Meeting with Terry Murphy

In my first posting about January's meeting I said that the CEO of the Embroiderers' Guild was coming to talk to our members - as it happened the meeting was the following Saturday (a fact I omitted - sorry) and as I understand it the meeting was well attended by members from all over the region including members from our branch.  The following brief  report was sent to the blog from Sue Giles who attended the meeting and covers the salient points - I am sure that more information will be available at the February meeting from members who also attended.

We had a meeting with Terry Murphy in response to a letter sent by our regional chairman.  He explained to us about his role in the Guild. He is a Management Consultant who has come in to help the organisation change, not to change the organisation and had been recommended.

We were told Jane Sweet has resigned and hopes to travel and do other things.

Terry has written an independent and regenerating programme for the Guild, there are no systems within the Guild that worked, and the Guild was in danger of collapse or serious harm if action was not taken, but said the staff have been brilliant under the circumstances and they and the Treasurer worked very hard, for the Guild.

The Guild is moving to a house in Walton on Thames and Terry has negotiated special rates with the B B and restaurants nearby for the members and it is also near the  station.  This move could be temporary or permanent so is open ended, but the Guild had to move.

The building has 2 floors and at the moment on the ground floor there will be a permanent room for the collection, a library, bookshop and workroom - all spacious.

The main thing is the collection and the top 1000 pieces will go with the move and be available to travel round the country. The rest will go into secure permanent security.  Lynne Sygenza has offered to help with the move of the collection much to the delight of the members at the meeting.

Terry told us the systems in the Guild were very out of date i.e. the computers and will need starting from scratch to be more efficient and up to date, and said the staff had to be relied on very much for their knowledge and information.  All the staff now have contract including the Treasurer, none of them had before, there are also new contracts with the phones etc.

The YE has not been run efficiently and has been losing money, but this will be altered as they are our future, there are only 670 YE in 67 branches.

Terry will be having a meeting with the staff, trustees, and all the regional chairman’s.

To finish can I say Terry said it was difficult to meet the Guild’s expectations with its charitable obligations and the members who had their own expectations, but we did feel we could go away and rely on him to help bring things forward.

May I just remind members that the next meeting is on Saturday February 5th    See you then