12 minute read
Charity Begins At Home
Trusteeship In Lockdown Britain
Lockdown is impacting the way we live our lives as it moves around the planet, and people in every country are finding themselves in different stages of this global pandemic, responding in different ways. It seems that once a community is over that ‘deer caught in the headlamps’ initial shock, they are having to cope and survive as they chart a new path for the way forward towards the ‘new normal’ that awaits us all. No one is left untouched.
One of my joys as a long-term American expat in Britain is my volunteer activity with UK charities. During the past 30 years, I have served as a Trustee for 7 charities and foundations, and presently I am a Trustee for three: The London International Gallery of Children’s Art, Hoghton Tower Preservation Trust, and Friends of Cricklewood Library.
I was part of the team that started LIGCA in 1995 – a charity dedicated to educating children and others about the world around them through children’s art. Originally based at Southbank International School, LIGCA moved to the O2 Centre in Swiss Cottage, and most recently to Waterlow Park in Highgate until Camden Council withdrew our lease in favour of another charity. LIGCA now operates in partnership with organisations, for example, the Islington Museum, The Scuola Italiana da Londra in Holland Park, the Italian Institute in Belgravia, and the Nehru Centre in
Hoghton Tower - Skytech Imagery
Mayfair, where we exhibit art and organise educational workshops.
Hoghton Tower Preservation Trust is charged with maintaining and preserving the grounds, gardens and ‘historic fabric’ of Hoghton Tower, making it available to the community through house tours, and supporting educational, cultural and research activities. ‘The Tower’, a 16th Century Early English Renaissance Fortified Manor House (we Americans would call it a ‘castle’), is the ancestral home of the de Hoghton family who came to Britain with William the Conqueror. It has associations with King James I, Lady Godiva, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, among others. It is also linked with Harvard University (Houghton Library), Corning Glass, and Alanson Houghton, US Ambassador to Britain during the 1920, was a member of the American branch of the family. Hoghton Tower is a place of significant historic and environmental significance visited by thousands of people each year.
The Friends of Cricklewood Library is a new charity started by a group of residents when the local council vowed to close their public library. The volunteer committee
galvanised to lobby, raising awareness and funds, to challenge the Council’s decision. Nine years later, a new library has been built on its original site, on the ground floor of a new block of flats across from Gladstone Park. The charity was assisted by All Souls College, Oxford, who originally donated the land on which the library sits to the local community to provide a public reading room, and the initiative has been generously supported by the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who awarded a £40,000 donation matching the sum raised by local residents and businesses through a crowd-funding campaign. The American School of London has donated books, laptops and computers. Hundreds of books and library furniture have also been donated. During the long campaign to save the library, the Friends have maintained a pubic presence by starting and replenishing a pop-up library at Willesden Green Station. The new library space is ready for the Friends to move in, and with its small café, is destined to become an educational and cultural hub serving Cricklewood, including schools, nurseries and elderly who find the journey to Willesden Green Library, the nearest alternative, a challenge.
While much of the world’s commercial and cultural activity has come to an abrupt halt, the work of charities continues. Trustees are obliged to ensure good governance and fiduciary responsibility, even during a pandemic. My weeks are full of emails, WhatsApp exchanges, and video conferences with fellow Trustees about the work of these charity. I want to share some of the ‘behind the scenes’ activity, in the hope that more American expats, who have a lot of talent and expertise to offer, might consider volunteering with British charities.
A notable element of the US-UK ‘special relationship’ is the shared affection and admiration for the work of charities. Many Americans are surprised to know that James Smithson, who in 1884 provided the funding to start the Smithsonian Institute through a gift of just over $500,000, never visited America. The Smithsonian, based in Washington, D.C., is now the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, with 19 museums, the National Zoo, and nine research facilities. Many Brits do not realise that the Peabody Trust, which today has 55,000 properties, providing housing for families in London and Southeast England, was started in 1862 by George Peabody, an American who donated £500,000 to ‘ameliorate the condition of the poor’ of London. It is nice to think that I am following in this fine tradition, and LIGCA and Hoghton Tower Preservation Trust have other American Trustees.
While Trustees must always confront and manage challenges, COVID-19 has presented some new ones.
LIGCA was approached by a museum in Norway to partner in an exhibition that would feature children’s art about Corona from all over the world. LIGCA had worked with this museum previously, and this project was being sponsored by a major German newspaper. It presented an opportunity for LIGCA to be meaningfully engaged during these unprecedented times. The museum wanted us to use our network to reach out and collect art virtually (uploaded) that we could forward to them for their exhibition. The enthusiastic Trustees had several Skype meetings to plan the details; how to do this, how we would process the art, and how we would promote it to our stakeholders. However, when we saw the information they requested for each participant, as a UK charity based in the EU and therefore required to comply with GDPR, we had a wobble. For those who are not familiar with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), it is regulation in EU law on data protection, privacy and the transfer of personal data within and even outside the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). GDPR has been a subject of much discussion (and, frankly, a bit of a headache) for every institution – whether commercial, charitable or governmental - in the past year, and violations carry heavy fines. Before LIGCA could transfer information, we had to ensure that the museum in Norway, which is not in the EU but is in the EEA, had a policy for protecting the privacy and data we would forward to them. Their website made
no mention of this. We sent a quick email, followed by a second, asking for clarification of their data protection policies, and for them to acknowledge agreement to ours. We had no reply. LIGCA Trustees had several Skype meetings and WhatsApp exchanges over the weeks discussing the situation, and agreed I would consult a cyber-security expert. He cautioned us to follow the Independent Communication Office guidelines on GDPR and children’s data. Based on his guidance and our obligations to due diligence, much as we wanted to believe that nothing but good could come from a children’s art exhibition with an internationally-known museum, we had to put a halt to the plan to collaborate.
