Introduction

The Carnegie Library Association is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) which aims to restore the Carnegie library as a public library and educational, social, cultural and community resource for Herne Hill and the surrounding area.

We are run by an elected committee of 9 trustees, including representatives of library user groups and of the Friends of Carnegie Library.

News

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 14 MARCH 2019

The third Annual General Meeting of Carnegie Library Association will be held at St Saviour’s Church, Herne Hill Road on Thursday 14 March, immediately following the AGM of Friends of Carnegie Library, which begins at 6.30.

Following both groups’ AGMs, there will be a concert by The Friends’ Musick, then a general discussion until 9.30 pm.

A brief Trustees’ Report and Accounts are here:
http://friendsofcarnegielibrary.org.uk/services/carnegie-library-association/report19.pdf and
http://friendsofcarnegielibrary.org.uk/services/carnegie-library-association/accounts19.pdf.

CLA AGM, 22nd March 2018

The second Annual General Meeting of Carnegie Library Association will be held at St Saviour's Church, Herne Hill Road on Thursday 22 March, immediately following the AGM of Friends of Carnegie Library, which begins at 6.30pm.

On arrival, CLA members will be given a membership card; this will be your voting card for the evening. Following an update on developments, we will elect the Trustees and hold an open discussion of future actions. The quorum for the AGM is 15, but it is important that as many members as possible attend. A detailed agenda will be provided at the meeting. Refreshments will be available.

A formal notice is here.

Press Release 30th November: CARNEGIE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION READY TO STEP IN

The Carnegie Library Association is not surprised at the continued failure of the
Carnegie Community Trust's (CCT's) bid to take over the Carnegie Library and now the
seeming disarray within the CCT. Their proposals were drawn up in secret, had no
community support, and to this day the public do not know what their plans are in any
detail, in spite of the fact that Lambeth appears to have given £ 100,000 of Council Tax
payer's money to support them.

Our Association, whose community-backed bid was rejected by the Council (despite being assessed at a similar level to the CCT), is fully-prepared to step up to the plate and start discussions with
Lambeth on our plans to run the Library and associated activities for the benefit of the
whole community. In contrast to the CCT, the Association:

• Includes the provision of the library as one of its constitutional purposes.
• Has published a fully-costed business plan.
• Was set up by groups connected with the library.
• Is a membership organisation with hundreds of members.
• Has trustees who have been democratically elected by the members.

The Association remains ready to take the transfer of the Carnegie Library but we need the
co-operation of the Council to do this and it has so far been withheld.
We will be making representations to this end

Jeff Doorn,
Chair, Carnegie Library Association

Asset Transfer Announced

Lambeth council has announced the asset transfer of the Carnegie library to the other trust, the CCT,
even though we attained a similar level of evaluation in the assessment, which can be viewed
here. We intend to appeal this decision.

A copy of our presentation to Lambeth in April is here.

Annual General Meeting

Our first AGM was held on Thursday 16th March 2017,
7pm at St. Saviours Church Hall, Herne Hill Rd. The existing trustees were
unanimously re-elected by a well-attended meeting. The trustees are: Demi de Lion,
Jeffrey Doorn, Rae Stoltenkamp, Danny Friedman, Nicholas Edwards, Hazel Watson,
Frances Alderson, Bob Goodrick, Stephen Carlill.

The annual reports are here

Applications for Planning permission and Listed Building consent

The contractor which runs most of Lambeth's leisure centres, Greenwich Leisure Limited,
has applied for consent to turn, in effect, the whole of the building into a gym and destroy most of the
Reading and Wildlife Garden.

Friends of Carnegie Library and Herne Hill Society have made detailed objections to the proposals, quoting
Chapter and verse of the Lambeth Planning policies contravened by the proposals. The Association's trustees have
adopted those objections and added a few more.

Additionally, in an attempt to be as constructive as possible, the trustees have indicated requirements which,
if satisfied, might render the presence of a gym tolerable. These are:

• The ground and first floors would not be affected by the gym or disturbance from it.
• There would not be any intrusion into the Reading and Wildlife Garden and there would be continued access to the garden for wheelchair users.
• The gym would make a worthwhile contribution to the running costs of the building and the Association would be compensated for loss of revenue from the basement.
• Membership of the gym would be restricted to local people and the opening hours limited to times acceptable to the neighbours.

Further details are in a copy of the trustees' letter to Lambeth and its attachment, both of which are available
here.

Data Protection Policy

This has been published here.

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

The Association now has a Twitter address:
@CarnegieLibAsso
Please follow us and help spread the word and news about our plans.

CLA BUSINESS PLAN PUBLISHED

We have prepared a bid for asset transfer of the Carnegie library building. The business
plan can be viewed here.

We have run
several consultation events for the local community, and distributed surveys to every address in the local
area.

Please sign up now to show your support for saving the library for the community!

The Carnegie Library Association has been set up by the Friends, in partnership with other
library user groups, in order to apply to Lambeth for control of the library and its grounds
through an asset transfer process. The Carnegie Library Association's aim is to reinstate the
professionally-run library along with the community activities which were there before plus
new ones compatible with the library. Maximum use would be made of the whole building,
including uses to raise money to subsidize the cost of providing the library service. It is
really important that we are able to demonstrate as much local support as possible,
particularly before the deadline for the bid which is 28th October.

Please sign up by sending an email to claciomember@gmail.com with your
Full Name, Address, Telephone and
Email.

The Association is registered as a democratic Charitable Incorporated Organisation with
limited liability and membership is free until the first AGM in March 2017, so you are not
making any financial commitment.

THE CARNEGIE COMMUNITY TRUST (CCT)

This undemocratic body purports to be a community organisation and has put in a Business Plan
in competition with the one submitted to Lambeth by Carnegie Library Association. They inform us that the
Association's proposals and CCT's proposals are similar "in a number of respects" but as CCT have not published
their Business Plan it is not possible for the Association to comment.

CCT allege that the Association's Business Plan does not constitute a "united community bid." The
Association was formed by Friends of Carnegie Library and eight other community organisations involved with the library.
The only disunity appears to be that as the CCT has aims diametrically opposed to those of the nine
organisations, we cannot see what role they would have to play in a community-developed bid.

A summary of the known differences between CCT and the Friends / Carnegie Library Association is
here.