VW Bro Andrew Stebbings

MW Pro Grand Master and brethren, I thank you sincerely for inviting us to talk to you about the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys today.

The Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys last addressed Grand Lodge in the autumn of 2003. The intervening two years has been a period of great significance for the Trust, for it has been a time of soul-searching and of change. Our Chief Executive Clive Andrews will talk about this in a moment, but first I would like to take this opportunity to announce publicly the launch of the Trust's Lifelites programme as a separate new charity.

The Trust launched Lifelites in 1999 as its project to mark the new millennium, setting aside £7m. The purpose of the fund was to support the embryonic children's hospice movement through the provision of IT equipment and technical support with both money set aside for that purpose and voluntary practical support from individual Masons and in partnership with the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists.

In only a few years it has achieved a huge success in supporting all 34 children's hospices, which have now been opened in this country. What greater cause can there be but to bring happiness and inspiration to children with life limiting conditions? With the teams of Freemasons throughout the country who give voluntarily of their time and expertise to work with the hospices in making the Lifelites programme a success, Lifelites is a living example of Freemasonry in the community and is a further rebuttal of the criticism that Masonic charity is inward looking.

The Children's Hospice movement has been a great success story and has expanded at a faster rate than our original projections. It's development has now reached a point where the Trust cannot meet our original objectives without the allocation of additional funds from our hard-pressed resources.

As from the 1st January, Lifelites is to be established as a separate charity with an endowment of £4million from the Trust, which represents the balance of the funds that we set aside in 1999. In order to maintain the programme of funding installations at all new hospices - 6 new hospices are due to open by 2008 - and the continuing maintenance and upgrading of the equipment at existing hospices, we project that Lifelites will need to raise approximately £500,000 per annum. As a non-Masonic charitable cause we believe that it can do so from personal donations and commercial sponsorship, which it could not achieve whilst it was part of the Trust. The Trust will of course continue to assist the new trust with practical help and support as well as resources and we believe that it will continue to be supported as part of Masons' support for non-Masonic causes both financially and through the many volunteers throughout the country who have done so since its inception and to whom we are particularly grateful. I commend the new Charity to you for your non Masonic giving.

It now gives me very great pleasure to invite Clive Andrews, the new Chief Executive of the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys to tell you more about the Trust.

Clive Andrews

When I first joined the Trust seven years ago, as the Assistant Secretary responsible for the grant-making part of the Trust, I thought I had died and gone to charity heaven. In other charities I had been accustomed to tight financial constraints, and had worked in environments where you could keep only one eye on the beneficiaries for the other had always to be fixed firmly on the budget.

Not so at the Trust for Girls and Boys, for the incredible generosity of Freemasons over its 200 year history had resulted in substantial capital investments. This, together with the breath-taking generosity of present day Freemasons, had created an enviable situation. As long as we stayed within our self-imposed rules, we had funds in plenty to meet the needs of disadvantaged Masonic children today, tomorrow, and well into the foreseeable future.

And then came the down-turn in the stock market, at one time nearly halving our capital, and that at a time when a reduction in Masonic membership was forcing us to revise downwards our projected Festival income.

If, like me, you have ever been unemployed you will know that nothing makes one re-think one's lifestyle more effectively than a sudden shortage of money. It is a time for critical self-examination. And so it has been for the Trust in the two years since we last addressed Grand Lodge. The self-examination is not complete but the first outcomes are already in evidence.

Perhaps the most visible sign of change was the introduction in April this year of a new Senior Management structure. Instead of a Secretary assisted by two Assistant Secretaries, there is now a Senior Management Team comprising a Chief Executive, a Director of Finance and Administration, and a Secretary to the Council, each one of us having different skills and previous work experiences. This is a significant cultural change where a single focus of leadership has been replaced by a team, one member of which assumes operational leadership in each particular situation according to the nature of the task.

A second major decision has been to vacate our offices next year and to relocate into the basement of this building. Only we do not call it the basement anymore - it is now the Charities Floor, for all four central Craft charities have decided to relocate there. Our present building across the road at 31 Great Queen Street has been occupied by the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls and then by the Trust for 80 years come January, and our relocation will be a great upheaval and a significant milestone in the life of the Trust.

