Minutes of the First Heritage Link AGM
Minutes of the first Heritage Link AGM
Held at Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Grace’s Alley, Wellclose Square, London E1 8JB
On Thursday 12 December 2002, at 11am
Present
See attached list of attendees. Representatives of around 103 organisations attended the AGM.
Apologies were received from:
Jack Lohman Museum of London
Sophia Lambert Defra
Mark Pemberton EH
Taryn Nixon MoLAS
Peter Mimpriss Allen & Overy
Richard Allan MP
Nick Harvey MP
Primrose Wilson UAHS
The Earl of Leicester HHA
Edward Impey Director of Research and Standards, EH
Oliver Pearcey EH
Harrison Manx National Heritage
Robin Buchanan-Dunlop The Goldsmiths' Company
Sam Mullins Director, London's Transport Museum
Scottish Redundant Churches Trust
Jane Howells British Association for Local History
Jo Turvey Corporate Affairs Assistant, YHA (England & Wales) Ltd
Michael Hamilton Laing's Charitable Trust
Anne Blanchard Administrator of The Grocers' Charity
Francis Carnwath
Tom Flood BTCV Chief Executive
Peter Nixon National Trust
Frances MacLeod DCMS
Clare Pillman DCMS
Baroness Buscombe Conservative Party
Sir Patrick Cormack MP
Lord Redesdale Liberal Democratic Party
Dai Morgan-Evans Society of Antiquaries
and others.
1. Official opening
Fiona Reynolds, Director General of the National Trust, opened the meeting by reminding members of the genesis of Heritage Link, saying that it was an organisation that had grown from a realisation within the historic environment sector of the need to unite and work together on issues of common concern. Fiona said that she had presided over the inaugural meeting of Heritage Link a year previously at which the decision to go ahead and form the organisation had been taken. She added that the National Trust had nurtured the organisation during the embryonic stages of its development and that the Chairman, Marcus Binney, and the Director, Christopher Catling, had then taken over the helm, working together to establish a legal and constitutional basis for the organisation’s work. Now, the organisation was ready to stand on its own, and for the National Trust to play a lower profile role, whilst still maintaining a very strong interest in the organisation, which she hoped would go from strength to strength and become a force for real and lasting change in the political and public understanding of the historic environment.
The Chairman, Marcus Binney thanked Fiona Reynolds for her message of goodwill and wished her well at the seminar to which she was now going at No 10 Downing Street to debate the Government’s new Food and Farming strategy.
2. Trustees
The Chairman began the formal part of the meeting by asking members to vote on the membership of the Board of Trustees.
The following candidates (listed in alphabetical order) had been nominated prior to the meeting:
Tony Burton
Director of Policy and Strategy, The National Trust
Proposed by George Lambrick and seconded by Philip Venning
Jennifer Freeman
Director of the Historic Chapels Trust
Proposed by Marcus Binney and seconded by Christopher Catling
Honor Gay
Head of People and Wildlife, The Wildlife Trusts
Proposed by Nic Durston and seconded by Pippa Langford
George Lambrick
Director of the Council for British Archaeology
Proposed by Francis Pryor and seconded by Dai Morgan-Evans
John Sell
Convenor of the Joint Committee of the National Amenity Societies
Proposed by Marcus Binney and seconded by Christopher Catling
Philip Venning
Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
Proposed by Marcus Binney and seconded by Christopher Catling
Richard Wilkin
Director of the Historic Houses Association
Proposed by Donald Insell and seconded by John Sell
As the Constitution allowed for up to twelve trustees and only seven had been nominated, it was proposed that the seven trustees be elected en bloc. The Chairman called for a show of hands, and the seven trustees were elected unanimously, with no votes against and no abstentions.
3. Governance
The Chairman then asked members to debate the question of whether Heritage Link should be run by a broad democracy embracing all the members, or by a smaller steering group or management committee.
Philip Venning opened the debate by saying that William Morris had always been keen that ordinary people should be involved in the conservation movement, and be given the chance to express their views, for by such means he believed the true strength of people’s love of the heritage would be evident. The movement’s great strength is its diversity: government sees that as a weakness, but we can draw strength from that diversity, provided that it is channeled effectively. Heritage Link must be seen as a body that speaks for all of us, so we should adopt the democratic route, try and make it work, and only think again if it fails.
Judy Ling Wong agreed and said that it was vital that Heritage Link reflected the views of different parts of the membership, so that it was not dominated by groups with the capacity to devote staff time and resources to standing for committees.
Gillian Mawrey asked how dissent would be handled – was there provision in the constitution for taking decisions in the face of disagreement. Pippa Longford explained how Wildlife and Countryside Link operated under the principal of positive sign on. This required members to declare their support for major policy statements so that the ‘sign on’ (the list of organizations backing the statement) could be taken as a true indication of the support for that policy. George Lambrick said that the CBA, as a member of Wildlife and Countryside Link, found that a very effective way of working and proposed that Heritage Link adopt the same approach.
The Chairman pointed out that Heritage Link was already operating under that basis, and would in any case not pursue any line of policy that involved dissent, since the purpose of Heritage Link was to find the common ground that united all members. Nevertheless, it was encouraging that members felt this was the right way for Heritage Link to operate.
The issue was then put to the vote, and there was unanimous support for the idea that Heritage Link should operate as a broad-based confederation, with every organisation having an equal voice, though members would be given the opportunity to opt out of formal policy decisions, and to be seen to have opted out.
