: 27 November 2024

The London Library AGM | 26 November 2024

Treasurer’s Speech Notes

Good evening.

I am pleased to report to members on the Library’s financial position for the year ending 31 March 2024. I shall summarise what I have written in the annual report and the magazine. I shall then talk briefly about the financial performance for the current year and set out the proposed fee increases. I shall end by looking back over my time as Treasurer.

Let me begin with the financial results set out in the annual report and following recommended accounting practice for charities.

Those of you attending remotely should see a summary table of our performance on your screen. Those in The Reading Room should have found a printed page on your chair when you sat down on one side of which a table showing the net movement in funds over the last three years appears.

I will discuss, in turn, all the elements that make up the movement in the Library’s overall funds during the year. This table is compiled from the audited financial statements and appears in the annual report on page 16. I have presented the results in this summary form previously and the comparatives for the last two years are also shown.

Looking first at our income from membership, events, and trading: at £3.1m this was 5% higher than the prior year. Membership and related income increased by 2% to £2.9m. We earned £202,000 from talks, venue hire, and trading. This was double the amount of the prior year: thanks in part to the producers of the film Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. I did not watch it and, sadly, neither did anyone else. We cannot anticipate a sequel as the film was not a commercial success.

Fundraising income at £1.4m was about half the amount of the prior year. However, in 2023 we recognised two exceptional legacies totalling £2m. I echo the thanks already expressed to all who donate: all donors are recorded over three pages in the annual report. Continued success in fundraising is vital. As you have heard already, membership income covers only two-thirds of the operating costs of the Library: our remaining costs must be met from events, donations and investment income.

The total costs of operating the Library -- £4.9m relating to operations and £360,000 to the costs of fundraising -- increased by about 13%. However, this includes £300,000 of projects funded by the Tom Stoppard fund. I estimate the Library’s underlying costs increased by about 6%.

While keeping a close eye on expenditure we continue to add to the collection. During the year we added about 4,300 printed items to the catalogue. We spent £327,000 on the acquisition of printed and digital material, an increase of 18% over last year.

Investment income increased by £66,000 to £294,000. This was mostly due to the much better interest rates available, particularly for term deposits.

The net expenditure for the year is therefore £391,000. Clearly, this is a markedly different result to the prior year. However, as I mentioned earlier, the prior year included £2m of legacy income. The underlying position, excluding exceptional legacies, shows incremental improvements over the last three years.

There then follow two items that are non-cash revaluations.

First, we record an unrealised gain of £553,000 in the market value of our financial investments. These largely comprise our endowment and restricted funds and were invested in the Newton Growth & Income Fund for charities. The unrealised gain is about 7.5% of the value of the holdings and reflects general stock market performance.

Second, each year we compare the assets that support the obligations of the Staff Superannuation Fund – our closed defined benefit pension scheme – with the estimated present value of the scheme’s future obligations to its members. While the scheme remains in surplus, in the amount of £760,000 under this accounting estimate, a small reduction of £42,000 in the amount of the surplus is recognised in the statement of financial activities.

Although we record it, the Trustees do not consider this surplus is available to the Library today, it will only be after all obligations are met over many years that any surplus will revert to the Library.

As you can see from the table, both these non-cash movements can swing from being large positive to large negative numbers one year to the next. This is simply a reflection of the volatility that we have observed in share prices and the yield on government gilts, in recent years.

Overall, the Library’s funds increased this year by £120,000.

This was the sixth year of our strategic plan. One of the goals of the plan was to eliminate the Library’s operating deficit by 2024. The operating result is the key measure of financial sustainability used by the trustees: it shows whether the costs of running the Library can be met by our regular operating income, from membership, trading, and regular fundraising. In 2018 the Library was running an operating deficit of over £600,000 and this year we report a small surplus of £17,000. A reconciliation between net expenditure and this surplus is to be found on page 17 of the annual report.

I appreciate that I am reporting on the financial year ending in March almost two-thirds through the current financial year. Let me make some brief comments on the year to date.

At the end of October, the number of members was about the same as at the end of March. If we see the same trend as in recent years, we can expect a net growth in membership by the end of the financial year. The financial performance is overall in line with budget: we are ahead in voluntary income offsetting a shortfall against budgeted membership income. Furthermore, the trustees have also been advised of a possible substantial legacy of considerably more than £1m. John Colenutt, my successor, will report on this next year.

