations can move towards global sustainability and net zero.

Arturo expressed the importance of associations and organisations embedding ESG principles into the fabric of the organisation, and this links to another vital theme of the conference which was a focus on inclusivity and diversity. 

The NHF launched their Roadmap to Equality: an Inclusive Future resources, and alongside this was a series of talks about the importance of diversity and inclusion, especially for housing associations that work so closely with a diverse range of people. 

Speakers highlighted how crucial it is that Boards reflect the communities they serve, and how there is still a lot of key work to be done to improve diversity, equality and inclusion at every level of organisations.

This tied into the conference’s overall emphasis on a need for both change and changeability for housing associations.


Here at Convene, we want to make sure you have software you can rely on, even in uncertain times. 

As the leading Board Portal Provider for the Housing sector, the future of the industry is extremely important to us. We want to help pioneer flexible, sustainable and accessible communication for your housing association.

Convene is an all-in-one Board Portal designed to streamline meetings, and it is now fully integrated with Microsoft Teams, so you can have your workflow all in one place.

We also feature Convene ESG, our own ESG reporting tool, to help your organisation get one step closer to Board excellence.

To find out more about how Convene can help your organisation, you can contact us or book a demo today. Or read our success stories from your peers here. 

Board diversity and fostering inclusive and accessible work environments has been in the spotlight in recent years, not only because of the bottom-line benefits but because improving diversity is the right thing to do. 

With 2022 seeing a shift in focus to addressing the climate, energy and cost of living crises – all of which hit the most disadvantaged in society the hardest, 2023 will continue along similar paths. The key things for you to remember for good governance this year are about flexibility and risk management.

Subcommittees are an essential role in good governance practices, but it can be tricky to know when to use them. You don't want to have too many overloading your Board Members workload, but you also need subcommittees to ensure that projects and issues are managed effectively. So we have put together this helpful guide so you can navigate the challenges.

In June 2016, Gillian Leivers at Greenfeeds Limited was jailed for 13 years for gross negligence manslaughter and a health and safety offence following the deaths of two workers. 

No matter how great your company is, it’s worth nothing if you can’t communicate this to potential customers. From KFC to KPMG, every successful organisation needs a successful marketing strategy.

A strong software infrastructure is essential to running a modern organisation. You need to feel confident the technology you use is having a positive impact on your processes: from compliance requirements to efficiency.

The COO, or Chief Operating Officer, of a company is the person who ensures the organisation functions as it should. They are responsible for planning business strategies to help the company run as smoothly as possible.

Of course, every member of staff should be involved in this process to some degree. But the COO is the main executive responsible for daily organisational processes. They must maintain a clear, cohesive infrastructure for governance.

No matter the size or sector of your organisation, you will have to deal with budgeting. Putting together a concrete plan on where and how money should be spent is the only way you can function in the modern economy.

A Steering Committee is a group formed to oversee the running of a project and provide advice. It is made up of experts or senior stakeholders – such as high-level executives or clients who will be impacted by the project.

Across every sector, there is always the risk of something going wrong. This may be a physical disaster such as a fire, which means you can’t access your supply chain. It can also be a range of other unpredictable events such as losing a key employee, experiencing a cyberattack or facing a global pandemic.  

Whichever sector you work in, your employees should be at the centre of your organisation. Keeping them satisfied can make or break your business.

With the conference season in full swing, we headed over to the Chartered Governance Institute’s conference on governance. This was an exciting two-day event from 5-6 July, where we were able to talk about upcoming issues and opportunities in the world of governance.