property-proposals

Property Proposals July 2026


Introduction

The management of property will be one of the key roles of Yorkshire Quakers and one of its key legal responsibilities.

The new charity will own some 32 Meeting Houses, some 11 other buildings, some 28 burial grounds, some still in use, some not, some attached to Meeting Houses, some not and a number of Meetings that rent premises and whose contracts with the owners of those premises will become the responsibility of Yorkshire Quakers.

This is a complex task and will require a range of relationships between Yorkshire Quakers Trustees, the central staff of Yorkshire Quakers, Local Meetings and staff of Local Meetings and the Area Meetings, which will continue to exist but not as charities, and will also have some involvement in relation to some unattached burial grounds.

Initial consideration

In the preparatory work done by the Implementation Group and the Property Implementation Group it has become clear that the specific arrangements for each property will need to be tailored to:

  • The needs of the property (complexity of management, complexity of building, short- and long-term maintenance requirements etc.).
  • The capacity of Local Meetings to undertake some the work and decision-making required.
  • The requirements of Trustees to have a clear understanding of each property in its ownership and all contracts relating to property.
  • The requirement of Trustees to understand the use made of each Meeting House and the resulting income.
  • The requirements of Trustees to have a clear understanding of the costs involved in running and maintaining each property.

The Implementation Property Working Group has considered in detail how this could be achieved - Yorkshire Quakers trustees will use this analysis when they set up the central staffing and structures of the new Charity staff team. This is likely to include a property co-ordinator post (or posts) and admin time to support them, working within and liaising with the central staffing team. These central roles will have to be affordable within the budget of Yorkshire Quakers; another consideration is that the roles and the associated hours may change over time and that the initial requirement of hours can only be an estimate for the time being. 

Principles

The principles we are working to are:

  1. To ensure that all aspects of property management are covered.
  2. To ensure that there is flexibility in terms of who does what which can be adjusted to the needs of Local Meetings and which can also change over time as required.
  3. The property coordinator will be available as needed to provide advice to local meetings as needed.
  4. To ensure that all reporting requirements to Trustees are fulfilled with the least possible amount of work involved for Local Meetings (and participating in common electronic systems that generate the necessary reports will assist in this though it is not, at this stage, expected to be rolled out to all Local Meetings).
  5. To ensure that central staff are in the best possible position with regard to knowledge of the properties and records of all important property information relating to ongoing management and maintenance to enable them to help when needed and to step in when Local Meetings find themselves no longer able or willing (on a temporary or permanent basis) to manage the property themselves.
  6. To ensure that Trustees, supported by central staff, can ensure that all legal and regulatory requirements are met (which includes among other aspects: Health and Safety, insurance, long-term maintenance planning and keeping contractual arrangements up to date, and ensuring that properties fulfil the purpose they are meant to fulfil).