Society and community

Woman: So, Brookfield Advice Centre. They've asked us to find them 'a younger trustee'. There are eleven people on their board, and the youngest is sixty-three. Man: Well, that shouldn't be hard. That accountant in her twenties we interviewed last month would jump at it. Woman: I'm sure she would. But I rang the last young trustee they had, and she lasted four months. It wasn't the meetings; they're held in the evening, and she said everyone was perfectly kind to her. The trouble was that she was the only one. Whenever anything to do with young people came up, the whole table turned to her, as if she spoke for everyone under forty. Man: Ah. The token young person. Woman: More or less. And after a while she felt she couldn't raise anything else. Man: Mind you, I'd tell them to cut the board down while they're at it. Eleven's far too many for any newcomer to get a word in. Woman: That's really their business, not ours. What we can say is that we'll put forward two people, and they start together. Otherwise we're just setting up the next one to fail. Man: Two it is, then. And I'll make it clear that's the offer.