Chairing a charity meeting is an in-the-room job: keep time, stop one voice dominating, draw out anyone who's gone quiet, and close every decision with a named owner and a date before moving on. CC48, the Charity Commission's meetings guidance, says the chair should keep time and make sure no one dominates. It gives the chair no power to cut someone off or force a vote, though, unless your governing document says so.
This guide adds two things CC48 doesn't require: drawing out quiet trustees, and closing every decision with a named owner and a date.
What chairing a meeting actually means (and what it doesn't)
Chairing has two very different halves, and this guide covers one. The other half - confirming the date, sending the agenda and papers, checking quorum (enough trustees present to vote), getting minutes out afterwards - is meeting logistics, covered in how to run a charity board meeting, the before/during/after companion to this page.
This guide starts once everyone's sitting down. It's about what you actually do and say for the ninety minutes you're in the room.
CC48 is specific about what that job includes. Beyond calling the meeting and confirming quorum, it says the chair "should also make sure that: there is enough time for those who attend to ask questions; one person or group of people do not dominate the meeting; voting to make decisions is done correctly." Those are concrete jobs, not a vague instruction to "keep order." CC48 asks more of the chair too, covered later: virtual/hybrid inclusion, a conflict-of-interest deputy, and adjournment recaps.
What CC48 does not give you is any automatic authority to enforce that. There's no default legal power for a chair to cut off a rambling contribution or force a vote when the room's gone quiet. Any power like that has to come from your own governing document.
CC48's own worked example is the casting vote (an extra, tie-breaking vote for the chair when a vote is evenly split), and it only exists when your governing document grants it. Many small charity governing documents don't. Check yours before you assume you have either power.
Before you open: the chair's two-minute reset
Before you say a word, take two minutes with the agenda in front of you and settle three things in your head. First, which items are decisions, not just updates. Those are the ones you'll need to close with a clear result. Second, think about who talks too much and who stays quiet, based on past meetings.
You're not judging. You're planning who to draw in and who to gently redirect.
Third, work out how much time is left after the standing items (the ones that appear on every agenda, like last meeting's minutes and the finance update). That tells you if item six is heading for a rushed vote at 9:58pm.
If anyone's declared a conflict of interest (a personal or financial interest that could affect their judgement on an item) ahead of time, this is also the moment to confirm who's chairing that specific item instead of you. More on that below.
Running the room: order, time, and decisions
Open by restating what CC48 asks of you as chair, in your own words, so the board hears them: everyone gets a fair hearing, nobody runs away with the floor, and decisions get voted on properly, not just nodded through. Then work the agenda in that spirit.
On time and dominance. If discussion on one item is running long and one or two voices are doing most of the talking, that's the exact CC48 duty in the section above. Step in. The script below gives you the words.
On voting. When you reach a decision, say what's being decided in one plain sentence before anyone votes, and count the show of hands or the "ayes" out loud. Don't assume you have a casting vote if the count is tied. Check your governing document in that moment if you genuinely don't know. As standard practice (not a CC48 rule), if it's silent, say so and treat the vote as not carried rather than deciding it yourself.
On conflicts. If you, the chair, have declared a conflict of interest on an item, CC48 recommends you "appoint a deputy to chair the meeting during agenda items where the chair has declared a conflict of interest." Hand the chair role to the deputy for that one item, sit back as an ordinary participant (or step out, per your policy), and take it back once the item's closed. If it's a different trustee who's declared the conflict, you as chair keep running the meeting as normal. That trustee simply steps back from the discussion and the vote on that item.
On virtual and hybrid meetings. CC48 suggests it "may be useful to appoint a moderator," someone who watches the chat, the hands-up queue, and who's trying to speak on video. That frees you to run the discussion, not the technology.
On adjournments. If a meeting has to pause and reconvene (you lose quorum, or you simply run out of time), CC48 says that when you restart, "the chair should briefly recap the minutes from the adjourned meeting" before picking up where you left off. Just a short summary, not a full re-read.
The chair's in-the-room script: what to say in six tricky moments
These are six moments that come up in almost every board meeting, whatever the charity. Here's exactly what to say, and why it works.
