The Scottish Queer International Film Festival, affectionately known as SQIFF, is looking for Trustees! This is an exciting and unique opportunity to support Scotland’s queer film festival as it works towards securing Multi-Year Funding and long-term sustainability through core funding. SQIFF’s Trustees will play a vital role in ensuring the charity fulfils its core purpose and operates in line with its vision, mission, and values; supporting and challenging the core team to help SQIFF flourish.
Full Role Description
Position: Trustee (voluntary)
Salary: N/A
Location: Hybrid / Open to UK-wide applicants
Term: September 2026 to September 2028 (2 years) – Please note that the organisation is currently reviewing its constitution, which may result in trustee terms being extended to 3 years.
Time Commitment: around 25 hours per year
About SQIFF
SQIFF (Scottish Queer International Film Festival) was formed with the aim of adding to the exciting and growing amount of queer film stuff happening around Scotland. Since 2015, we have held an annual Festival in Glasgow alongside providing year round events across various locations. SQIFF aims to build community through queer films. Our goal is to get people watching, talking about, and making more queer films. We want to screen movies that people might not otherwise get a chance to see and create inspiring and informative events across Scotland. Moreover, we want to support marginalised groups within the LGBTQIA+ community by providing a networking system for queer filmmakers, as well as filmmaking workshops for audiences wanting to start on the medium. We want to challenge inequalities and barriers to accessing the arts.
Purpose of Role
SQIFF’s Trustees play a vital role in ensuring SQIFF achieves its core purpose and works in line with its vision, mission and values. They will support and challenge the core SQIFF team to enable SQIFF to grow and thrive. Trustees (also referred to as board members) have a collective responsibility.
We are looking for people willing to bring energy, enthusiasm and commitment to the role, who will bring diversity of knowledge to our board and who are prepared to support SQIFF throughout this exciting time. We are looking for people with some experience of Board governance / a previous Trustee position, however this is not crucial and applicants without this experience will be considered. We actively encourage queer, Black and Global Majority, Deaf and disabled people to apply.
As we build our Board of Trustees, we are specifically looking for people with specific knowledge in one or more of the following areas, including strong expertise in charity governance and regulatory compliance::
- Law / legal matters
- HR
- Finance management
- Environmental Sustainability
- Fundraising
- Safeguarding
- PR and branding
- Charity governance and compliance
Tasks and Responsibilities Include:
- Support and provide advice on SQIFF’s purpose, goals and activities;
- Approve operational strategies and policies, and monitor and evaluate their implementation;
- Oversee SQIFF’s financial plans and budgets;
- Monitor and evaluate SQIFF’s financial progress;
- Review and approve SQIFF’s financial statements;
- Ensure the effective and efficient administration of the organisation;
- Ensure that key risks are being identified, monitored and controlled effectively;
- Provide support and challenge to SQIFF’s Director in their role;
- Stay connected to the environment in which SQIFF operates as a queer international film festival;
- Contribute to regular reviews of SQIFF’s governance model;
- Attend Board meetings (4 meetings a year on average) and contribute to Board discussion and decision making;
- Attend other meetings (you may be on a sub-committee, which may meet in advance of/in between the board meeting dates);
- Attend the organisation’s own activities and other events as an advocate for the organisation;
- Attend board of trustees’ training sessions;
- Act in line with SQIFF’s Code of Conduct at all times;
- Use independent judgement, acting legally and in good faith to promote and protect SQIFF’s interest, to the exclusion of their own personal and/or any third party interests;
- Contribute to the development and promotion of SQIFF’s activity, aims and reputation by applying their skills, expertise, knowledge and contacts.
Experience and Skills Required
- Genuine interest and passion for the arts;
- Willingness and ability to understand and accept their responsibilities as Trustees and to act in the best interests of the organisation;
- Ability to think creatively;
- Ability to exercise good and independent judgement;
- Ability to work well as a team, with respect for fellow Trustees and SQIFF team members;
- Effective communication skills and willingness to actively participate in discussion;
- Strong personal commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, with specific passion for anti-racism, disability-justice and trans-inclusionary work;
- Enthusiasm for SQIFF’s activity, vision, mission and values;
- Willingness to lead in accordance with SQIFF’s values.
SQIFF Priorities
The year-round activities should be open to everyone but priorities will be engaging and supporting Deaf and Disabled LGBTQIA+ people and LGBTQIA+ people in the asylum system to come along. This builds on SQIFF’s work in previous years of creating events accessible to these groups. The festival production needs to integrate Deaf and Disabled and other types of accessibility as much as possible.
A key priority for SQIFF is developing a more sustainable finance strategy, including securing Multi-Year Funding, to support the growth of our team capacity and ensure the long-term stability of the organisation.
Access Support
We have a contingency access budget available for trustees working for the organisations. This means we can consider covering access costs people need to be able to do the roles. We are happy to discuss access requirements with people at any stage of the application process or before you apply.
Our existing team is made up of a variety of people all with lived experience of LGBTQIA+ issues. Some of us have other marginalised experiences and identities within that. We engage in ongoing work to address issues of exclusion within our organisation and at our events and welcome feedback and open discussions on this.
If you want any more information about the trustee role or SQIFF as an organisation before applying, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to have a chat with you.
Recruitment Aims
We aim to appoint 5 Trustees, including one young person and one member/former member of SQIFF’s Queer Filmmaking Group.
How to Apply
If you would like to discuss the role before applying, please email [email protected], including how you prefer to be contacted.
Please send us an email to [email protected] to apply to the Trustee role. Include in the email your CV (no more than two pages of A4) and a short Cover Letter (no more than one side of A4) or in the form of video or voicenote (no longer than 2 minutes) summarising:
- why you’re interested in the role of Trustee
- what specific skills, knowledge you would bring to the position
- any other information you choose to share in regards to their interest in this position
Please check that your application includes this essential information:
- your full name
- your current address
- phone number and email address
- any adjustments you need to make the application process accessible to you.
Application deadline: End of day, Wednesday 5 August
Application review: SQIFF will review all applications after the deadline.
Outcome notification: All applicants will be contacted by email on or before Monday 17 August.
Interviews: Shortlisted applicants will be invited to interview on Monday 24 August or Tuesday 15 August. Interview questions will be shared with shortlisted applicants in advance.
Appointments: SQIFF aims to appoint five Trustees by Friday 28 August.
Commencement: Selected Trustees to start at the AGM in September 2026 (Date TBC).