Introduction by Martin Wainright

Marin Wainwright

Hello, morning everybody and a very warm welcome to this open session of The Big Lottery Fund. I’m from The Guardian, but that’s not the reason I’m here, I’m very enthusiastic to come here because at the beginning of the lottery way back in 1995 for 4 years I chaired the Yorkshire Regional Committee of the old National Lottery Charities Board and we had open meetings, something which I hope will come back and I hope this meeting here is a kind of a harbinger of that, the first sign that it’s happening. Because what it impressed on me as somebody who’d been kind of plucked, you know who’d been appointed, who nobody had voted for, which applies still to the people who run the Lottery, was that it made us feel accountable. When we had these meetings and people came and listened and saw how we had difficult choices to make, you know, some of them they disagreed very strongly with, but at least they could see why we were making those choices. And they joined in, which you’re going to do. You’ve all got, has everybody got one of these little gizmos? Good, well you’ll find out about them a little bit later on. But yes it made you feel that you were involving people and your role was being understood. And it mattered because of the enormous amounts of money involved. I mean since the Lottery started it’s spent £20million another 2 years and we’ll be able to buy Northern Rock. And there is a serious point there, because although £20million is a massive amount of money, you’ll all know, those of you involved in community activity, that in terms of government spending it still remains very small and the whole question of additionality, you know, of the name New Opportunities Fund comes to mind, but you know the government the government trying to get lottery money to pay for other things is always a worry for people like Clive and his team. So that’s, that sort of issue will I think arise later on today. I’ve just got to, before we get going, I’ve just got to do one or two duties, if you haven’t already discovered them, the loos the lavatories are downstairs pass the reception. Women I think first left, gents second left. If the fire alarm goes off which is very unlikely, the fire exits are there and there and then just follow the green signs down. You may have noticed that you’re being filmed, if your friends, I know the gentleman here from The Globe Theatre, his, all his pals are watching down there in Suffolk, but forget about the cameras but the reason they’re there is that this is going out live on The Big Lottery Fund’s website and if you want to relive the experience after it’s all over, it’ll be archived there. And I was talking to a lady over there and she said, ‘But what if we fall asleep?’ And I said, ‘If you fall asleep the cameras will hone in on you.’ I’ll direct them. And if our proceedings become too boring, you’ll have probably already noticed there’s very exciting things going on up here. This is called the progress of human knowledge and culture and they start off with very little in the way of clothes and gradually as they go on I think they get more. So I think those are the main, oh one last technical point. In your packs there’s a thing called an evaluation sheet, and as part of your contribution to today and you are as I hope will prove the case, the most important people here, please fill in the evaluation sheet to say if you think something was rubbish or if you think it was good, that will help

Clive and his colleagues plan future events like this. So, without more ado I’ll just quickly introduce the panel. You have their full biographies in your packs. But at the end Anna Southall is the Deputy Chair of BIG. Gerald next to her who I knew in the old days, he’s come on a bit since then but.

Gerald Oppenheim

Certainly.

Martin Wainwright