BREAKFAST MEETING AT QUEEN MARY: 8 APRIL



I rather like this bird's eye view of the main campus.  It shows the huge amount of development that has taken place on the site over the last twenty years.   The original part of the site, shown as Queen's Building, is illustrated as the People's Palace at the foot of this blog. 

Friday morning started with the now traditional, I think it has been going in some form or other for fifteen years, breakfast with Queen Mary, University of London. In recent years it has taken place at Queen Mary's main campus on the Mile End Road.

The Company's links with the College go right back to its foundations.  In fact the core of the site is the original location of the Francis Bancroft school and almshouses founded in 1736.  The almshouses have long gone but the school still flourishes a bit further up the Central Line in Woodford.

The Drapers' team included the Master and Wardens and the two members of the Queen Mary Council that are nominated by the Company.  Liveryman Jocelin Harris is Vice-president of the Council and chairs the Finance and General Purposes Committee and Master Warden Anthony Walker is Chair of QMSU Services Ltd the trading business of the university.  Jocelin's father, Past Master Martin Harris, was a much respected President of Council for many years.

Professor Simon Gaskell and three vice principals, Professors Susan Dilly, Philip Ogden and Morag Shiach hosted us on behalf of Queen Mary.  Our links are even more intertwined these days as we are jointly sponsoring Drapers' Academy, Morag Shiach, Susan Dilly and myself are all governors.

We had a most useful review of issues of joint concern and then had an opportunity to visit the new history building - name has yet to be revealed - that now creates an impressive facade along the Mile End Road.


The original People's Palace. The Company donated a significant sum towards initial building costs of the technical wing of the Palace and contributed for many years towards the running costs of the institution.



DRAPERS' CITY FOYER, WEAVERS' FIELDS BETHNAL GREEN: VISIT 17 FEBRUARY

Drapers' City Foyer is a converted former London School Board building.  It is typical of a large number of distinctive schools built across Inner London in the late nineteenth century under the guidance of Edward Robson, the Boards's chief architect.

On Wednesday 17 February Sir Nicholas Jackson, Sir Michael Craig-Cooper, Anthony Walker and myself paid a visit to Drapers' City Foyer.

In the late nineties the Company teamed up with Providence Row a major housing and homelessness charity in East London, especially in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, to refurbish a former London School Board building to create a foyer of forty-one units.  Because of the Company's contribution to the initial construction costs it is called Drapers' City Foyer.  Today the foyer is run by East Potential, an economic and social regeneration charity, on behalf of Providence Row.  For more details go to http://www.prha.net and http://www.east-potential.org.uk/ and go to Drapers' City Foyer

Drapers' City Foyer is designed to provide temporary accommodation for young people who are homeless and in need of support.  The pressing need is to provide shelter and food but equally importantly a foyer can access a whole range of support and advice to give an individual the opportunity to improve their life chances and help them overcome personal problems.

The Foyer is doing well. Last year it successfully supported twenty-eight individuals find new opportunities and who have now left the Foyer.  East Potential want to do more.  They have some interesting ideas such as making more use of the ground floor spaces to provide training opportunities for non-residents.  Also Providence Row has agreed that Flavour Gateway, an innovative catering training and commercial operation, can establish a training cafe, the Cafe Relax, in the building.

Cafe Relax is in a really unusual space, the decor is stunning - I shall try and get some photographs - and there's a great menu that is really good value.  It will be opening shortly, go along for a meal.  For more details go to: http://www.flavourgateway.com/