Minutes of the Steering Committee meeting on 2 June 2009

THE RANK FELLOWSHIP

 

MINUTES OF THE STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING

 

HELD ON TUESDAY 2ND JUNE 2009 AT WARWICK SQUARE

 

 

Present:                                    Jason Chaffer – Chairman

 

Simon Barker, Lindsey Clay, Noomane Fehri, Duncan Gibson, Kate Kynvin, David McCausland, Simon Turner, Emma Watson-Mack, Tim Young, Gill Zammett

 

Guests:                          Anish Patel, Val Powell

 

Apologies                     Daniela Barone Soares, June Casey, Steve Cheal, Paul Connolly, Andrew Cowen, Stephen Day, Max Kirby, Benet Northcote, James Williams, Jeremy Wilson

 

1.       Welcome

 

          Jason Chaffer opened the meeting and said that Fred Packard’s Memorial Service at the Guards Chapel had been a very memorable and moving occasion; JC read a few words from the letter he had written to Rank Fellows following Fred’s death. The letter was inserted at the front of the Review.  It was followed by a minute’s silence.

 

          Jason warmly welcomed Val Powell, the Chairman of the Rank Foundation, and Anish Patel.  Anish, a former student at RGS Guildford, had contacted Tim Young to find out more about the Fellowship and how he might put something back into society.   His attendance at the SC meeting will give him an idea of the range of activities and initiatives with the Fellowship.

 

2.       Minutes

 

          The Minutes of the 2nd December 2008 had been circulated to all members and Jason Chaffer signed these as correct. 

 

There was one matter arising: the proposal to invite retiring or retired Heads to become Honorary Fellows.  This was warmly approved and Dennis Silk was mentioned as a possible first invitee, also Giles Mercer who is retiring from Prior Park this year.

 

3.       Business Plan

 

          The 2008 record of activity and the draft business plan for 2009 had been circulated to all members.  These were approved.

 

 

 

          4.           Communications Team

 

Questionnaire:  Kate Kynvin spoke about the results of the on line questionnaire which had been e-mailed to around 190 Fellows during April.  The results were positive overall, with 55 responses, of whom 62.3%  agreed that the Fellowship has clear vision and objectives.  While those who responded were supportive of the Fellowship’s ability to communicate with Fellows, it would be good to raise the figure of 43.9% who felt this aspect was very good. The South East of England provided the largest number of respondents geographically, as did the 36-45 year olds among the respective age groups. The whole questionnaire with responses is available from Kate Kynvin.  The responses to the questionnaire will provide ideas for the Fellowship’s future development.

 

          Kate said that the Sailing Day in September which she and Max Kirby had planned to arrange did not attract sufficient members for it to take place.  However, they plan to e-mail young Fellows with a view to meeting for a pub lunch/supper in the near future, as well as continued networking via Facebook and the website.  Kate believes that Linkedin is an excellent site for networking and will e-mail and encourage members to visit the site.

 

          Jason thanked Kate for her continued hard work which is much appreciated.

 

YARN – Tim Young has attended a recent meeting of the YARN Steering Committee.   They see themselves as following very much in the pattern of the Fellowship, as a group who have been supported by the Foundation in obtaining qualifications in youth work.  They are very keen to become more closely involved with the Fellowship.  In this respect they hope to plan a joint workshop day with the Fellowship.  Tim Young outlined a possibility in Leeds, hosted by the HSBC Private Bank, which would include sessions provided by the bank (how charities can work closely with their bank and PR strategies in the area) and one provided on entrepreneurial drive from Bev Midgley, a Fellow who has built up the largest female only driving school in the UK.   This could be sometime between November and next March.

 

          David McCausland reported that the Newsletter went out in mid January. 

 

          The second Review had been mailed to all Fellows during February. Short discussion took place as to whether the Review should be produced annually or every other year.  An annual production would depend on the amount of news and stories available.  It is, of course, a fairly large task to produce the Review in its present form; it is available in pdf format.  It was felt that the next publication should be in 2011.  As yet there have been no comments from the Foundation Trustees, but the Review will be highlighted at the Directors’ June meeting.