Since March we have carried out a tender process to appoint a new investment manager. The Trustees appointed Rathbones to manage the Library’s financial investments. In recent years the amount we have under management has grown considerably and a fully discretionary mandate is now better suited to the Library’s needs. We have completed the formalities of account opening today and will be transferring assets to our new manager shortly.

Later, I will propose the resolution to approve the proposed fee increases from 1 January as set out in the meeting notice. These increases are 1.8% for those paying by annual direct debit. Full membership by other payment methods will increase by 3.3%. We are aware that members continue to experience rising prices; so too does the Library. I note that the recently announced changes to Employers’ National Insurance Contributions will alone add almost 1% to the Library’s costs in a full year. We continue to encourage members to pay be annual direct debit and offer a discount now worth £60 to those who do.

As this is my last report as Treasurer, I would like to thank Chris Gilbert, Director of Finance and Resources, and our Finance team for all the work they do to control the Library and to produce the comprehensive annual report.

I want to end by comparing the financial position of the Library today to that of eight years ago. Thanks to the generosity of its many donors — especially the munificent legacies of Drue Heinz, Chris Smith, Susan Batty and Gweslan Lloyd – and the dogged efforts of the Executive and staff to grow the Library’s income from all sources while controlling costs, I can confidently state that our financial position is much improved. That is not to say that there is not more to do: our operating surplus would ideally be between 5% and 10% of our income; we need to continue to grow income from all sources; and more permanent funds would certainly reduce the pressure to grow annual fundraising.

Those of you attending remotely should see a table showing our different funds on your screen. Those in The Reading Room will find on the reverse of the printed page the table showing growth in funds 2017-24.

The table shows our funds by category. Over the last eight years these have grown by £4.4m, or 61%, while, over the same period, the Library has paid out £1.5m to the SSF, the closed pension scheme, to transform its solvency, and funded six years of operating deficits totalling over £2m.

The growth in endowment and restricted funds provides more income supporting our book acquisitions and collection care, while the designated funds allow us to invest in technology and carry out overdue maintenance to No. 14.

The charity’s total funds, are over £31 million, including the amounts shown in the table. Overall, we had free reserves of £2.3 million at the end of March.

We have no debt. We own the freehold to our buildings: surely worth very much more than the historic cost value of £16.8 million in the accounts. The collection does not appear on the balance sheet as acquisitions are charged to the revenue account when purchased but it is insured for £26m.

It is this improved position that allows the Trustees now to consider improvements to the Library’s fabric and facilities, some of which were first considered twenty years ago.

When TS Eliot became the Library’s President in 1952, he said: “The maintenance of an institution cannot be defended on the ground of its usefulness in the past: only on the ground of its value for the present and the future.”

I shall let him have the last word. It has been a privilege to serve this precious institution.

Back to AGM, Annual Reports & Strategic Plan →

Read the 2023/24 New Voices Rise anthology:

The 2023/24 Emerging Writers Cohort:

AD Aaba Atach is a media and communication strategist, with a background in politics and human rights. A Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford, she studies the contemporary Middle East. She was a finalist for the #MerkyBooks and Penguin Random House UK's New Writers' Competition in 2019. @IAmAnaDiamond

Sara Aghlani is an Indian Iranian artist living in London. Her background is in film and television. Recently she has undertaken various illustration courses and is currently developing a collection of poetry. Instagram: @saltypheasant

Dr Noga Applebaum is a Jewish writer and lecturer specialising in children’s literature. She is twice winner of the London Writers Short Story competition and has published a monograph on representations of technology in young adult fiction. She is working on a YA novel set in the Hasidic community.

Carole Aubrée-Dumont is a France-born writer living in Brighton. Her memoir-in-progress was shortlisted in the Mslexia Memoir Competition 2020. It is the story of how the diagnosis of her son’s speechlessness made her confront the silences in her French family. Instagram: @caroleaubreedumont

Jess Barnfield works in audio publishing and lives in South London. Originally from the Midlands, she has lived and studied in Paris, Edinburgh and Cambridge. She was highly commended for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award in 2022 and is currently working on her first novel. Instagram: @jkbfield

Olga Braga is a playwright and screenwriter. She also does stand-up comedy, having performed at some of London’s most popular comedy clubs including Backyard Comedy, Top Secret, the Comedy Store, Camden Comedy Club and Vauxhall Comedy Club. Instagram: @olga__braga. Twitter: @OlgaBraga6

Rachael Li Ming Chong is a writer, teacher and social entrepreneur. In 2022 she received a Let Teachers SHINE Award, and a Literature Matters Award from the Royal Society of Literature. She is a winner of The Poetry Archive’s Word View 2021 Competition and a graduate of the HarperCollins Author Academy. Twitter: @rhubarbpostcard

Louise Conniss is from Yorkshire and studied History at Newcastle University. She now lives in London and is writing a middle-grade series where malevolent fairies bring chaos to Victorian London.

