Community / Amenity trust made ‘difficult decisions’ last year as deficit reduces
SHETLAND Amenity Trust cut its deficit by around half over the last financial year – but some “difficult decisions” were made to keep the organisation sustainable.
This included a restructure of management, which board chair Alison Moncrieff acknowledged was an unsettling period for staff.
An annual review was presented to the trust’s AGM on Tuesday afternoon which reflects on 2021/22 and showcases some highlights.
Some of the positives included re-thatching the Crofthouse Museum roof, working with the museum’s lace collection and peatland restoration.
But there was an acknowledgement that the trust “could no longer afford to do all that we want to”.
“This allowed us, however, to invest in new staff and to develop some of our key services,” Moncrieff said.
Meanwhile the charity said it had an in-year underlying deficit of £75,436, which was nearly half the previous year’s figure, and the outstanding overdraft has been slimmed down too.
It may be another year and a half before the trust is free of its overdraft.
Moncrieff – who was reappointed as board chair for another year – said staff, partners, volunteers and the trustees “embraced the need to work differently and keep everything going” amid continued Covid restrictions.
“However, we cannot achieve our ambitions alone and I strongly believe that through fostering partnerships with other groups and the wider Shetland community, the trust can deliver even more for us, and for future generations,” she said.
“Something we, in our Shetland way, can be quietly but fiercely proud of.”
When asked what the difficult decisions over the last year have been, Moncrieff said: “There was obviously no secret about the essentially decade and more of financial difficulties that we’ve had.
“We’ve restructured the way that we go about doing things…in taking the decision to restructure things with a team of staff and bring them with us, that’s obviously at any point unsettling and unsettling coming off the back of a pandemic.”
She said that the trust is “always reviewing and doing options appraisals on assets”, and there is a desire to explore whether any properties are better served being taken on by the community.
Earlier this year the trust invited expressions of interest in the Bressay Lighthouse and also Park Hall in Bixter, for example.
Bressay Lighthouse and Park Hall up for grabs as trust reviews property portfolio
Interim chief executive Hazel Sutherland added: “If we’re not using them and they’re vacant, we see it as a really positive opportunity to invite other people to have that opportunity to love them and care for them for the next generation.”
Meanwhile in 2021/22 the trust embarked on a five-year business plan, which included the management restructure.
Sutherland said this plan also included a review of processes within the organisation.
She described it as “refreshing who we are, what we do and how we do it”.
“Up until now that’s been quite internal – we haven’t really been having that conversations with the outside world, but as the next stage in terms of how we take this forward, we really want to open up that conversations with the community to make sure we get it right,” Sutherland said.
“We don’t have an entitlement to be here, we have to make sure that we’re doing it on behalf of the community for the community.”
Sutherland also said this internal focus was why there has been no new minutes of board meetings on trust’s website since January 2021.
Meanwhile the board said it was “absolutely committed” to the Shetland Geopark designation after criticism of how the trust manages it.
Shetland was awarded Global Geopark status in 2009 in recognition of its “world-class geological heritage and the local effort to conserve, celebrate, and promote it and the connections to all aspects of our nature and culture”.
The isles are one of only two UNESCO Global Geoparks in Scotland, with the title managed locally by the amenity trust.
Moncrieff said “we’re always going to have criticism, but we’re always looking to work with other organisations and other people and collaborate” on the way forward.
Sutherland said the trust is in dialogue with core funders, and added that it will “work hard” to look at funding beyond that.
“The geopark is for this community – it’s not Shetland amenity Trust’s geopark, it is Shetland’s geopark,” she said. “We do this for the community. That’s how we see it.”
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