Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Writing this will make me feel like a grumpy old ******, so apologies if that’s how it reads.

In the last few years there has been a lot of information from CH about pupils fundraising for various global charities. I am sure it is all part of being compassionate and worldly, and good for the pupils to learn the process. However I can’t help Wondering whether there are similar initiatives to raise funds for the school charity, or whether the school is losing out as the donations tend to all come from the same group of people, parents, old blues, staff etc.

I have had similar thoughts, myself.

My thoughts should possibly be read in the context that I am a committed speaker for the charity WaterAid, passionate about increasing access to schooling for girls around the world, and passionate about their having proper provision for coping with periods so they can stay on at school after puberty.

One side of me says that it will do the pupils no harm, indeed a lot of good, to learn that there are far too many people in the world far worse off than they are. On the other hand, they should also learn that if they want others to enjoy the benefits of education at CH, there needs to be sufficient funds in the school charity. If the money is not there, there will be more and more full fee paying pupils, and CH will be the same as all the other public schools.

Caveat: I know very little about how charitable organisations work in the UK.
My feeling is that the school wouldn't be affected much (or at all). In my experience, when you have a long term relationship with a charity (ie you give both money and your time to it over an extended period), putting a bit extra into some other charity doesn't affect it at all. It takes something quite large and profound for you to stop.
I'm sure there is an overlap in the people who give to one-off fund-raising and on-going school endowments, but there's a difference in personal commitment that would keep the donations separate in those people's minds.

I would hope, before CH brainwashes the kids into supporting any particular charity, that it does a bit of due diligence into the way the charity is run and if anyone like that Miliband is being paid a lot by it, and ensuring it has a clean sheet vis a vis the way its people behave abroad, and how much of what is collected actually ends up doing good.


… No, of course one neve put a Housey button into the chapel collection ..

I hope this isn't too off-topic, but I've felt for many years that if CH were absolutely true to its original mission with a one-world, non-UK-centric view, then it would actually be shutting-up-shop in the UK, and using the funds and investments to repeat it's original 1552 mission of taking children off the streets of a major city elsewhere in the world, where the children are in the same level of poverty as they were in London in 1552. How much further would be £1k go in an impoverished country than it does in acres of land in rural Sussex?? As it moved from London to Sussex, should it now move to sub-Saharan Africa, both to save costs and reach the most needy in our world society?

It's maybe a difficult truth, but I would argue that not a single child in the UK is genuinely in need of help from CH, when compared to a child in Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Eritrea etc. ? In the UK, if CH weren't providing the education, our welfare state and government (or even a food bank!) would at least ensure a basic standard of living and education.

I completely get why CH wouldn't do this, but it's an interesting moral challenge.....are we too parochial, and too stuck on the tradition, to think further afield? At least by encouraging the kids to raise funds for those who may be worse off than them, they see how lucky they are to live in this country, let alone get a place at CH. (But I do also worry about expecting the kids to be too grateful for their place - as others have said on the Forum, the feeling of gratitude was a significant contributor to the feeling of the need for silence from abuse victims....so a level of realism is good.)

Thoughts?

An interesting idea, Julian! Perhaps do both: increase (rather than reduce) the number of full fee- payers in the UK to fund a CH overseas?

Ooh, now there’s an idea!

Certainly food for thought there, Julian.

Things have obviously changed since the time I was the editor for the OB magazine.
I used to get OB's wanting to advertise their efforts to raise funds for charities, but was vetoed by the Council House, who claimed that we could not publish requests for donations to other charities in a magazine which was published by a charity.
I would insert it by making it a news item, with a contact point, as I was not allowed to put in accounts to credit or JustGiving information.
I welcome the change but now wonder whether it was not the person who who objected was CHA manager's boss at the time, since it went against their fund raising responsibilities.
I think Julian will remember who it was.
The idea of relocating overseas is not new, and their may even be something about it on the Forum somewhere.

I seem to recall that in the late 80's there was the idea of a CH satellite somewhere in the EU - an odd notion considering that at the time CH was investing prodigiously in things like the Sports Centre whilst sliding into further debt. Another wacky scheme from Poulton that was a further distraction from his failed pastoral responsibilities.

I thought that Housey should have purchased St Bees in Cumbria when it went down last year. The South of England and London migrant communities seem to obtain most financial benefits. There are many areas of the deprived north where children might enjoy a boarding experience such as CH-but they continue to be left ignored particularly in outermost rural areas. JHGS

John Saunders wrote: ↑Sun Dec 02, 2018 3:06 pm I thought that Housey should have purchased St Bees in Cumbria when it went down last year. The South of England and London migrant communities seem to obtain most financial benefits. There are many areas of the deprived north where children might enjoy a boarding experience such as CH-but they continue to be left ignored particularly in outermost rural areas. JHGS

I know nothing about St Bees but your post raises all sorts of questions:

- WHY did St Bees actually close down (the truth rather than the publicity)
-cost of property
-condition of assets
-debts and other outside liabilities
-contracts (including teachers) to be taken over
-the pupils carried forward and their terms of entry
-reputation as a school
-potential for local disapproval
-Could the school be converted into another CH - the scholarship angle
-How would CH go abut the takeover and after (CH did not have excess staff)
-Where would CH get the money from?

I can understand and agree with your argument that the north west needs such a school - it is a question of the wherewithall. IF CH went fully fee paying then the scholarship funds could open a lot of new schools but do we want CH to go down that route? Remember that with the closing of Hertford there was income from the sale of the land and buildings and savings on the Hertford overheads. OTOH we lost +/- 300 places for which scholarships do not have to be found but still the school is not living on the high side.

The usual approach - eg by Westminster, Dulwich, Wellington et al is to operate schools overseas to subsidise UK operations.