Private & Confidential
MSC Minutes 3.5.17
MASONIC SUPPORT COMMITTEE
Minutes of the meeting held on
Wednesday 3 May 2017
12.30 – 14.30
Ruspini Room, MCF Office, Freemasons’ Hall
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Present
Simon Fellerman, Chris Grove, Graham Ives, Ian Newby.
In attendance
Les Hutchinson (Acting Chairman), Gareth Everett, John McCrohan, Natasha Ward, Maggie
Holloway, Gill Bennett, Tom Hulme.
David Innes, CEO, also attended for part of the meeting.
1. Apologies
John Hornblow (Chairman), Eric Bourne, Paul Branscombe, Charles Cunnington, Michael
Squires.
2. Declarations of interest
There were no declarations of interest.
3. Approve and sign the minutes of the meeting of 24 January 2017
The Minutes of the meeting of 24 January, as previously circulated, were confirmed and
signed.
4. Matters Arising
Les Hutchinson, Acting Chairman, explained that the Chairman’s absence was due to his
continued ill health. The committee sent him their best wishes.
Les Hutchinson stated that, as this was not a quorate committee meeting, any decisions
which were reached would be recorded and discussed with the Chairman before being
ratified by the Trustees at their next Board meeting.
5. Strategy Away Day outcomes
John McCrohan gave a summary of the paper included in the agenda. The paper would
feed into discussions at the Board’s strategy day (to be held the following day) and he
stressed the importance of discussing any inaccuracies in his interpretation of the findings
from the Masonic Support strategy day.
Les Hutchinson asked for any comments and Simon Fellerman raised the point that the
Masonic Samaritan Fund had worked to an annual target spend of £5M. Spend on
medical applications had reduced to around £3M.
David Innes said that he felt the focus should be on meeting need, rather than setting and
achieving a target to spend.
Gareth Everett explained that the new policy was based on the need to find an
appropriate level of support when integrating the very different eligibility criteria from the
three grant-making charities. The criteria for medical cases were already generous and if
the capital levels had been raised, it would have resulted in no financial test, which was
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not what the committee had wanted to achieve. Data would be available in the near future
which would establish if the policy had set eligibility criteria at an acceptable level.
Chris Grove stated that an overly generous set of eligibility criteria for medical cases
could result in the assistance offered being mistakenly viewed as a form of private health
scheme for Freemasons.
Les Hutchinson asked if there would be further strategy workshops for the committee.
John McCrohan said that he would like all future committee meetings to spend some time
focussing on strategy and that there may be merit in a further workshop for the autumn to
focus on topics including support for cases in the Districts if these could not be addressed
within the time constraints of a routine committee meeting.
6. Update on Advice and Support Team
Maggie Holloway gave an update on the work of the team.
The team is busy but is achieving the target of making contact with applicants to arrange
a visit within 48 hours of receiving the commission and sending the completed report to
the Grants team within five days of the visit.
Les Hutchinson and Chris Groves both asked if the workload was manageable. Maggie
Holloway replied that it was currently but if she felt additional resources were required in
the future, she would raise the issue with Gareth Everett.
Each member of the team had attended one of the Grants team’s staff panel meetings
and this was helping to forge closer working relationships. The new policy with one set of
eligibility criteria had been welcomed by the team and they were also pleased to be using
GAMES, the new database. Maggie Holloway added that she was in the process of sifting
applications for this year’s four UK holidays.
7. Update on Visiting Volunteer scheme
Natasha Ward confirmed that the next Province to undergo training would be Hampshire
and Isle of Wight, which would take place in June. Middlesex had a confirmed training
date and a further group of PGAs and Provincial contacts were meeting on 15 May to
begin the process.
40 per cent of Provinces had either launched the Visiting Volunteer scheme or were
working towards doing so and Natasha Ward said that she was confident that the scheme
would be fully rolled out by this time next year. A further two women had been appointed
as Visiting Volunteers; one was awaiting training and the other was waiting to be given an
area to cover. Natasha Ward said she was hopeful that this number would increase as
the scheme continued to roll-out. There was also one male non-Freemason who had
been appointed in Sussex - a former member of the MCF Grants team.
Les Hutchinson asked if either of the two female Visiting Volunteers would be suitable to
join the committee. Natasha Ward said that this would need to be investigated as their
areas of expertise and interest for committee membership was not covered in the Visiting
Volunteer recruitment process.
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8. Update on Provincial Support
Natasha Ward said that the PGA focus group had met for the first time the previous day.
She was confident that this would become a useful forum. The induction process for new
PGAs had been signed off and would soon be rolled out. The PGAs had requested that
regional meetings became a full day event and incorporated any relevant training. The
new Lodge Almoner handbook would focus on pastoral care. It would be a short
document and would signpost to sources of support. Natasha Ward said that she was
surprised that the group had not raised ‘keeping in touch’ which was an important function
of the Lodge Almoner role. She intended to research this topic and ensure it was on the
agenda for discussion at future focus group meetings.
Les Hutchinson asked if there was any merit in an article in Freemasonry Today about
the role of the Lodge Almoner. Natasha Ward confirmed that there had been an article
about Visiting Volunteers but that she would discuss the possibility with the
Communications team.