| Moment | What to say | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Silence after you ask a question | "Let's take thirty seconds — jot down one word, then I'll go round." | Gives thinkers a moment before the fastest speaker fills the gap, and makes going round the table feel planned, not put-on-the-spot. |
| One trustee talking for two minutes straight | "That's really useful — let me bring in [name] before we move on." | Closes the point warmly, credits it, and hands the floor on without cutting anyone off rudely. |
| A quiet trustee hasn't spoken on something in their area | "[Name], you'll have a view on this — what are you seeing?" | Names their expertise directly rather than a generic "anyone else?", which is easy to let pass in silence. |
| Discussion going round in circles | "We've heard the two positions — I think we're ready to decide. Any new information before I ask for a decision?" | Signals the discussion is closing without shutting anyone down, and gives one last chance for a genuinely new fact to surface. |
| Decision made but nobody said what happens next | "So — decision is X. [Name], you'll do that by [date]. Sound right?" | Turns a decision into an action in one sentence, out loud, in front of the person taking it on. |
| Meeting running over with items left | "We've got fifteen minutes and two items left — can we give each seven minutes and stick to it?" | Makes the time pressure visible and shared, rather than the chair silently deciding to rush or drop something. |
Use your own words if these feel stiff on the night. The shape matters more than the exact phrasing. Say the person's name, say what you want to happen, and keep it short. NCVO (the National Council for Voluntary Organisations) frames the "quiet trustee" line above as ordinary facilitation, not a special favour.
Closing an item so it stays closed: decision, owner, date
One of the most common failures we see in charity board meetings isn't a bad decision. It's a decision nobody can quite remember making. The fix is a habit: for every decision, say the wording out loud once it's agreed, then immediately say who's doing what and by when, in the same breath.
"So — decision is X. [Name], you'll do that by [date]." If nobody answers "sound right?" with a yes, you haven't actually closed the item, whatever the discussion sounded like.
Do this for every decision, not just the big ones. A £40 stationery order deserves the same one-sentence close as a £4,000 contract. The habit only works if it's automatic. Boards that reserve it for "important" items end up arguing later about which items counted.
One way to make sure this always happens. Trustee Meetings is a simple board-meetings tool built for small UK charities. It lets you attach an owner and a date to a decision the moment you agree it, so nothing needs reconstructing from memory afterwards.
Free until your first board meeting is done, no card, no clock running. Then £180 a year (or £15 a month), every trustee included. Try it with your board
Mistakes chairs make in the room
Assuming you have a casting vote you were never given. We see this most often at the exact moment a vote ties, when there's no time to go and check the governing document properly. Check it before the meeting, not during one, if you know a close vote is likely.
Letting the loudest trustee set the pace of every item. It's the path of least resistance in the moment, since redirecting someone feels awkward, but CC48 makes it your job specifically, not a personality clash to avoid.
Not appointing a deputy for a conflicted item, and chairing it yourself anyway. It's tempting when the conflict feels minor or the deputy isn't in the room yet, but it undermines the decision itself if it's ever questioned later.
Letting a disagreement go personal without naming it. CC48 doesn't give you a rule here, but the Charity Governance Code expects the chair to address behaviour that falls short, in the room, not afterwards over email. A calm word said early is usually enough.
Forgetting to recap after an adjournment. Reconvening cold, with no summary of where you left off, means half the room is re-litigating ground you already covered. A two-minute recap saves twenty.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers, each covering a case the guide above doesn't.
Can the chair cut off discussion and force a vote themselves? Only if your governing document grants it, and many don't. When the room is stuck and the document is silent, put the question back to them ("are we ready to decide, or does someone need more time?"); if there is still no majority, record it as not carried and revisit next meeting rather than breaking the tie yourself.
What can the chair do if one trustee keeps dominating? In the meeting, redirect with the six-moment script above. The case the guide doesn't cover is the repeat dominator: if it is the same person every time, a quiet word before the next agenda shifts more than any in-room move. Managing dominance is your CC48 job; how you do it privately is your judgement, not a rule.
Who chairs the discussion if the chair has a conflict of interest on that item? Hand that item to your deputy chair - CC48 recommends appointing one where the chair has a conflict. If your board is small with no deputy role, any unconflicted trustee can take the chair for those few minutes, as long as the minutes name who did (our own steer, not spelled out in CC48).
How does a chair bring quieter trustees in without putting them on the spot? Ask about their area directly, and do it early, before they have settled into listening mode. It is far easier to bring someone in at the start than to reopen a discussion they mentally left an hour ago. NCVO treats this as ordinary facilitation, not a favour.
What should the chair do if a disagreement turns personal or heated? Name it calmly in the moment: "let us keep this about the decision, not each other." The part the guide doesn't cover is afterwards - a short one-to-one call with each person the next day repairs more than a group email will. CC48 gives no rule here; the Charity Governance Code expects the chair to deal with poor conduct, though the follow-up call is our tip.
This guide covers England and Wales. Scottish charities work to the same underlying principle under OSCR (the Scottish charity regulator), which describes charity trustees as having collective responsibility for running the charity, but check your own governing document for any specific powers the chair might have. Charities in Northern Ireland should check their governing document and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland's general guidance on trustee duties. We haven't found a CCNI equivalent to CC48 specifically on chairing.
For the rest of the meeting, not just the room: see the trustee meeting agenda template, check quorum for charity trustee meetings before you start, and make sure you know what charity minutes should include once you close. Or browse the full guides library and try it with your board.