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THE PILGRIM TRUST
Three hundred and thirty second meeting of the Trustees
held on Tuesday, 15 July at
The Pilgrim Trust, 55a Catherine Place, London SW1P 3AY
PRESENT:
Lady Jay (Chairman)
Mr Paul Richards
Mr Michael Baughan
Mr John Podmore
Mr Tim Knox
Lady Riddell
Sir Mark Jones
Professor Colin Blakemore
The Right Hon Sir Alan Moses
Mr James Fergusson
Apologies:
Ms Sarah Staniforth
In attendance:
Georgina Nayler (Director)
Jenny Oppenheimer
Justine Michell
(Items are not necessarily minuted in the order in which they were discussed.)
MINUTES OF LAST MEETING
Minutes of the last meeting were approved by Trustees and signed as
a true record.
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CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Tim Knox declared an interest on the Zoology Museum, University of Cambridge
as he is a member of the University
Lady Jay declared an interest as a Trustee of the Prison Reform Trust until the
autumn.
New Trustee
All Trustees had been consulted about the appointment of Kevin Pakenham as a
Trustee of the Pilgrim Trust and unanimous support had been expressed.
Therefore, as notice had been served on Trustees that this appointment at the
meeting, Mr Pakenham was formally confirmed as a Trustee from 15 July 2014.
The Chairman congratulated Colin Blakemore on behalf of all the Trustees on his
knighthood.
Sir Professor Colin
Blakemore
MATTERS ARISING
GOVERNANCE
Please see separate note
a) Report from Paul
Richards on search
for new Chairman
b) Publicity material
about the Pilgrim
Trust – National Trust
The Director reported that the National Trust had printed a two page article in its
Spring Magazine in which it attributed the funding given by the Pilgrim Trust for
the stonemasonry apprentice at Hardwick Hall to the Heritage Lottery Fund. The
National Trust had apologised to the Director and the Director has secured from
them the guarantee of a published apology in the summer edition of the
magazine along with a promise of a article in the Spring 2015 edition on The
Pilgrim Trust and its support for NT over 85 years. It was also noted that The
Pilgrim Trust would have control over the article’s content.
The Director also reported that Valerie Humphrey of Westminster Abbey has said
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the Abbey would be happy to publish a piece on the Pilgrim Trust in its magazine.
Tim Knox also reported that he had spoken to John Goodall, Editor of Country
Life, who was agreeable to publishing an article about The Pilgrim Trust but
further discussions would take place to decide the specifics and timing of this.
c) NVA, St Peter’s
Seminary, Cardross
It was noted that, following the discussions at the April meeting and a
subsequent paper that was circulated to Trustees, it had been agreed that the
Pilgrim Trust would fund the report on the asbestos in the Seminary building for
£24,655.
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Dinner
The dinner following the meeting would be held at Brooks’s and the guests
would be Sharon Long who works for both Children England as the London
Regional Manager and Partnership for Young London as its Strategic Director and
Catherine Roche who has been Chief Executive at Place2Be since January 2014.
The Chairman gave her apologies for the dinner and said that Paul Richards had
kindly agreed to chair the discussions.
Although the dates for the Trustees’ meetings for 2015 had been agreed, Michael
Baughan raised an issue that had been troubling him about the timing of the
finance and full board Meetings.
Dates for Meetings in 2015
Trustees traditionally meet on the last Tuesday and more latterly Wednesdays of
January, April and October and in mid July. So that a report can be made to the
full board meeting on the state of the finances, the accounts and budgets, the
finance committees have been held just before those main board meetings.
Michael Baughan, as the new Chair of the finance committee expressed his
concern that the timings of the meetings meant that the finance committee did
not have firm figures and valuations to report to the full board because the
meetings were held too soon after the quarter days. Changing the finance
meetings would also mean changing the timings of the Trustees’ full board
meetings.
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It was agreed that the Director should explore altering the timings of both the
finance and full board meetings as quickly as possible.