Les Hutchinson asked if there had been any discussion about who should attend the
regional meetings. Natasha Ward confirmed that the PGAs wanted the Craft PGA and
one assistant only. They were aware that the MCF had links with the Mark Order.
Committee members agreed with this and stated that PGAs should already have links
with those in other orders so it was not essential that the regional meetings were used for
communication purposes to other orders.
David Innes asked if the Lodge Almoners’ handbook should be signed off by UGLE.
Natasha Ward stated this had not happened in the past and that PGAs had been content
with the former Masonic charities taking responsibility, with their input. Les Hutchinson
asked if it would be appropriate for someone from UGLE to provide a foreword. Natasha
Ward replied that this version of the handbook was intended to be a smaller, more
concise document and that a formal foreword may not sit with the tone of the document.
There was some discussion about the best way forward and David Innes decided that a
‘mature draft’ of the document should be sent to the Grand Secretary for information.
Natasha Ward confirmed that the handbook was scheduled for completion in the autumn.
9. Update on GAMES
Gareth Everett confirmed that the database went live on 3 April, with the legacy systems
having closed at midday on 30 March. All of the Grants team were using GAMES, all
cases were being processed through the system and five weekly pay runs had been
successfully completed. The staff panel was also working well with a drop in the number
of cases being escalated because of the new delegated authority levels. There had been
a slight delay with the roll-out to the Advice and Support team to allow the Grants team to
familiarise themselves with the system and enable them to become a support resource
for the AST.
A small number of Visiting Volunteer Provinces were using GAMES and the team were
working towards rolling out across all of the live Visiting Volunteer Provinces. Robert
Price, the Provincial Support Officer, and Suzanne Atkins, one of the Grants Officers,
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were focussing on supporting PGAs with the system. Despite having two training
sessions, some of the PGAs and Provincial contacts were having difficulties with using
the system. Suzanne was looking into ways to assist such as webinars or one-to-one
support. Alex Taylor, one of the Learning and Development Officers, was planning some
video training to assist PGAs with the important functions in the system.
There had been some issues with data, mainly as a result of data not being transferred
correctly. The next area of focus was reporting; reporting for the Finance team, for the
MSC, for the Strategy team and for management purposes. Gareth praised the work of
the Grants department and the developers and also Suhail Alam, Relief Chest Director,
for his continued support.
In answer to Simon Fellerman’s question about which external users had access to
GAMES, Gareth Everett confirmed that it was the PGA and selected Provincial contacts
only. Gareth Everett went on to talk about the next GAMES project, which would be to
integrate GAMES with an Electronic Data and Records Management System (EDRMS)
already partially in place at MCF. This would provide a robust, searchable and managed
records system. A project initiation meeting was planned for week commencing 8 May.
10. Seasonal Grants
Tom Hulme gave a summary of the paper included with the agenda. There was much
discussion about how to manage these grants, given that this was a legacy provision from
the RMTGB and there was no comparable means of identifying low income families
against existing criteria. The financial implication was a consideration for the committee,
as was withdrawing grants from families because eligibility criteria had been amended.
The committee decided that those families who had received a summer holiday grant last
year would be paid again this year. Further work would then be undertaken to create a
process and policy to identify eligible cases in the future.
11.a. Policy update
Tom Hulme gave a summary of the paper included in the agenda.
Les Hutchinson asked how amendments had been determined as major or minor and
whether they would simple adaptations/refinements to existing policy or whether they
would need to be reviewed by the Committee. Gareth Everett confirmed that such
decisions would be taken by him and John McCrohan.
Simon Fellerman explained the complexity of the Motability scheme and asked how the
‘car costs for those ineligible for Motability Scheme’ would be implemented. Tom Hulme
confirmed that further work would be needed before this could be considered.
Gareth Everett raised a comment on behalf of John Hornblow, who had suggested that it
would be appropriate for a member of the committee to be included earlier in the policy
discussion process. The committee agreed that this should be implemented on an ad-hoc
basis, where a committee member had a relevant area of expertise. The committee
commented that they were content to trust staff and their judgement.
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11.b. Grants Appeals and Complaints Policy and Process
The committee discussed section seven on page 11 of the document and asked that the
final bullet point be re-worded.
There was some discussion about whether the appeals and complaints process should
be two separate documents but in summary, the committee decided that it should remain
as one document for the time being but this would be re-visited based on experience of
how it operated. They agreed that the document should be available on the MCF website
and that all appeals and complaints should be reported to the committee.
11.c. Summary of Policy document updates
This item was covered under 11.a.
12. Reporting
John McCrohan updated the committee on this area of his team’s work. The reporting
element of GAMES was not yet providing the information required. One report had been
created for grants and enquiries but the information about the grant-making area of work
was not yet fit for purpose. The developers were aware of this issue and it was a high
priority item for resolution. It was agreed that if an appropriate report could be produced in
time, it would be circulated before the July meeting and committee’s requirements for
future reports could be discussed at the meeting.
13. Grants Approved
Gareth Everett confirmed that GAMES had successfully produced a report of grants
awarded for 16 December to 30 March. £2.5M had been awarded for this period. As the
report was 32 pages long, it was agreed that it would be circulated with the Minutes.
14. Audit report
The committee noted and accepted the report.
15. AOB
Simon Fellerman gave his apologies in advance for the committee meeting on 18 July.
The meeting closed at 14.30.
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