The best laid plans….
Back in August, you met me shortly after I joined the cathedral team. It’s fair to say that time has truly flown. Since joining I’ve been working behind the scenes to learn what’s important to the cathedral’s stakeholders and what’s needed to get the cathedral to a position of financial sustainability.
But what does that mean you may rightly ask?
My role is one that was made possible thanks to the Cathedral Sustainability Fund. The purpose of my work is to support the cathedral to be able to break even in accounting terms every year, not just this year or next but for the foreseeable future.
You see and you may not know but, the cathedral runs in deficit. That is to says that more money goes out than comes in each year. And for those of you who manage household budgets, you know that you can’t do that forever.
So, we needed a plan to change the cathedral’s fortunes, and as quickly as possible.
A good deal of planning went into putting plans in place to make 2020 the year the cathedral became sustainable. But as we now know, due to the global pandemic causing the cathedral to currently and rightly be closed that means the plans must be on hold and that things are going to get tougher before they get better.
Speaking of the pandemic…
I spoke of my expectation in the previous blog that my role would “evolve over time” and it certainly has since then with the most significant changes happening back in March when Ellen, Director of Operations retired.
Ellen retired towards the end of March, just as the cathedral closed its doors and her retirement heralded a shift in how the organisation is run on a day to day basis. We had worked side by side responsible for all the non-service aspects of the organisation since July.
The cathedral team will not be the same without Ellen as part of it.
Two days before her last day the UK entered ‘lockdown’ and not only did we the team miss the opportunity to say their farewells but we lost the opportunity to handover all aspects of her role to me before shifting as an organisation to working solely from home.
Whenever you take on a leadership role within a business you always want to capture as much as possible from the previous postholder and want to set off with the right foot forward engaging your team on day one.
So…
Handover … nope …
How about that whole team meeting … err … that’ll be a nope too …
Unfortunately, in some respects over three quarters of the cathedral team are currently furloughed so that coming together couldn’t happen. I am however immensely grateful to the UK government for the 80% support they’ve promised which has made a massive difference to us at this challenging time.
For the team that were and are working from home the need to establish new ways of working, communication and responsibility superseded any gesture from me.
The team have adapted magnificently and strangely, although we’re missing our furloughed colleagues we’re working well and better together with adversity bringing out people’s true strengths and team spirit.
Although I’d never have chosen to take over operational leadership like this I can’t wait to be able to see my colleagues again and focus the strengths and spirit I’m seeing into real positive steps when we can get back into our cathedral and focussing on its future sustainability.
Our plans may be paused but we will not be prevented from safeguarding the future of our sacred space.
Sean O'Neill
The cathedral team is working to provide pastoral, spiritual and practical support to its communities however it can, and that will continue. In the background, the cathedral is working hard to shield itself as much as possible from the negative financial impact. Three-quarters of the staff team have been furloughed and we are working with various existing and emergency grant-making bodies to find solutions to help protect the cathedral in the long-term. We will keep you updated as time passes, but anyone wanting to support the work of the cathedral in the meantime can do so via our Just Giving page. Thank you.