The Director reported on an approach she had received from Historic Royal
Palaces about a possible application to the Pilgrim Trust for the conservation of a
wrought iron screen in the gardens of Hampton Court Palace. The Trustees
agreed that they would be prepared to accept an application if HRP can
demonstrate a need and can tell Trustees more about how conservation of the
collections stands in their priorities.
Historic Royal Palaces
FINANCE
Minutes of the Finance
Committee meeting
Pilgrim Trust portfolio
valuations
Noted
Noted
Pilgrim Trust Administrative
Budget for 2014
Noted
Budget for grant giving 2014
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Grants awarded by region,
2014
Membership of the Finance
Committee
Noted
Noted
Michael Baughan reported that he was proposing to invite Tim Woods be
become a co-opted member of the Finance Committee. Mr Woods CV was
circulated to Trustees and it was agreed that Mr Baughan should approach him.
Review of Major Grants
Requests for renewal of
major grants
A. National
Churches Trust
(grant 9701)
B. Scotland’s
Churches Trust
(grant 9702)
C. Church Buildings
Council –
conservation
grant scheme
Trustees agreed to renew the block grant to the National Churches Trust of
£200,000. Sir Mark Jones expressed some disquiet about the type of
conservation and building interventions that the NCT was funding and the
Director suggested that she set up a meeting with the NCT where these concerns
could be aired.
A grant of £40,000 was agreed. The Trustees noted the disproportionately small
amount of grant aid given to Scotland in comparison with England and Wales and
asked the Director to investigate the need in Scotland. It was, however, agreed
that any additional funding would not be considered until after the outcome of
the Scottish referendum was known.
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(grant 9703)
A grant of £150,000 was agreed.
D. Volunteer Now!
Belfast
(grant 9713)
Review of Other Major
Grants
A. National
Cataloguing
Grants
Programme for
Archives
A grant of £30,000 was agreed towards the small grants programme.
B. Association of
Independent
Museums (AIM)
C. National
Manuscripts
Conservation
Trust
D. Architectural
Heritage Fund
Noted
E. St Giles’ Trust
F. Prison Reform
Trust
G. Institute of
Psychiatry,
National
Addictions
Centre
Noted
Noted
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Noted
Noted. The Director also reported that Rob Owen, CEO of St Giles’ would be the
Trustees’ guest at November’s dinner.
Noted. The Director was asked to register the concerns of some Trustees on
what was possibly a poor return for the level of grant.
Noted. John Podmore and Colin Blakemore would be meeting with John Strang
and Jo Neale in September.
APPLICATIONS REJECTED
The following applications
were rejected:
Peak District Mining Museum
Rame Conservation Trust
The Edward James Foundation Ltd
The Public Catalogue Foundation
Youth Empowerment Crime Diversion Scheme
Brent Adolescent Centre
Grants over £5,000
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The following grants were agreed:
Preservation and Scholarship - Preservation of buildings
9704
THE FRIENDS OF PORTAFERRY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
£24,005
Replacement, like with like, of the original north portico
cast iron windows in Portaferry Presbyterian Church, due to
their extreme degradation.
9705
ST. PATRICK'S PARISH CHURCH
£10,000
Renovation and refurbishment of The Old Church School
House, Ballymoney
9706
HEART OF STAVELEY LTD
Heart of Staveley : Restoration of Grade 2 Listed Staveley
Hall. ‘Using heritage to enrich the lives of local people’.
9707
ROSS OF MULL HISTORICAL CENTRE
£30,000
£10,000
Kilvickeon Old Church, specialist conservation, historical and
archaeological monitoring of Scheduled Monument and
Sheela-na-gig, generating community, arts and interpretation
projects.
9708
THE FOLLIES TRUST
The conservation and repair of an obelisk erected in memory
of Henry Barre Beresford near Limavady, Co. Londonderry.
