Governance
The Mount Street Club Trust is an Incorporated Trust registered in Ireland (RCN 2004361).
Information about the Trust can be found on the Charities Regulator’s Register of Charities.
Governing document
The Mount Street Club Trust Scheme of Incorporation can be viewed here.
Audited accounts
The Trust’s most recent audited accounts can be viewed using these links:
Trustees
The Trust is governed by a board of voluntary Trustees. The current Trustees are:
Margaret Barry (Chairperson), Paul Donovan (Secretary), Robert Galavan (Treasurer), Charles Delap, Sarah Perrem, Katherine P. Meyer, Shola Adekunle, Alison Sleeth, Thomas McCann.
Trustee term limits and succession planning
The Trustees have considered the Charities Regulator’s guidance on introducing term limits of nine years maximum for Trustees. However, they have decided that it is not in the best interests of the Trust to introduce strict term limits at present.
The thinking of the Trustees is as follows:
Since its foundation in 1934, the Mount Street Club Trust has benefited from an ongoing connection, where possible, with the founding families of the MSC. In particular, this has enabled the Trust to keep in constant touch with the original desire of the founders to make a difference to the lives of disadvantaged communities in Dublin and to re-imagine its own work as needed in a changing Ireland.
Now, almost 90 years later, it is even more important to maintain an additional kind of continuity, that of remaining abreast of trends and new thinking in the areas of 1) trust-based philanthropy and 2) collaborative approaches to addressing systemic marginalisation. The contributions of certain Trustees who have served longer than nine years have been instrumental in moving the Trust forward in this regard with imagination and dexterity.
At the same time and for the same reasons, the Trust is committed to a triennial review of its membership. At least every three years, each trustee will be asked to state for the record their willingness to continue to serve; or their wish to step down - with reasonable notice, if possible; or to highlight any changes to their current interests or other commitments that might be relevant to forward planning.
Annual report on activities 2023
Description of Activities submitted as part of our Annual Report to the Charities Regulator in October 2024:
Hope & Ambition, the Mount Street Club Trust’s funding and development initiative, continued in 2023, building on the work undertaken during the first phase (2019-2022) and the co-design phase which ran from June to December 2022.
Enlightened by the principles of trust-based philanthropy, Hope & Ambition empowers organisations to sustain innovative thinking and practice and evolve a critically-informed analysis in their work with marginalised and disadvantaged communities in the Greater Dublin Area. Not just a funding programme, Hope & Ambition also provides development support to the participant organisations and their people, focusing in particular on organisational development, leadership, practice, wellbeing and cross-sectoral interaction. The initiative is structured around two key elements: a grant to recipient organisations and their commitment to participate in the CEOs and Practitioners Clubs in a spirit of critical inquiry, collaboration and shared learning.
The four organisations supported in 2023 were: Glencree Centre for Peace & Reconciliation, Intercultural Language Service, Irish Refugee Council and Rua Red. The final reports prepared by each organisation, covering the period June 2022 to December 2023, were published on the Trust’s website in 2024.
In June 2023, the Trustees hosted a roundtable event on the subject of corporate funding partnerships, prompted by their interest in exploring the potential of collaboration with funding partners to sustain and widen the impact of Hope & Ambition. The event brought the Trustees together with the CEOs of the participant organisations of Hope & Ambition and guests with expertise and interest in the field of corporate funding partnerships. The insights, outcomes and ideas that emerged from the roundtable event were published as a report on the Trust’s website and on Linkedin.
Continuing to expand the Trust’s communications and engagement strategy, the Trust commissioned three short video interviews with three of the longest-standing trustees, sharing these on the website and on Linkedin in October 2023. The videos teased out the essence of the Mount Street Club Trust: its heritage, ethos and the experience of its Trustees.
2023 also saw the continuation of the Trust’s engagement with organisational development expert Dr Liz Hayes. In addition to guiding and facilitating the Hope & Ambition programme, Dr Hayes also continued to provide strategic development support to the Trust itself.
Finally, in 2023 there were significant changes to the board of the Mount Street Club Trust. The Trustees accepted with regret the resignation of Mark Harding and Will Peters, who had played a key role in establishing Hope & Ambition, and welcomed four new trustees, Katherine P Meyer, Shola Adekunle, Alison Sleeth and Thomas McCann, further expanding the skills and expertise available to guide the Trust’s activities and ongoing development in pursuit of its charitable objectives.