Letters - 03 April 2015
From stepping stones to an 'appy April
Tunbridge Wells’ Stepping Stones Project
West Kent Area Meeting is making progress with its Tunbridge Wells Meeting House (Stepping Stones) Project to provide much needed social housing accommodation for young people. As well as providing such accommodation, this ongoing project will also reduce the Quaker space in the large Victorian Meeting house. This is in line with current Quaker thinking, making space available in our Meeting houses where possible to meet local social needs.
Tunbridge Wells Friends made an appeal in 2014 that raised £30,000 in donations which can only be used to help fund the project. We thank you for the many messages of support and for these generous donations. In addition, local Friends have £34,000 to use on the project and various other substantial funding is available, including from the local council. Finance is nearly in place.
We are currently working with our partners on a new set of plans as the original scheme was deemed, at the final hurdle, to be too costly to be economic. The Local Meeting and Area Meeting trustees are fully supporting a renewed attempt to put a conversion in place in 2015 and we ask for continued prayerful support from Quakers nationally.
For any other Meeting considering such a project for their Meeting house, be aware that you will need considerable tenacity, ingenuity and patience, let alone funds, but the end result can go some way towards supporting the local community in a positive way.
West Kent Area Meeting trustees
Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT)
Tara Craig (13 March) quotes the Charity Commission [CC] saying, in relation to JRCT’s funding of Cage: ‘As it [Cage] is not a charity and given the nature of its work and the controversy it has attracted, the CC has been concerned that such funding risked damaging public trust and confidence in charity.’
If the CC feel this so strongly, maybe they need to consider altering their guidelines, rather than extracting restrictive promises from individual charitable trusts.
I would like to know, if, in its heavy-handed response and ‘unprecedented regulatory pressure’ on JRCT, whether the CC has considered in turn its own potential to damage public trust and ‘confidence’ in the vitally important work of this popularly supported and highly reputable Quaker charity?
Perhaps we can put our faith in the adage that ‘all publicity is good publicity’. I certainly hope it turns out to be so.
Sue Holden
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