Conservation, Cataloguing, Acquisitions
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
£14,950
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9709
Conservation and mounting of major vertebrate specimens at
the Museum of Zoology, Cambridge
£32,000
SUTTON'S HOSPITAL IN CHARTERHOUSE
Conservation and restoration of the fireplace and overmantel
in the Great Chamber of the Charterhouse, London.
9710
Training Research & Miscellaneous
THE NATIONAL GALLERY
£15,000
Developing the Subject Specialist Network (SSN) in European
Paintings pre-1900, a network for museum and gallery
professionals around the UK, payable over three years from
2015.
9711
NATIONAL TRUST FOR PLACES OF HISTORIC INTEREST OR
NATURAL BEAUTY
‘Growing experience: developing skills and gaining
qualifications in heritage gardening through apprenticeship
opportunities at Mount Stewart, payable over three years.
£58,700
Criminal Justice
WOMEN AND GIRLS AT RISK – BUILDING AN ALLIANCE
9712
The grant would be confirmed once an organisation had been
chosen to host the alliance, as this organisation would be the
grant holder. The grant will be payable over three years.
KINERGY
Eden House: provision of specialist counselling at Eden House
for women who are involved in the criminal justice system,
payable over 3 years.
MANCHESTER ACTION ON STREET HEALTH
Individual support for women involved in prostitution.
£44,845
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9714
THE ADVICE ON INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN EUROPE CENTRE
£90,000
Reducing European law rights violations of EEA women in
prison
THE HULL LIGHTHOUSE PROJECT
9715
‘Next Step’ Project; addressing the education, self esteem and
wellbeing needs of extremely vulnerable women, including
post-custody rehabilitation
9716
£10,000
£14,421
9693
£15,000
9718
Grants awarded
between meetings
£26,847
The paper outlining the small grants that had been awarded between
meetings showing grants of £5,000 to UK Youth; £5,000 to the Dawn Sailing
Barge Trust and £3,000 to the Highland Theological College was noted.
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Applications
rejected between
meetings
The paper outlining the rejections since the last meeting was noted.
55a Catherine Place
London SW1
Chairman
November 2014
Dinner following the Meeting
This will be held at Brooks’s as usual. The guest will be Rob Owen, CEO of St Giles’s Trust. Trustees
will wish to talk to Rob about the Social Impact Bond “experiment” that has been running in
Peterborough Prison. St Giles’ is part of the One Project, offering support to people leaving the
Prison. In August, it was announced that for the first group (cohort) of 1000 prisoners n the
Peterborough Social Bond (SIB) there was an 8.4% reduction in reconviction events relative to the
comparable national baseline. The project is therefore on course to receive outcome payments in
2016. Based on the trend in performance demonstrated in the first cohort, investors can look
forward to a positive return, including the return of capital, on the funds they have invested.
The press release went on to say that the momentum in the project reflects the significant
advantages of the model – that long term funding provides the scope to build a deep understanding
of the complex needs of offenders and the flexibility to invest in meeting them.
The Ministry of Justice and the Big Lottery Fund will make payments to investors in 2016 if there is a
reduction in reoffending of more than 7.5%; but the project does not qualify for a payment at this
early juncture.
The results were compiled by independent assessor Professor Darrick Joliffe and his team from
Qinetiq and the University of Leicester, for the Ministry of Justice, using the PSM methodology. The
independent assessor calculated that there were 142 reconvictions per 100 prisoners in
Peterborough compared to 155 reconvictions per 100 prisoners in the control group.
In addition, Trustees will be interested to hear from Rob how the St Giles’ Trust is positioning itself
to be a part of Transforming Rehabilitation and how it is intending to work with the Primes. Indeed,
St Giles’ seems to be positioning itself to play a leading role in several contract package areas.