 

5.       Charities Team

 

          James Williams and Tim Young have visited the Inner Temple and think it is an excellent venue for our next Charities Evening, which is confirmed as Wednesday 4th November 2009, starting at 7 pm.  This venue was felt to be better than the RSA – it is an impressive space and the facilities are better for the participating charities.

 

          The Manchester Workshop took place on  28th May (10.30 am – 3 pm) at Withington Girls School and was designed to help small charities with developing their websites.   Technical support is expensive and the very generous assistance of Mr Lockett and his assistant at the school provided a most useful workshop.  Eight charity representatives came along to the school and one charity, which had been trying for several years to set up their website, managed to get the site up and running within forty minutes of the start of the workshop.  This formula could be replicated in other schools.

 

Other workshops in Manchester and Liverpool are being planned, on accountancy and legal issues.

 

          There will be a marketing workshop in the autumn of 2009 in London: Lindsey Clay and others would take this forward.

 

          A Strategy Workshop (probably between September and December) would be discussed by Kate Kynvin and Duncan Gibson.

 

6.       Mentoring Team

 

          The Careers Evening held on 19th March at Thinkbox TV was very successful and thanks were extended to Lindsey Clay for hosting the evening.  The location was excellent with two or three small rooms for discussions with the various advisors, and a number of Rank Fellows have benefitted greatly from the evening.

 

          The next Leadership Day is to be held on Thursday 10th September at Paddington Arts.  The format for the day will be similar to previous years, and it is hoped that Emma Watson Mack will co-ordinate the programme, in discussion with Tim Young and Jason Chaffer.  Jeremy Wilson is keen to participate this year.

 

          Simon Turner has been in touch with James Kidner at CoExist.  Katerina Kokesova (sponsored by Fred Packard at Marlborough College) is planning to study International Relations at university.  She is in touch with James who is keen to offer opportunities to Rank Fellows.

 

7.       Regional Developments

 

          There is a West Country Fellowship Dinner at Prior Park College on 26th June.  Giles Mercer, the Head, is retiring this year.  There are 30 people signed up for the dinner.  This event could lead to a Charities Evening in Bristol in the future.

 

          In a recent visit to Cornwall David met with Jemma Roberts who works for the charity COAST.  Jemma is keen to make (environmental) contact with Hugh Knowles and Benet Northcote.  David has also been in touch with Simon Cavey, a Hartlepool-based Fellow.

 

          Jason Chaffer thanked David for his continued networking expertise in searching out Rank Fellows – all part of the Missing Army task.

 

8.       Overseas Links

 

          Tim Young reported on his visit to New Zealand in February.  He made contact with two of the three Rank Fellows who live in New Zealand:  Richard Subtil who farms on the South Island, and Gavin Stevens in Wanaka.

          Tim said it had been good to meet the two Fellows and felt sure they would be happy to help other Fellows in any way they can.

 

          Tim Young reported that our relationship with the Institute of International Education, initiated at the Goldman Sachs Global Leadership award to a Fellow, had led to the chance of a Young Laureates nomination being offered to current Fellowship schools.  A former Prior Park student is in the final stages of nomination.

 

          Noomane Fehri reiterated Fred Packard’s wish to push forward contact with similar groups in Arab-speaking countries.  He would discuss possibilities in Tunisian universities and ATUGE forums with Tim Young.

 

9.       Any other business

 

          Noomane Fehri felt that it would be good to have a Wikipedia entry for the Fellowship and Kate Kynvin undertook to explore this possibility.

 

          Simon Barker and Alastair Rolfe have decided to stand down from the Committee and Jason Chaffer thanked them for their valuable contributions over several years.  Simon said it had been a real joy to be part of the Fellowship and fully intends to “stay close” in the future.  JC said that commemorative gifts will be given to Simon and Alastair shortly.

 

There was no other business and the meeting closed at 7.45 pm.  Supper was taken at After Thyme.

 

Future meetings:

Tuesday 8th September 2009

Tuesday 1st December 2009