Friends Of Friargate Bridge Blog

Here are some key points from the FFGB trustees’ meeting on 17 July 2017:

1. Governance Consultants

1.1. A formal ‘Brief’ has been prepared for issue to a number of Governance Consultants who specialise in Heritage-related projects. These Consultants are drawn from a list provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund – and identification of these is pre-requisite to receiving any Heritage Lottery Funding.

1.2. The ‘Brief’ was issued on 15 May 2017, inviting a number of Governance Consultants to submit proposals for “Advising on the appropriate Organisation Structure for FFGB and for conducting a comprehensive Governance Review.”

The Governance Review includes the FFGB Constitution, Trustee / Key Volunteers’ Skills and Roles & Responsibilities, Operational Processes, Training Plans and Recruitment.

1.3. Proposals have been received and a short-list of 5 Consultants has been drawn up.

1.4. The formal FFGB process for selection of a Governance Consultant has been documented and is being followed through. The final selection meeting has been scheduled for Monday 24 July 2017.

2. Architectural Heritage Consultants

2.1. A formal brief has been prepared for issue to a number Heritage Accredited Architects. These Architects have been selected based on advice from the HLF together with a review of all Architects Accredited in Building Conservation in the Midlands as contained in the AABC Register.

2.2. The ‘Brief’ was issued on 18 May 2017, inviting a number of Architects to submit proposals for a “Viability Study of Options for Friar Gate Bridge”.

2.3. Proposal have been received from firms of suitably qualified Architects.

2.4. The formal FFGB process for selection of an Architectural Consultant has been documented and is being followed through. The final selection meeting has been scheduled for Monday 24 July 2017.

3. Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) – Scoping Project

3.1. Following discussion and meetings with representatives from the HLF in Nottingham, a formal ‘Project Scoping’ bid under their Resilient Heritage Scheme was submitted on 19 June 2017.

3.2. On 28 June 2017, a letter was received from HLF to acknowledge receipt of our Bid and advise that “There is strong competition for our funds and your application will be considered as part of a competitive batch with other projects where we will assess the relative strengths of applications alongside the available budget. Your application has been provisionally allocated to a meeting that will take place on 22 August 2017.”

4. Heritage Strength Check

4.1. A self-assessment has been made of FFGB against the on-line ‘Heritage Strength Checker’ from HLF. The output from this, together with combined business knowledge of Trustees and Key Volunteers is being used to identify what needs to be done to ensure that the FFGB is ‘fit for purpose’ going forward.

4.2. Also, a self-assessment has been made against a skills matrix derived from the Strength Checker and HLF feedback from meetings.

4.3. A formal (external) Heritage Strength Check review will be made by the Governance Consultant and a report produced once the Scoping Project gets underway.

5. Business Processes

5.1. Work has taken place on identifying and documenting the Key Business Processes required to run the FFGB Charity.

5.2. A Business Management Manual has been produced, which lists the (currently) 30 Key Business Processes – including Strategic Planning, Project Management, Public Relations and Communications. This manual is based on the world-leading ‘Porter Value Chain’.

5.3. The Template for documenting Processes, to a common format, has been established – and a number of processes have already been defined and are operational. These include process for Managing Meetings, Governance Consultant Selection and Architect selection.

5.4. Further processes have been drafted and are at various stages of implementation – such as Business Continuity (including a Risk Register), Website Design & Management and Event Management & Fundraising.

6. Partners

6.1. Derby City Council have provided a letter of support that the Council is fully supportive of the HLF Scoping Bid submitted by the Friends of Friar Gate Bridge and that they are very much hoping that this initial bid will pave the way for a much bigger project where both parties can work even more closely together.

6.2. Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust HBT have advised that they would like to provide us with support (non-financial) as either ‘enabler’ or ‘partner’ dependent on how the Scoping Project unfolds.

Here are some key points from the FFGB trustees’ meeting on 12 June 2017:

• Our Scoping Project bid will very soon be submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund, thanks to splendid work by Malcolm Holden in preparing briefs, obtaining quotations and drafting the bid.  If the funding is granted it will pay for a professional viability study on potential economic uses of the Bridge, and a governance review to help ensure that FFGB is resilient enough to complete the restoration.
• We are documenting our processes and project risks to ensure that we organise ourselves effectively and anticipate potential problems.
• We are very happy to welcome four new volunteers, thanks to Mike Wingfield’s publicity for FFGB in Rolls-Royce and on Nextdoor.

Trustees’ update

• Friends of Friar Gate Bridge (FFGB) continues to work towards submitting a bit to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for a project scoping grant, and have started to receive quotations for work that could be carried out under the grant.
• The trustees have recently undertaken a review of how we manage ourselves as an organisation.  Although active volunteers are currently few, we need to operate effectively and make sensible plans to grow our resources.  The review will help us to use our scoping project to get into a position where we can demonstrate to the HLF and other funders that we are resilient enough to see the project through.
• We are continuing to have discussions with other heritage-related organisations that might help us financially or with advice.

The FFGB trustees and key volunteers had a productive meeting on Monday 3rd April. Our main focus remains to prepare a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for a Resilient Heritage Scoping Project grant. We hope that this will provide funding for viability studies into potential uses of the bridge, and also some funding to help us establish ourselves as a more robust organisation. At today’s meeting we:

• reported on very helpful meetings with Derby City Council and the Derbyshire Historical Buildings Trust.
• made preparations for an honest review of the things we do well and not so well as an organisation.
• discussed the actions needed to generate the inputs to our HLF Scoping Project bid, especially getting to the point where we can get quotations for the professional work we hope to pay for with the grant

1. Bucket Collection at DCFC v Preston on March 7^th
2. Trustees will be meeting to do a Gap analysis to evaluate how to get better as an organisation.
3. We are beginning to communicate with other people eg: Derby City Council and Derbyshire Historical Buildings Trust