On Thursday 16th June, the Friend's charitable trust was awarded £1000 as a result of a competition run at the Charter School, where teams of students bid for funds for a charity of their choice. The photo shows the winning team, Rosa Beuzwal, Oliver and Ellie, with Jeff Doorn, chair of the Association and of the Friends. The funds will be used to develop the Association's business plans to run the Carnegie building and library as a community-led trust.
Congratulations to Stella Duffy, a keen supporter of the Friends, on being made an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours. Awarded for services to the Arts, the citation lists her as “Writer and Theatremaker”, which gives only a small idea of her many accomplishments.
Stella has long been associated with Carnegie Library, hosting workshops, giving readings and attending events over the years. As Director of Fun Palaces, she inspired the hugely successful Fun Palace Day at Carnegie Library and all Lambeth Libraries on 3 October 2015. More recently, she spoke at rallies and signed up 220 authors to a letter supporting libraries and opposing closures.
A full appreciation will appear in our next Newsletter. In the meantime, we salute our dear friend and neighbour on her well deserved honour.
Lambeth have announced that they will be putting on an exhibition about the possible future uses of the building instead, it seems, of the public meeting they were promising for many months. The exhibition will be on Tuesday 21 and Wednesday 22 June. A copy of their flyer giving details is here.
The Friends' committee prepared a leaflet giving questions visitors to the exhibition may want to ask. This is here and here. In the meantime it is hoped that local people will appreciate that the Neighbourhood Library promised by Lambeth is defined by Lambeth to consist only of books, computers and Wi-Fi access in a room used for non-library purposes. A Neighbourhood Library does NOT INCLUDE a room or a part of a room set aside for library use. The Culture 2020 Report approved by Lambeth's Cabinet and, subsequently, full Council proposes that these books etc be located in a gym lounge. The initial floor plans disclosed recently show a library element mixed in with ‘flexible community space'.
Any further plans disclosed by Lambeth will need careful scrutiny. The current proposal is to let the whole building to Greenwich Leisure Limited as a Healthy Living Centre comprising a range of uses. They would not get just the basement for use as a gym.
Jeff Doorn, Chair
In a posting on their website dated 2nd June Carnegie Community Trust accuse the Friends' committee of lying, but there is no indication of when or where the statements objected to are alleged to have been made, and there is no distinction made between the Friends and Defend the Ten, a separate organisation.
If there is any assertion in anything written on behalf of the Friends which it is felt needs justification I would be grateful if this could be brought to my attention. We do usually give chapter and verse for anything we publish, and would be happy to remedy any apparent omission.
The CCT posting contains many more inaccuracies than we have time to correct at present. The matters concerned have already been dealt with in detail previously. However, I should mention some aspects which are likely to jump out at readers:
1. There seems to be an attempt to distract readers from the basic fact that Lambeth acknowledge that they have the money to run all their libraries but CHOOSE instead to spend this money on subsidising gyms. (Culture 2020 Report paragraph 5.8)
2. CCT refer to a proposal for an “endowment” fund and say this could have covered staff salaries. At no time was it suggested to the Friends that the fund could pay for library staff. We were invited to establish a volunteer-run library. This had already been rejected by our members in general meeting. No other Friends group would agree to volunteers replacing professional staff. (The proposal did not go ahead anyway because it was to be funded by selling off Waterloo and Minet Libraries which proved to be impractical.)
3. The CCT claim the Friends want only a library and nothing else. We have never said that; instead, we have consistently proposed developing the library for compatible wider use. The charity we set up with eight other user groups, Carnegie Library Association CIO, will do just that.
In response to the recent leaflet issued by Lambeth on the future of Carnegie Library, the Society's committee wrote to Cllr Lib Peck, Council Leader, and Cllr Jack Hopkins, Cabinet member responsible for libraries. The letter, dated 6 May, is here.
Following is an update in response to the latest leaflet and floor plans announced for the Carnegie by Lambeth Council.