GTKP November 2021

Introduction

Welcome to Issue 3 of the Newsletter dedicated to our Company’s philanthropic efforts. The scope is broadly: updates on a selection of our pro bono assignments and the work of the Company’s charitable fund. (Ed: You can still find earlier issues here).  

Annual Report

First though, an important announcement: The Company's Annual Report 2020-21 has recently been published and is now available to read or download from our website.  The Report includes all our philanthropic activities and is a worthwhile read.  Many thanks to all who contributed content and to PM Denise Fellows and Suzanne Harris for all their hard work producing it.  

Charities Supper

A quick plug for the Charities Supper which will be help on 24th January 24th, 2022 at Barber-Surgeons' Hall.  Obviously this is the first since 2020 and it's one of our showpeice events.  The Supper is now open for booking, here, where you can also find details of speakers etc. 

Recent Grants by the Charitable Fund 

City Giving Day
At a recent meeting of the charitable fund trustees it was agreed to make a modest donation of £200 to City Giving Day, following the Master’s attendance at a reception for the annual City Giving Day held at Mansion House. Described as ‘a simple but impactful initiative that enables City companies and employees to celebrate and showcase their philanthropic and volunteering achievements and encourage others to get involved’.  It turned out to be a low-key affair with a brief speech by the LM and awards for fund raising efforts.  The focus of City Giving Day is clearly on businesses (mainly Financial Services firms) and there were not that many Livery Companies in attendance perhaps showing how far they were engaged in the Day. Our Company’s aim for this coming year is to be more active and Court Assistant Nanette Young has volunteered to lead our efforts. 

Pro Bono Round-up

We have returned to a more normal state, with demand steady. I must thank the ProBono Committee and every one of our Volunteers for the time and expertise that they give to the NonProfit Sector and the support they give each other. The following highlights many of our recent and current pro bono assignments.:

• Ian White and Cosette Reczek, who have teamed up before, have started to work with The Linnean Society to refresh their Strategy.
• Another team – Steve Mayhew, Kevin Hughes and Phil Taylor – continue to support Cards for Good Causes as their senior team focus on their busiest period, the run up to Christmas.
• Geoff Berridge is following up his recent success with the Snowdon Trust (see his Case study here) by supporting Carers Worldwide to plan and then facilitate a Strategy Day.
• Simon Engwell (has put down the mace and) is now working with Book Clubs in Schools on marketing and building a pilot programme.
• Kevin Hughes and Ian Daniell have combined the experiences of Project Management and HR to support the Mumba Children's Project (Zambia) manage their Garden Project, and I hear it is not without its challenges.
• Another team, (there’s a trend here) Tom Jenkins and Mark Collins are helping the four Welsh Archaeological Trusts (they each cover different geographical regions) to determine the best strategy for the future. Presently they work very closely, but we are looking at other possible ways that they could best collaborate.  

• Jim Foster is working with Jangala Communications Systems.  Their request was about a change of structure, but as is often the case,  it has been jointly decided to look at strategy first and not rush into organisation design.
• Ron Cruickshank is continuing to help Symbiosia with Strategic planning (they are developing a new care home business model).
• As previously reported, Quay Arts (Isle of Wight) are finally getting going on strategy and business plans supported by Steve Mayhew. 
• Similarly Nick Bush and Kanan Barot are helping Reprezent – a community radio station - on Communications and Strategy.     

And we are sure you will have seen the recent email from Patrick asking for mentoring and consulting volunteers to help XLP, Snowdon Trust and AccessEd. The first two directly follow on from previous successful work with the clients. If you don't recall the email, please go to the Members' Area of our website and click on "Recent Company emails". Thank you!

Just to recap, our philanthropic pro bono time has two aims:

• To maximize social impact by supporting charities and not-for-profit organisations
• To deliver worthwhile life experiences for members. 
    

Marching with the Sea Cadets at the Lord Mayor’s Show

A group of about 17 of us marched (and I do mean marched) with the Sea Cadets. We were blessed with decent weather but cursed with delays caused by a demonstration – you can guess!  We twirled our umbrellas, doffed our hats and engaged with the very good crowd. Simon Engwell carried our Mace and flew about entertaining youngsters all along the route. On the return leg we marched in the shadow of the Sea Cadets’ large inflatable. It stole the show and we concluded that for next year we need a good quality banner of our own …..watch this space! 
On the march I was introduced to AJ Haywood – pictured – by Lt Cdr (SCC) Cliff Lewis RNR – the Sea Cadets Training Manager.  

