THE EVERTON COLLECTION CHARITABLE TRUST GRANTED HERITAGE LOTTERY FUNDING

THE Everton Collection Charitable Trust, set up to acquire the David France Collection of football memorabilia, has announced that it has been awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £954,000, securing the collection for football fans everywhere.  The Trust, which was established in 2005, has been attempting to acquire David France's unique collection, described by Sotheby's as the greatest collection of football memorabilia they have seen relating to a single football club. Once acquired, the Trust planned for the Collection to be housed in the Liverpool Record Office where it will be joined by Everton Football Club's own archive, enhancing the Collection's unique status even more.  The Trust's business plan was drawn up to allow football fans, historians, school children and the general public alike to have access to this outstanding collection once acquired. This will now be possible.

Lord Grantchester, Chairman of the Trust said:- "We are delighted to be able to announce the success of our Lottery application, this means that the history of Everton Football Club and indeed the history of football on Merseyside has been safeguarded for future generations."

Fellow Trustee, Tony Tighe added:- "We have worked hard over the past couple of years to raise funds ourselves and our 'Heritage Week' staged in March of this year was a notable success, but this is the icing on the cake! We will now be able to conclude our negotiations with Dr France and have the Collection and Everton's own archive all go into the Record Office. We then have to continue with our task. We want to make the Collection accessible from all over the world via a new website we will be introducing. Various parts of the Collection will also be made available over future years to National Museums Liverpool, The National Football Museum, Anfield and indeed at Everton FC's own museum once the new Stadium has been built.

I would like to congratulate all my team at the Charitable Trust who have made all this possible and especially David Stoker from Liverpool Record Office and Keith Wyness, Everton FC's CEO who has been so supportive with our quest. Over the coming years we are going to continue to add to the Collection to ensure that it remains as the greatest collection of football memorabilia in the world!"

Jennifer Latto, Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund North West Committee, commented:- "Football is a deep rooted part of our popular culture and its story offers a unique window into social history. Today's news means that this treasure trove will be saved for football fans everywhere, giving new generations the chance to take inspiration from the past."

Liverpool City Council's executive member for libraries, Councillor Colin Eldridge, said:- "What fantastic news! This is an absolutely wonderful collection and a huge amount of work has gone into bringing it to Liverpool.  The news from Heritage Lottery Fund means the collection can now be displayed in Everton's home city, where it belongs. Thousands of people will be able to come to Liverpool Record Office to see one of the finest, most unique football- related archives in the world. It's a wonderful boost to our preparations for Capital of Culture 2008."

David Stoker, Liverpool Record Office Manager, added:- "We are very proud and extremely excited to be providing a home for this remarkable football archive, which has important information on Liverpool FC as well as Everton FC.  I'm delighted that we will in due course be welcoming people from all over the world to the Record Office to see the collection - not just Evertonians but all those with an interest in the history of sport. The grant also provides resources to ensure that the collection is catalogued, digitised, and promoted effectively to a wide audience."

In addition to the HLF grant, the Everton Collection Charitable Trust has raised over £450,000 over the past two years. This together with the HLF grant will enable the Trust to acquire and then promote and protect the Collection to various target audiences in the future.

Once Everton's own archive has been added to the David France collection, the enhanced Everton Collection will then be worth upwards of £3 million.

Council complaints fall again

LIVERPOOL City Council has been praised by the independent Local Government Ombudsman following a fall in the number of complaints.  The number received in the 12 month period ending March 2007 was 188, down from 229 the previous year and a drop of almost 27% compared to 2004/5.  In her annual letter to the city council, Anne Seex says the council’s commitment to effective complaint handling “comes through very clearly” in the dealings she and her staff have the city council. She praises the council’s internal complaints handling system, and compliments staff on being “very professional”.

Executive member for Corporate Services, Councillor Peter Millea, said:- “This is a great achievement and demonstrates the commitment of city council staff to improving standards of customer care.  We are determined to provide the best possible services for the people of Liverpool and do all we can to put things right in the rare number of cases when we get something wrong.”

The time taken to respond to complaints is just 17.4 days, less than half that of the metropolitan authority average of 38.9. The data shows that complaints fell in all but 2 areas of the council.

Liverpool city council Chief Executive Colin Hilton said:- “This is a very encouraging report which shows that people’s confidence in council services is improving.  Customer care is a top priority for the city council and I am pleased to note that the Ombudsman has recognised that we take complaints extremely seriously.  However, we are not complacent and we are striving to continue to reduce the number of complaints further by upping our standards even further.”

Improvements in the benefits service through the introduction of a £6 million state of the art computer system to handle claims means there were just eight complaints about housing benefit, compared to a massive 257, 3 years ago.  Of the 190 decisions determined by the Local Government Ombudsman during the year:-

• 69 cases were judged as premature

• 39 cases found no evidence of maladministration

• In 19 cases she decided not to investigate

• 16 cases were outside her jurisdiction

• In 46 cases a local settlement was agreed

She issued only 1 report – on an adult social care case – but praised the “positive way” in which the city council responded, and for being “proactive in seeking and implementing a suitable remedy”.  The council has recently introduced a new web based case management system which enables more efficient handling of complaints and should reduce the likelhihood of issues being referred to the Local Government Ombudsman.