ICON – The Pilgrim Trust Award for Conservation and the Pilgrim Trust Award for the Student
Conservator
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The ICON Conservation Award was launched at the Cutty Sark on 21 October and I am attending and
can report. I am also part of the steering group for the awards and have reviewed and commented
on the forms, criteria and judging. As part of the process of judging, I and others, think it is
important for judges, where possible, to visit the projects which are shortlisted. Judges have usually
visited in the past although in the last round, three years ago, shortlisted candidates were brought to
London to present their projects. Of course, this meant that the judges did not see the objects or
their methods of display, merely photographs. There is no money in the budget for travel although
it is possible that BEKO, the sponsor of the awards might make its car fleet available in some cases. I
therefore offered to ask Trustees if they would consider an increase in their grant of £15,000
towards the prize money to cover travel.
The budget for Judges of the two Pilgrim Trust Awards:
Estimate of £150 per person for round trip travel, second class, advanced booking, or 40p a mile if
going by car (not encouraged). So, using this as a guide:
2 judges per project with a maximum of 5 short listed projects per award = £1500.
Pilgrim Trust Conservation Award plus Pilgrim Trust Student of the Year Award = £3000
This would mean an extra grant of up to £4,500 although if it were less than this the grant would be
reduced.
The Art Fund
The following is the outline of a proposal for the Pilgrim Trust to contribute towards the New
Collection Fund, an initiative being launched by the Art Fund this autumn. Trustees are invited to
discuss the proposal and decide whether they wish to pursue it.
This September marked a significant new phase in the Art Fund’s ongoing commitment to support
curators and develop museum collections with the launch the New Collecting Awards. This unique
strategic funding programme has been designed to enable promising and ambitious curators to
pursue new avenues of collecting for their museums, whilst simultaneously building critical
professional skills. Having secured first year funding of £300,000 from a consortium of major trust,
foundation and individual donors, we are now seeking further support to meet our ambition to offer
a second round of funding in a year’s time.
About the Art Fund
Our mission is to increase the public’s access to and enjoyment of art, by helping museums across
the UK to buy and display great works of art - works that develop collections in thoughtful ways and
encourage public engagement. Through ongoing consultation with museums, we seek to identify
and respond to the threats and challenges to collections development: threats which are all too
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apparent since major cuts in local and central government funding and the deterioration of the
wider economic climate.
In the past three years we have significantly developed our programme of support beyond our
reactive grant-making for individual acquisitions into two important areas: strategic collecting
initiatives, and curatorial research and training. In 2011 we launched RENEW - a two year strategic
collecting programme, supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, which has enabled six regional
and one London museum to build new ‘capsule’ collections of art which connect to or develop their
existing collections in imaginative ways. Under the second strand, we have supported over 150
individual curators to undertake collections-based research projects at institutions across the UK
through the Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grants scheme. We have also invested in curatorial training
in partnership with the National Gallery, funding two rounds of two-year traineeships in pre-1900
European paintings for early career curators at Manchester Art Gallery, Tyne and Wear Museums,
Birmingham Museums Trust and York Art Gallery. Our achievements and learning delivering both
these strands of activity has closely informed our decision to launch the New Collecting Awards,
which brings together these complementary strands for the first time, with the potential for even
greater impact.
The case for the New Collecting Awards
Collections are the heart of our museums and galleries. They are the reason why we visit: people
return time and time again to see their favourite works, and to discover new ones. Collections
determine the potential for any museum to engage and respond to its visitors through exhibitions
and education projects, and to contribute to academic research and collaborate with partner
institutions nationally and internationally. These collections must continually evolve and expand in
order to retain their vitality and, by extension, the vitality of the institution itself.
Crucially, standards of collecting and curatorial expertise are mutually dependent and mutually
reinforcing. The opportunity for experts in institutions to improve their collections progressively
through making new acquisitions is essential to the ongoing success of the sector; not only because
it develops collections, but also because the practice of collecting develops curatorial knowledge,
experience and expertise. In the current climate, however, pressure to finance the general running
of a museum commonly creates the perception that cuts to acquisition funds and to curatorial posts,
research and training are the most painless for today’s bottom line. But these cuts will seriously
undermine our museums in a generation’s time. It is only by empowering curators and championing
the development of collections at this critical time that we can ensure excellence in our museums
for decades to come.