AJ is the 18-year-old daughter of a fire-fighter, and has been a Sea Cadet for four years.  For the past two years AJ has been busy.  She began by volunteering to provide telephone support and a friendly chat to vulnerable people in her local community.    As the daughter of a front-line key worker, she also knew only too well of the anxieties of the children of paramedics, police officers, fire fighters and other front line key workers during the pandemic, and was compelled to write an open letter to young people in a similar position, which she first distributed through her school and the Sea Cadets, saying that she would like as many children as possible to read it and take comfort from the realisation that they were not alone.  Her letter was carried by the local press, and the newsletter of the East Anglia Reserve Forces' & Cadets' Association.  She wrote, in part "My dad, and everyone else working through Covid 19, has a common goal - to get themselves and those they work with, back home safely.  Keep this in mind whenever you are worried and know that what you are feeling is shared by others, we understand and we can get through this together".
Cliff Lewis added that throughout the Covid outbreak, AJ’s resilience and service to the vulnerable, elderly, and youth has been inspirational in one so young.    “We think she’s amazing!”

So amazing indeed that AJ has been awarded  a British Empire Medal (BEM). Congratulations to AJ who I found to be a smiling, happy and focussed young woman as well as an enthusiastic Sea Cadet Adult Volunteer.  I asked her about how she had got so involved and committed;  “My Mum dragged me down to Sea Cadets one day and it simply changed my life”.  
AJ is great example of both how you don't have to be a management consultant to be "change agent" and just why we support the Sea Cadets. (See more on "Transforming Young Lives" below.)

Charitable Fund - Update 

At the New Master’s Reception on 24 November new Chair John Corneille gave an update. He clarified who were the current trustees - see the table below - and thanked the retiring trustees: previous Chair David Peregrine-Jones, Bob Harris, and Patrick Chapman and thanked them for their many years of loyal service.
Trustees:    Geoff Berridge,  Terry Corby, PM Denise Fellows - Treasurer,  PM John Corneille - Chair, PM John Pulford  
Ex-officio Trustees:    Master Steve Cant, First Warden Chris Sutton, Second Warden Kanan Barot.

John went on to explain that on his return to the Trustees he could see the positive impact that the recent review had had and that the new trustees were turning their mind towards the future. He outlined a broad theme - a unifying theme - which had been discussed just the previous day at the meeting of the trustees.  In a nutshell this is:
Transforming young lives.

There is plenty to do to flesh out this idea in terms of what we mean by ‘young’, in what areas and so on, but as a broad direction of travel it had the support of the Trustees, because it is based on what many Members are already involved in, as well as the Company’s long term association with YBI and Sea Cadets. John asked those present for their support and ideas and repeats that request here. “If you would like to get involved, as a member of the Company,  in shaping the future direction of the Charitable Fund please contact me”. 
(Ed:  There will be a full report on the New Master’s reception in the next Company Newsletter.  The fact that the Fund was included in the presentations at the NMR was part of the on-going push to re-engage the Membership with the Funds activities.) 

YBI Update 

John Corneille reports:

"After a brief hiatus due to YBI changing key staff, our pro bono work on their accreditation programme has restarted over the last few months. A review of their new member in Uganda, undertaken by John Corneille, was completed in September. Six reviews are in progress with the aim of being completed by the end of November. These cover the two members in Palestine, and the members in Germany, Kazakhstan, Russia and India. Tom Jenkins is reviewing both Palestine members and the remainder are being undertaken by Jo Mann, Karol Szlichcinski, Malcolm Green and Mary Collis respectively. Because of travel restrictions, the reviews are being conducted remotely, with Zoom calls to key stakeholders in country".

Ed: Further to an article in the last GTK Philanthropy Newsletter, the 5 minute video about our work with YBI (that John Corneille organised for the Pan Livery Conference) is now available and accessible via this link (no password required).  In the video, Anita Tiessen (YBI CEO) starts by describing the work of YBI, with a couple of young entrepreneurs describing their enterprises.  Anita also describes the accreditation process (which we support) followed by John Corneille describing our work. Worth a look!