JOIN WITH SAMARITANS FOR STRESS DOWN DAY

LOOK forward to your colleagues wearing green slippers next February 1 - they won’t be the only ones having fun and joining in with Samaritans’ Stress Down Day in early 2008.  And your company still has time to join with Samaritans on this fun venture - with a serious message behind it - by becoming headline sponsors for the event, which targets all types of workers and offers PR and branding opportunities in an above and below the line campaign.

Samaritans ‘owns’ the Stress Down Day concept and this is our 2nd such event - last year’s proved a windfall in marketing and publicity terms for the companies who ‘came on board.’  Samaritans’ Stressed Out Survey was carried out across all regions of the UK by nfpSynergy and received maximum media coverage in National print and radio stations as well as country-wide regional media - and this year’s survey will include the Republic of Ireland as well.

A staggering 21 million people read or heard about Samaritans’ survey and Stress Down Day event between December 2006 and February 2007. An impressive 108 radio stations reported the survey and Stress Down Day, which was launched at the London Stock Exchange at an event that 800 Human Resources and Occupational Health professionals were invited to.

The main speaker at the launch was Cary Cooper who is the Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University and a leading authority on work-related stress. Professor Cooper will be supporting Samaritans’ Stress Down Day again this coming February 1. 

For 2007’s Stress Down Day, Firefly Tonics held a photo competition with the winning photo appearing on a special “Chill Out” bottle of their drinks, which was sold to accompany the day, with some proceeds going towards Samaritans funds. Taylor’s of Harrogate provided 10,000 tea bags which were handed out at train stations where a Stress Down Day leaflet distribution was carried out - and Harvey Nichols sold Firefly drinks and also offered free relaxing massages to people buying them. The organisations received publicity through their association with Stress Down Day as did Medicash, one of the UK’s top healthcare cash plan providers, which sponsored the Stressed Out Survey.

The Medicash logo appeared alongside Samaritans’ logo on a Stressed Out Survey press release sent to 4,000 media. This release was widely covered by national and regional radio and newspapers. Medicash were often reported on for sponsoring the survey and this included one live interview which went to 1.59 million listeners and had an editorial/pr value of £90,000. In addition around Stress Down Day, 1,500 people visited Samaritans’ website pages mentioning Medicash and there were further visits to Medicash’s own page on Samaritans’ website and the Stressed out Survey page with the Medicash logo.

Stress Down Day will this year raise awareness of stress across all work environments - not only in offices - but in factories and also for people who are at home such as working mums or dads who look after the children and the home. Use the day as an opportunity to obtain employee feedback on stress levels, encourage employee suggestions on reducing stress at work or debate the difference between 'stress' and 'pressure'.

Samaritans is looking for companies keen to join them on a Cause Related Marketing (CRM) basis for Stress Down Day. If you feel your products or your organisation fits the theme of reducing stress, calm and relaxation, down-time, perhaps that summertime healthy mind and healthy body balance, then the charity would be happy to hear from you.  This will be a fun approach to reducing stress in day to day life with a special emphasis on work-related stress. Funds raised will help Samaritans in its ongoing 24:7 emotional health support work - much of it directed at supporting people whose anxieties and fears are triggered by stress in the first place.

A Samaritans’ survey conducted by Tickbox.net showed that a 3rd of UK workers cannot get to sleep at work at night, though anxiety, and 3/4 don’t ‘switch off’ when they leave the office. The research also showed that the most stressed employment sector was those working in the financial sector.  Stress in the workplace is frequently cited as the number 1 issue affecting staff productivity. A report from consultancy firm Woodrow Wyatt showed that 72% of employees identified stress as their major concern.

Samaritans was voted the 3rd most admired UK charity in the Third Sector charity magazine’s poll in 2006.  If you want your company to be noticed you can’t do much better than linking in with Samaritans. The charity’s campaigns are always supported by well-known celebrities and receive widespread media coverage. Current supporters include Samaritans Young Ambassador Jamie Cullum, the top-selling girl group the Sugababes, and the casts of “Hollyoaks” and “Shipwrecked”.

WorkLife is a training programme developed by Samaritans available to organisations which specifically addresses the issue of stress within the workplace for managers and teams.

Hazel Norval, Corporate Relations Manager with Samaritans said:- "Stress Down Day provides fantastic business benefits for brands which have a strong association or fit with Stress Down Day. Benefits to previous sponsors and partners have included increased sales, positive publicity, sampling opportunities and being able to demonstrate their CSR.  There’s a buzz about the day already. We’ve linked with Jongleurs for a comedy night on the evening before Stress Down Day in Camden - laughter’s a great way to stress down after all. We’d really welcome more companies to come in with us as partners on a sponsorship level. “

Sponsorship and CRM enquiries should be directed to Hazel Norval at Samaritans on 0208 394 8281or email.

Tribute to the late Cllr Terry Francis

WE wish to add our condolescences to the family and friends of the former Councillor Terry Francis, who died last weekend in Southport D.G.H..

Terry served as a Liberal Democrat Councillor for Kew Ward for many years and was also a member of the Community Health Council.

He was Mayor of Sefton I 1996/97.

Cllr Francis had great empathy for those he sought to help and offered wise counsel. Never one to flaunt his authority, he possessed a natural dignity which commanded respect.

Such men are greatly to be prized in politics and indeed in the community in general.

He will be hugely missed. His wife, Valerie, son and daughter survive him.