James Cornwell is a Cambridge literature graduate. He has worked in the centre of British Government, which has in no way informed his novel, a satirical whodunnit set in Chequers.

Nicole Davis is a freelance creative producer, podcaster and writer. She commissions short films for BFI NETWORK, moderates events and panels, and recently produced the storytelling anthology podcast ‘Never Told’ with Brock Media. She lives in London. Twitter: @stonecoledfox

Yiota Demetriou is a third-generation British Cypriot multimedia artist, educator, writer, and multisensory designer. Her award-winning artwork, which explores the intersection of technology, art, and human connection, has been exhibited across the EU, featured on BBC Radio, and in the Bookseller. She is writing creative non-fiction about the experiences of Cypriot women in the diaspora. Twitter: @yiota_demetriou. Instagram: @interactive_storytelling / @sapiopetrichor

William Yamaguchi Dobson is a recovering barrister, full-time dad and husband, and writer of middle-grade fiction. He is working on a funny action-adventure series set in an alternate feudal Japan and has been shortlisted for The Bath Children’s Novel Award. He also writes stage plays and screenplays. Twitter: @WYDobson1

Timothy Fox is originally from Texas. He received a Houston Press Theatre Award for his play The Whale; or, Moby-Dick and a Vault Festival Spirit Award for his play The Witch’s Mark. His writing has appeared in, among others, Gordon Square Review, Passengers Journal, Funicular Magazine and New Writing Scotland. Twitter: @timothy_fox_ Instagram: @timothy_fox_

Chris Fite-Wassilak is a writer and critic. He is a contributing editor of ArtReview, a regular contributor to e-flux Criticism and Art Monthly, and his essays have appeared in The Quietus, Vittles, and The Microbiopolitics of Milk (Sternberg, 2023). Twitter: @cfitewassilak

Maryam Garad is a British-Somali actor and writer from London. Her writing explores belonging and the nuances of marginalisation. She was part of Omnibus Theatre’s Engine Room, where she performed the beginning of her debut play REPARATIONS. She is a recipient of Bush Theatre's Bloom Bursary and part of Soho Theatre's Writer's Lab. Twitter: @maryamgarad_

Yanita Georgieva is a Bulgarian poet and journalist. She received the Out-Spoken Prize for Page Poetry and is a member of the Southbank New Poets Collective. You can find her work in The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, bath magg, and her debut pamphlet is forthcoming with Broken Sleep in 2024. Twitter: @georgievayani. Instagram: @yanigorgonzola

Mark Henstock has always worked in communications. For charities, he managed award-winning campaigns that raised millions of pounds for causes ranging from homelessness to international development. He is writing non-fiction around the themes of history, probability and destiny. He lives in London. Twitter: @MarkHenstock1

Marissa Mireles Hinds is a poet, filmmaker, writer, curator, artist, founder of Creative Until Death and co-founder of Babes in Development. She featured in the Dazed x Circa's Class of 2022 for her short film climate change but make it (pop!). In 2022, she won Out-Spoken’s Best Poetry in Film Award and the Bergstrom Studio Writers Grant. Twitter: @sanseriif. Instagram: @sanseriif

Margaret Morrison worked in corporate information before spending many years immersed in confectionery. She’s been a freelance translator for five years in commercial work but is increasingly moving into literary translation. Her interests include French, comic books, French comic books, genre literature and foraging. @mmmtranslation

Georgia Myers is a fiction writer from Hackney, whose short stories have been published by Influx Press and longlisted for the Mslexia prize. Previously, she studied Art History, worked at the BBC, and taught creative writing. She is currently writing a quirky historical novel.