Andrew Stebbings will say more about this shortly but let me say that for the Trust this is not just a cost-saving exercise but a symbolic move illustrating the essential unity of Freemasonry under the English Constitution, and demonstrating the core role of those four charities in the future success of the Craft.

Another way in which costs are being constrained is by reducing the number of paid staff. Since we last addressed Grand Lodge the number of staff has fallen from 51 to 45. And this has been achieved entirely by the process that goes by the ghastly name of 'natural wastage'.
Day in, day out at the Trust we come face to face with the tragedies of human life.

Kimberley was only five when her father murdered her mother and then shot himself. Kimberley found their bodies. Robert was a teenager when his father died suddenly, the day after returning from a happy family holiday in France. And Georgina's mother turned to drugs when her husband left her; and later she was gang-raped. Georgina has been in the care of her grandmother, a Masonic widow, ever since, as her mother has now had to 'disappear' under the witness protection scheme.

We know that the grants we give to children like Kimberley, Robert and Georgina, we know that the visits made by our Welfare Advisers can never, ever, restore their young lives to the way they were before. But, to quote Martin Luther, 'it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness'. Our grants and our pastoral care do bring some light into these damaged lives.

So, it was with the utmost heart-searching that the Trust's Council decided a year ago that, in addition to other economies, we would have to reduce the level of grants.

It was decided that, to make ends meet, grants would have to be reduced by £850,000 a year in each of the next three years. Staff have worked hard to find ways in which those cuts could be made so that beneficiaries would suffer as little as possible.

A relatively easy economy was made by withdrawing the UndergradAid Scheme. This scheme gave £1,000 a year to Masonic children who were university students and whose families had low or moderate incomes. This scheme was quite separate from the scholarships given to petition beneficiaries. Given that all such students have access to Government loans and have the opportunity to undertake part-time work, and as the Government had, not before time, introduced Higher Education Grants for poorer students, this was seen as an economy that would not harm potential recipients too much, although I know that the grants have been missed. The saving this year has been around £½ million.

We also reduced expenditure on our TalentAid Scheme - the scheme that encourages gifted children and grandchildren of Freemasons. Statutory funding for gifted children in this country remains pitiful even after recent Government initiatives. Many children and young people just cannot find the financial support they need to develop their talents - whether in sport, music, or the performing arts. And, as a country we are poorer as a result.

The Trust's TalentAid Scheme has been the only hope for some Masonic children and young people. So, it was with immeasurable regret that we cut the scheme's budget by £100,000 this year.

Whenever funds permitted, the Trust has tried to give some money to non-Masonic children. That, too, has had to be curtailed. Two schemes have continued because we have on-going commitments. Our Choral Bursary scheme which enables boys and girls from poorer families to become cathedral choristers has continued. We cannot possible stop paying fees for them part way through their choir school education.

Andrew Stebbings has already spoken about the Lifelites project, which supports children's hospices. That too is to continue but, as you heard, as a separate charity.
However, those two schemes apart, we can, for the moment, give no further support to non-Masonic children.

Those decisions were difficult, but hardest of all was the decision to cut grants to our mainstream beneficiaries - Masonic children and young people like Kimberley, Robert and Georgina. In this past year we have lightly pruned the tree - cutting off a little here and a little there so that the reductions in grants have been hardly noticed. But come next year, more root and branch cuts will be necessary, unless our income increases.

We know Masonic families may suffer. And so, we have not allowed cost-cutting to be the only focus of our attention. We have also placed a renewed emphasis on revenue enhancement.

Significant in this respect has been the coming together for the first time of a group of skilled and enthusiastic Council Members to form a PR and Fundraising Committee. The Trust has had a strangely low profile hitherto, something inexplicable when one considers that it is the largest educational grant-making trust in the United Kingdom, assisting nearly 2000 children and young people every year. Invisibility is to be a thing of the past.

Financial analysis, structural reorganisation and cost control are never the complete answer for any business or charity. At best, they are foundations on which a successful organisation can be built. They do not answer every question or solve every problem. They do not show you how to enthuse fundraisers, how to listen more closely to beneficiaries or how to inspire staff.