Pan Livery Survey of Philanthropy

In the last Company Newsletter we reported on the Pan Livery Conference held on 6 October at the Mercers’ Company Hall. During that session our Bob Harris presented progress with the 2021 Pan Livery Survey of Philanthropic Giving – which he is organising on behalf of the Pan Livery Steering Group.  The survey is on-going and it was discussed extensively, again, at the new Lord Mayor’s reception on 24th November at the Mansion House.  The Masters and Clerks of just about every Livery Company were present and while the survey is interesting in itself (Ed: findings will be reported here), it was very gratifying to experience such good profile-raising attention.  We talk about “being famous for something” and WCoMC is certainly starting to get famous for the Survey.  Congratulations and thanks to Bob Harris for all his efforts.   

Pro bono case study - The Snowdon Trust

Geoff Berridge describes his recent (February to June 2021) assignment with The Snowdon Trust. 

Background
The assignment was about helping the new CEO, Helen Saelensminde, review and redefine the charity’s strategy.  The Snowdon Trust supports disabled students with grants to enable them to achieve their goals in further and higher education.
Scope of the Assignment
To help create a strategic plan that moved the charity to a higher plane of achievement, that would gain the agreement of Trustees and could be implemented.
Initial Phase 
We explored where Snowdon was positioned in terms of the range of disabilities it supported, who else was operating in this area, the value and strength of the delivery partners, the organisation’s capacity to provide more support to beneficiaries and adequacy of its governance. 
Elements of a Strategy
From the initial dialogue we defined four elements for an emerging strategy. These were beneficiaries, finance and fundraising, capability and resilience. The content of these elements was derived by an iterative testing and refinement of thinking over a number of weeks. 
Where will Snowdon be in 2025
From the thinking around elements, we moved to a more assertive view of a new strategy which now set down goals. These were:

• A quantum on the number of disabled people to be supported
• A leader in peer support for the journey from education to employment for disabled people 
• Working in partnership with other organisations across the voluntary and commercial sectors 
• The team has the right skillset to deliver the charity’s objects
• Being agile in responding to the needs of the beneficiaries
• The organisation is financially resilient
• The board has the right mix of skills and influence and are driving growth and innovation

Defining the Strategy
The next phase of our work was to turn the goals into more detailed strategic statements about objectives and the work modules that went with the statements.
At this stage we briefed the Trust’s Chair on the emerging strategy, sought his advice and support. In this dialogue we opened up the need to see whether the charity’s objects were too narrow and whether the constitution needed to be updated. 
(Ed:  Geoff has told me about his satisfaction at achieving a good result for Snowdon and their CEO.  "I particularly enjoyed using my consulting skills to help create a strategic plan from scratch"). 

Cards For Good Causes - A Reminder

A team of four of Pro bono Volunteers (Patrick Chapman, Steve Meyhew, Phil Taylor and Kevin Hughes) have been supporting this Charity turn its fortunes around after the pandemic crisis that hit the whole NonProfit Sector last year. We hope for a case study later … but for now, if you are looking for good cards or gifts, you need look no further than www.cardsforcharity.co.uk.

Every purchase you make will directly assist our ProBono Assignment to help put this charitable organisation back on an even keel.  Their Christmas pop-up-shops, often located in churches, are also now open around the UK. Two are in central London (Covent Garden and Sloane Street) if you prefer to see the range of cards before purchasing. Click on this link to go to their shop locator.

Securing Future Prosperity

Rhonda Best has provided a brief update on this project which has been reported in previous editions of the Company Newsletter. 
Rhonda explains: “The second phase of the project, conducted this year (2021), was to test its scalability and this is now complete, having supported a further ten Recipients including the Wood Street Bar.
There have been success stories along the way, both in attracting support from members of other livery companies and in making a great contribution to the development of the businesses that have sought help. Members of our Company (including Jim Foster, Collette Stone, David Glassman, Valentine Lorenzon, Nick Bush and Michael Rutherford) have managed the process, while Guides have been drawn from other Companies, such as the Framework Knitters and Musicians. Businesses that have benefited have included architects, software firms and restaurants, with very positive feedback; as one recipient commented:
“What a great initiative - we are really grateful! In the true spirit of the City of London Livery companies … the Worshipful Company of Management Companies have set up a scheme to help entrepreneurs”. 
We have been encouraged that many of the Recipients have indicated that they would recommend others to the programme, while Guides too have found it a beneficial experience.   Not all the case studies have been written up yet, but the next GTKP Newsletter will feature several, focused on outcomes for the businesses involves. 

---000---

Your feedback and future contributions, especially case studies, will be very welcome.  Next issue - February 2022.