4. Membership fees
The Chairman invited members to discuss the issue of membership fees. Martin Bacon opened the debate by saying that organisations should demonstrate their support for Heritage Link by putting something on the table – even if only a small amount. English Heritage had agreed to provide substantial sums from the Heritage Grant Fund over the next three years to help Heritage Link establish itself, provided that Heritage Link could generate matching funds. If Heritage Link was something that we all believed in, the surely the membership ought to make a small contribution.
George Lambrick said that many of Heritage Link’s members already paid a subscription to the CBA. He thought they would be concerned at having to pay a subscription to another organisation with a similar function – paying twice over, as it were.
John Sell said it was important to get the sum right from the start: perhaps starting with a subscription of £100, rather than the £50 proposed, so that the fee did not have to be doubled or tripled in a year’s time. Debbie Dance said that many voluntary organisations would find it difficult to pay £100 and that would exclude them from participating in the work of Heritage Link. Was it possible to make donations in kind, and would English Heritage allow voluntary help to be counted as a form of match funding?
Sally Embree explained that the current Heritage Grant Fund rules do not allow this, but that the rules were under review and it was something that English Heritage might well consider. Robert Morley proposed that the fee should be set at £100 and that the Director should be empowered to negotiate a higher or lower amount with individual member organisations.
A vote was taken on this issue and the proposal was carried by a substantial majority, with around eighty votes in favour and around twenty votes against.
Various people then asked whether individuals could be become affiliate members of Heritage Link for a lower fee. Thomas Coke suggested a fee of £50, and Vanessa Marshall suggested £20. George Lambrick suggested that this was a distraction from Heritage Link’s core purpose, and would add unnecessarily to the burden of running Heritage Link. John Sell agreed and said that heritage Link was a body made up of national non-governmental organisations, and to dilute this concept was to dissipate the energy of Heritage Link.
A vote was taken at this point and it was decided unanimously that individuals would be allowed to subscribe to the Update for an annual fee of £20, on a one-year trial basis. Those who chose to pay this would be known as subscribers, not members, and they would have no voting rights nor would Heritge Link engage in any correspondence with them.
5. Working Groups
By way of background to this issue, Christopher Catling explained that he had attempted during 2002 to convene working groups on inclusion, funding and planning, but that the members had shown very little appetite for these. Some members had suggested it was premature to look at any issues in detail until an attempt had been made to map all the issues of concern to members, and then decide which were of greatest priority. Members were therefore asked to debate whether or not to undertake a fundamental review, and if so whether or not to continue with efforts to establish the other three working groups.
Martin Bacon said that he was very much in favour of the review and that he hoped it would be an opportunity to identify issues of magnitude that everyone could unite behind, and that were relevant to the daily lives of all people. He said that he favoured direct campaigning action, and that we needed to act sooner rather than later to produce a manifesto or plan of action with clear messages and clear projects that all members would buy into.
John Sell said that he would be reluctant to see Heritage Link lose sight of the three issues identified at the inaugural meeting last November as the basis for working groups. Perhaps the problem was that all three were being looked after elsewhere and what was needed was for members to think in terms of pursuing the issues through the medium of Heritage Link. For example, the Power of Place Tax Group would be strengthened by the injection of new members and fresh thinking as a result of taking on the Heritage Link funding portfolio.
Judy Ling Wong suggested that the secret was to find lead organisations that would adopt one of the working groups and make them work – but the motivation had to come from members themselves, and not from the Secretariat. If members did not want working groups, then they shouldn’t be forced.
Martin Bacon said he was concerned that working groups would have nothing new to say, and that Heritage Link would simply fail to appeal to the wider world. Instead of the same old messages, we need ideas that would ‘light people’s fire’, and signal that the sector is alive and wants to change the world. David Lambert agreed and said that Power of Place had already identified that the sector was too remote, and that the heritage has an chronic image problem.
Various delegates made the point that research, PR, campaigning and press relations would be vital to the success of the organisation, and that one of Heritage Link’s tasks would be to demonstrate and promote the value of heritage, and ensure that it was seen as accessible and not elitist.
No vote was taken on this issue but the Chairman summed up by saying that there was a consensus for not abandoning the three existing working groups, and that the Director would contact members to identify lead bodies for each of the three issues. (Subsequent to the meeting, it was agreed that the Power of Place Tax Group would lead on Funding, the National Trust would lead on Planning and the Black Environment Network would work with the Association for Heritage Interpretation on Inclusion.) On the question of a fundamental review the Chairman said that a proposal would be put to the members for talking this forward – perhaps by means of a seminar or workshop.
At 12.30pm, the Chairman declared the formal part of the meeting to be at an end. Members were invited to share a buffet lunch, served in the theatre restaurant, and to reconvene in the theatre auditorium for speeches at 1pm.
Speeches
At 1pm, Flora Smith, Director of the Broomhill Opera, the organisation that manages Wiltons Music Hall, gave a brief outline of the building’s history.
George Lambrick of the CBA and John Sell of the Joint Committee of the National Amenity Societies then spoke briefly to welcome the formation of Heritage Link – unreservedly in the case of the Joint Committee, though George Lambrick felt there was a danger of ‘a plethora of umbrella bodies’, and that members needed to decide whether Heritage Link was to be the sector’s policy conduit, or whether it’s role was to help members speak to government.
Alexander Stewart, standing in for Arts Minister Baroness Blackstone (who was unable to attend because she was required to chair the committee stages of the Licensed Premises Bill) said that DCMS saw Heritage Link as a means for the sector to pool energy and resources and allow one single voice to be heard, so as to influence the way that government managed the historic environment.