Esmé Hicks is a born and bred Londoner and filmmaker. She co-produced All My Friends Hate Me (2021) and has worked in production on features such as Femme (2023) and The End We Start From (in post-production). She is now focussing on creating her own work.Twitter: @EsmeHicks.Instagram: @esmelarissa

Preeti Jha is an award-winning reporter. She worked as a political journalist for the BBC and a foreign correspondent for Agence France-Presse, before going freelance to write about democracy, gender, and civil resistance. After a decade in Asia, she returned to London last year to write her first novel.Twitter: @PreetiJha

Monica Kam is a lawyer and writer from Hong Kong. She was a recipient of Spread the Word’s London Writers Award 2022. Her fiction and poetry have been shortlisted for the Comma Press 2023 Dinesh Allirajah Prize and commended by Ambit Magazine. Monica is currently completing a collection of short stories set in Hong Kong.Twitter: @kam_monica.Instagram: @monicakam

Rosie Kellett is a theatre, TV and food writer from Derbyshire. She has predominantly worked in theatre, with her first play Primadonna selected for the 2016 VAULT Festival, London. After ten years of working in the food industry as a chef, baker and project manager, she is now developing her first cookbook proposal.Twitter: @rosieakellett.Instagram: @rosiekellett

David Lowe works in London at an in-house creative agency. He’s a lover of all things monstrous and magical and is currently writing his first fantasy novel.

Lia Martin is an English-Romanian writer from London. She has worked in state secondary schools for a decade and recently graduated from Birkbeck with an MA in Creative Writing. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the Bridport and longlisted for the Brick Lane short story prizes She is currently working on a polyphonic novel.Twitter: @liaesthermartin

Ellen McAteer is a poet and songwriter. They won a Waterstones Refugee Week poetry competition, a BBC Download songwriting competition, and completed a Goldsmiths MA in Creative and Life Writing. Their work explores women's voices, alcoholism, and psychogeography and their pamphlet Honesty Mirror has been published by Red Squirrel Press.Twitter: @ellenmcateer.Instagram: @ellenmcateerpoet.Facebook: /ellenmcateer

Avril Millar is an engineer, physicist, businesswoman, board advisor and writer. She has changed careers five times, but always with the core value of making a difference, and still works full-time at 71. She is mother to two grown-up children, one a retired professional sportsman, the other a successful CEO, and grandmother to three.Twitter: @avrilmillar.Instagram: @Avrilmillarofficial / @avrilmillar

Helena Pickup is writing a non-fiction book on luxury, power and catastrophe. After a first degree in History at Oxford University and a Masters in Art History, she trained as a curator and has lectured at Sotheby’s Institute of Art for over ten years. Helena also writes historical and fantasy fiction.

EJ Robinson is a London-based writer of fiction with degrees in Theatre and Victorian History. Her work pinballs between magical realism for children and historical fiction for adults. She has lived in England, Ireland and Japan, and is working on a middle-grade series that draws from global folklore.Twitter: @AiRobinson

Lydia Sabatini is a London-based playwright and screenwriter originally from Essex. She was part of the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers Group 2021/22, the Traverse Theatre’s Breakthrough Writers: In Residence Programme 2022/3 and the Mercury Theatre’s Playwrights scheme 2022/3. She will be using this programme to develop film screenplays.

Kumyl Saied is a British-Arab Screenwriter who studied at the NFTS in 2022. His writing portfolio consists of feature films that explore longing, grief and mental illness. Family dysfunction serves as the glue that holds Kumyl's work together, be it through blood splattered horror or intimate drama.Instagram: @kayzone93

Molly Pepper Steemson is a writer and sommelier from London. She is the author of Very Short, a Substack series of 100 100-word stories. Her work is mostly concerned with food, drink, adultery, viscera and, occasionally, death.Twitter: @SteemsonMolly.Instagram: @molly.pepper.steemson

Madeline Heather Stephens did an English degree and a Masters degree in Renaissance Literature, at York. She has worked in fundraising and political campaigning for charities. An admirer of comic fiction, she hopes to write a novel that will make people laugh.

Stacey Taylor is a writer from Cardiff. She has an MA in English and Creative Writing and loves reading and writing in different genres. She was recently longlisted for the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers’ Prize. She is currently working on a YA novel.

