Wandsworth QMH is a historical, Grade ll listed, building in a busy part of SW London. It is in an excellent position right on the High Street with lots of bus routes passing the door, opposite the Town Hall and near to a large shopping centre BUT the facade on the road is not the MH itself - that is set back, up a passageway - and people go past without realising we're there because it doesn’t look like a religious building at all. And our rooms and facilities don’t match up to more modern buildings. So our hirers largely come from word of mouth or vague connections to the meeting. We have the Main Meeting Room (18th century, wood panelled with its original benches), the Library (similarly wood panelled and bare floorboards) and the Children’s Room (recently refurbished), an outdated kitchen and loos (one accessible). We WERE gearing up for a huge refurbishment and modernisation but then along came Covid …….

The room lettings side of things was very haphazard until I took on the job - voluntarily, from home (which is a 45 minute journey away on public transport) - nine years ago. The first thing Premises Committee wanted to do was to set into action a 5year plan to get all our hirers onto a standardised scale of hire charges, so we could be fair, honest and transparent. That was not easy, but with careful negotiation and plenty of personal contact we got there, didn’t lose anybody and managed to keep everyone happy.

At first we had resident caretakers; their responsibility to the meeting was basically cleaning and opening up for hirers in the evenings (we had few daytime hirers). Gradually we went over to a key and fob secure system of getting in and out, which meant that each hirer could have their own keys - by which time both our caretakers had full-time jobs. But that has meant that I’ve had to get new keys cut, have had to initiate a system to enable me to keep track of key holders, and have had to make that long one and a half hour return journey just to show potential hirers around the MH. Our flat is now let out to a family with absolutely no connection to the meeting (not what we wanted - that decision come from LQPT, London Quaker Property Trust, who own all of the QMHs in Greater London) so we have had to find, and pay, a cleaner. Liaising with her has fallen to me, but because we have no resident caretaker we have also had to make alternative arrangements for buying stocks of cleaning equipment etc. and the disposal of our rubbish (nobody there to put out the bins on bin day).

A few years ago we installed a system enabling the heating to be programmed remotely by wifi; that job fell to me as it needs to be dovetailed with the MH diary for users of the building and, for that very reason, it needs to be re-set every week because we don’t have a regular pattern of room usage.

Pre-Covid we’d gradually increased our room lettings to the point where we could contribute a healthy amount annually to LQPT. Post lockdowns we’re a long way from that; our regulars are still with us but people have become used to using Zoom and the amount of face-to-face room hire has dramatically decreased.

After 9+ years I have decided to relinquish my role but the trouble is that the job has grown and no-one else at meeting is willing to take it on voluntarily. LQPT wants us to produce a business case for employing a paid administrator ….. and that’s where any advice, tips from your experience etc would be most welcome! I must say I’m not a trained administrator, and it may well be that a professional person would be able to deal with booking enquiries, the diary, invoices, liaising with the treasurer etc, more efficiently and quicker than me. But we are also worried about losing that personal connection between myself and our hirers (and cleaner too) - which puts a face to Quaker values. And if LQPT decides it’s not financially feasible to pay someone to administer the hiring as it is now …… what is our listed Quaker Meeting House saying to, or doing for, our local community?