So the changes and innovations already recounted are to be accompanied by complementary strategies.
We will be looking at staff terms and conditions to see if we can offer more flexible working patterns, and rewards which are more closely tied to good performance, thus ensuring a contented and enthusiastic staff.

We will be maximising the contribution made to our work by the massive army of Freemasons who voluntarily give of their time to be Case Almoners to the families we support. Nearly 900 local Freemasons are currently undertaking that role: 150 new ones taking on the task each year. We owe them not just an enormous debt of gratitude but we owe them also the opportunity to feel confident in their role. To this end, induction training will be offered to all new appointees from next year.

We will also be introducing criminal record checks for Case Almoners. Their suitability for regular contact with children and vulnerable adults has hitherto rested on their being members of the Craft and active members of lodges. In 99.9% of cases this has indeed proved sufficient. But, if it became known publicly that a Case Almoner had abused his position and that we had not availed ourselves of the statutory checking process available to us, we would be in a very vulnerable position.

Both these things - the introduction of training and of criminal record checks - will put a significant additional burden on paid staff, but they must be done.

It is important, too, that we learn to listen more closely to our beneficiaries and to avoid any tendency to think that we know what kind of support and what level of support is appropriate. I do not fool myself into believing that we will satisfy all of the people all of the time, but listen we must.

This could well result in a radical reappraisal of the support we give - both financial support and the personal support we offer through our experienced welfare team.

Listening is important in another way too. The Charity Commission insists that charities are independent bodies and must always remain independent of their funders. Yet that is not the same as closing one's ears to what funders are saying. 'Excellent companies', said Tom Peters, 'are good listeners'.

A major step forward in this respect was the first ever conference of Provincial Grand Almoners held three weeks ago, when all four charities had the opportunity to learn from their insights. Such conferences are just one way in which we will be listening closely to our funders.

So, the last two years have been ones of soul-searching and change. The next two years hold the prospect of even more radical change - change which is daunting, challenging, and exciting.

VW Bro Andrew Stebbings

Clive, thank you for your perceptive and candid presentation. I want to take this opportunity to express publicly my personal appreciation of your contribution and commitment to the Trust and of all the staff at the Trust for everything that they do to continue its great traditions.

At a meeting of the four main Charities held yesterday, each of the Presidents confirmed that their Councils had approved the proposal for the Charities to move to newly created space in the lower ground floor of Freemasons' Hall: the Charities Floor to which we expect to move in September. This year's increase in Grand Lodge dues has been controversial and justified by the need to maintain this extraordinary and distinguished building - the symbol of English Freemasonry and of the selflessness of previous generations like the Charities themselves. The Charities welcome the fact that these additional resources will be invested in part in providing this new space for the benefit of the Charities on a rent-free basis; in return the Charities will be contributing to its maintenance and preservation through an appropriate service charge. We welcome that generous and significant gesture by Grand Lodge. What a better and more imaginative use of the Craft's assets could there be?

This is a significant moment for the Charities. In one sense it represents the conclusion of ideas formulated over 30 years ago by the Bagnall Committee. Yet it is also a new beginning. It is a physical demonstration of a new will for the Charities to work together and, in coming into this Building, a recognition of the vital link with the Craft and the support that it provides to each Charity. It is also a challenge. Each of the charities is and will remain independent with their quite separate and distinct charitable objectives. We must remain independent in the discharge of those charitable objectives and each of the Charities remains committed to preserving that independence and our identities whilst redefining what that independence actually means. It represents a major and exciting opportunity to demonstrate our accountability and the service that all four provide to the Craft.

After nearly 220 years of independence it is particularly dramatic for the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys - But buildings are one thing: What we do is quite another!

Clive Andrews has provided you with an excellent insight into what the Trust does and the dramatic cases where our help and support is so vital to children with their lives before them. Your continued and generous support is fundamental to our ability to meet that challenge and as he has demonstrated most urgently needed.

Let me leave you with the thought that

"a man never stands so tall as when he kneels to help a child".

Is there really another cause whether Masonic or non-Masonic that is more worthy of your support?

Thank you.