Helena Tebeau grew up in Warsaw, Poland. She studied English at Swarthmore College in the US and received her MSc in Behaviour Economics from LSE. Living in London, she now works in life sciences consulting and translates Polish literature, exploring the subversion of femininity and motherhood in modern day interpretations of folklore and fairytales.Instagram: @helenaclairexx

Catherine Wilson Garry is a poet and writer based in Edinburgh. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Another Word for Home is Blackbird, was recently published by Stewed Rhubarb Press. Her writing has been published by organisations including Extra Teeth magazine, The Scotsman, BBC Radio 4 and The British National Gallery.Twitter: @CWilsonPoet.Instagram: @CWilsonPoet.Website: cwilsonpoet.co.uk

Tian Yi lives in London and writes weird short stories about families and hauntings. She has received support from the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference and Hedgebrook. She graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, where she was awarded a Sophie Warne Fellowship.Twitter: @tianyiwriting

: 15 September 2023

Help us Refresh and Restore the Collection

Thanks to the generous support for this year’s Library Fund appeal, we have raised nearly £55,000 towards our £80,000 goal.

These funds have already enabled us to begin work on Refreshing and Restoring our magnificent collection, starting with one of the oldest – and most exciting – items on our shelves. Defence of the Seven Sacraments, written by Henry VIII in 1521, is a scathing response to the critique of the church published by Martin Luther in 1520. In it, the monarch defends the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church and refers to Luther as ‘a wolf of hell’ and ‘a poisonous viper.’

Library Fund update 2

Henry VIII’s reply prompted Pope Leo X to confer the title ‘Defender of the Faith’ on the monarch. Although the title was later retracted by Rome, an Act of Parliament confirmed and made it hereditary. Bound in the original calf and stamped with the royal arms, this volume is particularly notable for bearing one of the few existing marks of Katherine of Aragon’s cleft pomegranate emblem.

Library Fund Henry VIII rubbing

Due to its extremely tight binding and old age, this pamphlet’s joints are split and need to be carefully pulled apart and re-sewn back together. At present it is extremely difficult to open. Additional repairs include restoring damaged varnished surfaces, shoring up structural weaknesses, and replacing the poor-quality leather which was used in historic restorations.

Thanks to funding from The Library Fund, we have been able to start the four-month long process of specialist conservation work to make this volume accessible for members and to preserve it for future generations.

The London Library’s collection is truly unique. Developed through 180 years of careful thought from generations of Library staff, trustees and members, today the collection holds around 1 million volumes. The depth and range of the collection along with the liberal access members enjoy are what make the Library such a special and treasured resource.

We take pride in the strength of the collection and its accessibility and know that everyone involved with the Library cherishes the books on our shelves. With that in mind, we are eager to do more and have identified some key projects to Refresh and Restore the collection. We hope to raise £80,000 to kick-start these projects over a period of years – any donation you can make to The Library Fund will help us reach this goal.

Donate Now

Refresh

We want to develop new areas of the collection and strengthen others in line with feedback from members. Our primary focus is on maintaining the core strengths of the collection, so we need help to develop our reach beyond this:

Broadening cultural representation in art, history and literature and increasing the contemporary and diverse voices in fiction, literature, drama and poetry
Replacing key books identified as missing during a book tagging project to get them back on the shelves for member use

Spending funds raised over a period of years, gauging interest in different subjects and approaches

WEBSITE News listing image 1920 1080 px 8

Restore

A major challenge for the Library is caring for the collection while maintaining open access and borrowing for members. We need help with two distinct projects to support this:

Rebinding

• The Library’s book tagging project revealed many books in urgent need of rebinding

• These books are on open access shelves and need new bindings to make sure they remain useable and accessible

• A donation of £100 could help give three volumes new bindings Conservation

Conservation

• Our collection care team have identified a small number of books in need of specialist conservation work which can’t be carried out in-house

• Most volumes are special collections items published before 1750 and are available for use by Library members

• A donation of £500 could help us restore one of these volumes

Donate Now

Library Fund 23 Stacks 1920 1080

The Library Fund is an annual fundraising appeal focused on improving the Library in ways that directly impact its users. How people use the Library is at the heart of what makes it a special institution. Supporters of The Library Fund help improve the Library’s collections, services and spaces to enhance enjoyment of the Library.

Find out more about past Library Fund projects.

: 15 November 2022

Work on the LED project is progressing well – with positive user feedback to a trial test installation of LED fittings with sensors in two aisles within the backstacks. The next steps will be to select the light fittings and install 1,000 lights in the backstacks.

Infographic 2022

Subcategories

member module category

Page 2 of 20

Start
Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next
End

Latest News