Ringing Forums

I think a smart approach to this would be to fin a person who is either
a) familiar with, or
b) is willing to spend time and effort to become familiar with
the legal framework within which charities are legally bound to operate.
There are many "ready made opinions" about this but unfortunately many of them are not in accordance with the Charities Act 2011.
E.g. - there is a question being raised in your text above about "named trustees". This is what the Charities Act 2011 has to say about "who are the trustees in a charity":
"About charity trustees
Trustees have overall control of a charity and are responsible for making sure it’s doing what it was set up to do. They may be known by other titles, such as:

- directors
- board members
- governors
- committee members

Whatever they are called, trustees are the people who lead the charity and decide how it is run. Being a trustee means making decisions that will impact on people’s lives. Depending on what the charity does, you will be making a difference to your local community or to society as a whole."

I know that there is a belief that as long as we have named a few trustees, those are the only ones that can be landed with any form of liability. Reading the definition above, maybe not......

Also - depending on what type charity you are, your organization may not even be able to legally own anything. And I have seen questions around whether certain types of charities can enter into contracts (e.g. buy insurance) with legal effect.

Just a few examples - the entire framework can be quite a quagmire to wade through. Whatever choice you make - you really should be able to explain to the membership in a clear and coherent manner what the "charity" stamp on your group really means and how it should operate.