How the scheme will work
The overarching aim of the New Collecting Awards is to nurture the skills and experience of
ambitious curators by offering them an opportunity to participate in a strategic collecting scheme
designed to support acquisitions of the highest quality. As such, the Awards will deliver the following
outcomes:
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
support a new generation of individual curators to make the acquisitions and thereby develop
their specialist expertise;

help museums and galleries across the UK develop their fine and applied art collections by
offering up front, 100% funding for individual programmes of focused acquisitions that extend
collections into ambitious new areas or deepen existing holdings in an imaginative manner;

empower individual curators by offering upfront funding that allows them to leverage other
internal and external resources and support, both financial and in-kind;

encourage a collecting perspective which creates opportunities for collaboration both within and
between institutions, thereby maximising the impact of the funding available;

promote the value of research-led collecting and foster curatorial expertise at individual and
institutional levels, thus enriching museum practice over the long term.
Within each funding allocation, individual award recipients will receive a specific, ring-fenced
funding allocation dedicated to their own professional development, to spend on an integrated
programme of research, travel and training costs to support their proposed collecting plans. Each
individual will also receive the ongoing support of a dedicated mentor, Art Fund staff and expert
Trustees.
Timing and budget
The Awards have been designed to offer two funding rounds, one year apart. We believe there is
sufficient need and demand to offer a total of at least £300,000 at each funding round. Running the
scheme on this scale will ensure that:

between 6 and 10 curators benefit from a unique opportunity to develop their skills and the
collections they care for, forming a defined ‘cohort’ to share their learning and expertise;

curators have the resources to build ‘capsule collections’ of a useful size - not overly big so that
quality is compromised and not so small they lack coherence;

the scheme supports a broad range of collecting proposals and is not overly restricted to more
modestly priced genres.
The first round of the New Collecting Awards programme is now open to initial expressions of
interest from curators at any accredited UK museum or gallery with a fine or applied art collection –
a deliberately broad approach which we expect to encourage the greatest variety and quality of
applications. Ultimately the successful applicants will be those able to demonstrate greatest need:
likely individuals either early in their career, or those who have worked in institutions with very few
opportunities to acquire; and likely working in regional museums and galleries. Each collecting
proposition will be scrutinised by our expert Trustees, with successful applicants invited to submit a
more detailed second round proposal. We expect to support between three and six individual
collecting propositions in this first year, ranging in value from a total of £50,000 to £150,000 (with
awards at the upper end of the scale being exceptional). Those that are successful will be supported
by the Art Fund with practical advice and training throughout the process of collecting, which could
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take up to two years. Whilst we are still very early in this process (the deadline for expressions of
interest is 7 November), in the two weeks since the launch of the scheme there has been a large and
effusive response from museums across the UK, with more than 50 enquiries received and
comments including: “this is awe-inspiring” and “what a completely fantastic new scheme curatorial manna from Art Fund heaven!”.
The future of the scheme
Having secured £300,000 to launch the first year of the New Collecting Awards, we are now
fundraising to deliver the second year of the scheme at a scale that will have real impact on the
future of the museums sector. We have secured pledges totalling £195,000 towards our second year
target, including repeat commitments from The Wolfson Foundation, the Ruddock Foundation for
the Arts and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (contingent on successful further fundraising). Were
The Pilgrim Trust to join this consortium of funders, a grant would help us secure the funds pledged
by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and would provide valued support not only to ensure museum
collections retain their vitality, but simultaneously to hone the curatorial skills and specialist
expertise necessary to develop those collections in future. A grant of £30,000, could be used to
support professional development costs for participating curators across the second year of the
scheme.
Our expectation is that, upon successful completion of this two-year pilot, we will refine and relaunch the New Collecting Awards as part of our long-term commitment to collecting and
curatorship.
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