AFTER more than 30 years at the helm of the Marlborough Brandt Group, retired GP Nick Maurice is taking a step back and is looking to appoint a deputy director.

The 72-year-old was one of the founding fathers of the group, which was set up in 1981 and has forged a link with Marlborough and Gunjur, a Muslim community in The Gambia.

Dr Maurice said: “It’s important that we think about succession, I can’t go on forever.

“On the one hand I’m looking forward to stepping back. I think both my intellectual energy and my physical energy is beginning to decline, so to a certain extent I will feel relief but at the same time I will also feel a sense of regret having been so closely involved in this organisation for so may years.”

Whoever steps up to the voluntary role will take on some of the responsibilities that lay with Dr Maurice’s in his position as director, in particular the part that is concentrated in the UK.

He said:“I have a very good relationship with people in the Gambia and they are very close friends of mine, so the plan is to hand over the lot of the work I do here and continue for the moment the work we are doing in the Gunjar.

“Whoever comes in as deputy director will accompany me to the Gambia, probably three or four times in the next few years, so that I can introduce him or her to colleagues there and they will then build up a trust and will slip into my shoes and eventually run the project both here and the other end.”

The deputy director will be responsible for a number of things including fundraising, writing project proposals, promoting the charity and involvement in the marketing strategy.

Dr Nick, who is part of a dynasty of doctors who have served Marlborough for more than four generations, said: “I would hope that they would feel that they would feel that they were part of a visionary organisation, a very different organisation to many others.

“It would be helpful to have somebody who has got some sort of international experience.

“Certainly somebody who feels passionately about what we stand for, somebody who has the ability to communicate what we are doing and it would require somebody who has got management skills who can keep a cohesive body of people together.

“We would like somebody who has some experience of fundraising because fundraising is absolutely central to everything we do.”

For more information about the role visit www.mbg.org/about-mbg/recruitment