Disappointed with the loss of this opportunity, and frustrated after all the time we had collectively devoted to this project, the Trustees decided that we would launch our own exhibition, putting our own spin on the idea. On June 1st, LIGCA launched ‘Once Upon a Time in 2020: Children’s Art during the Global Pandemic’. The focus is not the virus, but the experiences and perceptions of children worldwide living through these times of isolation, lockdown, and return to the ‘new normal’ of a post-pandemic world. It is planned to last all year and children may submit artwork – electronically - more than once. Selected art will be displayed on the LIGCA website as a virtual and visual chronicle of life during this pandemic.
LIGCA Trustees are inevitably drawn into the activities of our partner organisations. The Nirmal Barthia School in New Delhi, who collaborated in our recent project on air pollution, have launched ‘Together We Can Smile’ to unite families and communities as they face the challenges of the pandemic by creating activities for families to do together; their students will also participate in ‘Once Upon a Time in 2020’. LIGCA has also collaborated with the Volunteer Foundation Academy, operated by a UK charity, which educates children in Kibera, Nairobi - the largest urban slum in Africa. LIGCA Trustees and volunteers have visited the Academy over the years supporting art education and activities. Now as this pandemic takes hold, these children have more basic needs - something that cannot be neglected.
The Friends of Cricklewood Library is another story. After a 9-year campaign, the new library is now ready for the Charity to occupy, for volunteers to paint and fit out with the bookshelves and thousands of books stored in a volunteer’s garage. A small team has been trained to start scanning books to create an inventory for the online library system. Organisations and individuals interested in hiring space that will provide rental income for the library are waiting to organise their classes and programmes. The Trustees are meeting regularly via Googlemeets to manage various challenges imposed by the lockdown, and the virus.
Early on, the difficult decision was made to immediately close the popular Willesden Green Station pop-up library, as book exchanges are potentially lethal spreaders of the COVID-19 virus. The bookcase is now being stored by London Underground awaiting happier days. The Trustees are now consulting library associations and the local councils for guidance on how libraries full of books will need to work in the ‘new normal’ era. We still have to adhere to our charity objects - to advance education through educational and cultural activities for the local residents and people who work in the area. Therefore, until the library can open safely, we must do this virtually, and so my role has been to research and assemble information on educational and cultural activities available to the community at no cost so that our website can be a conduit of these resources. Meanwhile, without a building or an income stream (the anticipated rental income and the café earnings), the finance committee is applying for grants – something that requires skill and expertise – aimed at helping charities manage for the short-medium term when they cannot carry out their usual activities due to COVID-19. The Treasurer is analysing the budget in detail to identify ways we can defer payments of any anticipated bills.
As with LIGCA, partnerships are important for the Friends, and during the lockdown the library has supported the Mapesbury Mutual Aid (MMA), a group formed by local charities, churches, mosques and concerned individuals to coordinate support for local residents during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The hub of MMA is the Pakistani Centre in Willesden Green, where 30-50 of their 200 volunteers gather daily to fill boxes of food to deliver to the sheltered members of the local community. Ward Councillor Tariq Dar, MBE, Director of the Centre, and also a Library Trustee, arranged for the Friends to donate boxes of books, normally destined for the pop-up, to MMA. In one day their volunteers sorted and cleaned books with antibacterial wipes to make them safe, and contacted the roster of sheltered households to ask what their interests were and ages of any children so that an appropriate book could be added to their boxes with their food delivery. As of early June, Mapesbury Mutual Aid had fed nearly 3,500 local residents in nearly 1,500 households.
Both LIGCA and the Friends of Cricklewood Library are entirely volunteer organisations. This is good, in that we have not had to worry about paying staff during COVID-19 as so many organisations have had to do. The flip side is that it means that all of the additional work must be done by the Trustees.
The Hoghton Tower Preservation Trust is different story. As a charity, linked to a limited company that manages the commercial activity that provides revenue for the Tower’s upkeep, it has a small paid staff to manage the housekeeping, tea rooms, education programmes, tours, weddings, Irishman’s Tower self-catering accommodation, special events, and film bookings. (Hoghton has appeared in TV shows such as Last Tango in Halifax and Peaky Blinders). Government schemes to assist charities have enabled us to furlough staff, but there is still work to be done, and the bulk of this has fallen to our Chair. Cancelled weddings must be individually negotiated – re-scheduling is preferable to a refund request. Major public events must be re-scheduled – can they happen later this year or have to wait until 2021? How might we plan house tours with social distancing when we can re-open; our volunteer guides include many retired people whose age means they should be sheltered. How can we operate the tea rooms? The Trustees in Lancashire, London and Wales meet via Zoom to discuss strategies and the financial repercussions for gradual re-opening. We agree we will start with the popular Merchant of Hoghton Farmer’s Market, with new timed-entry procedures requiring advance bookings, social distancing measures, new health and safety guidelines for merchants who are keen to see this event return. The financial viability needs to take into account lower footfall, closure of the tea rooms which generate additional income, and higher security costs. My role is to investigate how other markets are managing this and what health
and safety and social distancing guidance, regulations and policies they are following, which led me to the London Farmers Market and Farm Retail Associations. Grants to tie over charities such as HTPT must be applied for, and thankfully we have had some success. Staff and volunteers need to be kept informed about developments, and we have to plan how to stage their return for the ‘new normal’. Fingers crossed that predictions of ‘staycations’ this year in Britain are true. I marvel at how Hoghton Tower, rebuilt in 1565, has witnessed the gunpowder explosions during the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Spanish Flu, and believe that somehow it will survive the global pandemic of 2020.
