Conference Bursaries
BAPCA is no longer able to offer members bursaries for conferences from the Mary Kilborn Trust which is now exhausted. (12 Nov 2010). Click "more" to read a report on the fund.
Mary Kilborn Memorial Fund
The Final Report
This report is the last act of the holding group/trustees. Officially, the Fund was administered by a holding group, `because to formally be trustees carried certain legal responsibilities which the group did not wish to incur. However, the group sometimes referred to themselves as 'trustees'.
This report comprises
- A final statement of accounts
- A brief history of the Fund
- Contributions from the 'trustees'
A final Statement of Accounts
The annual report was published in March 2010 on BAPCA's website. It recorded that £73.19 remained in the Fund. Two requests were received and eventually Graham Westwell was awarded the remaining monies. The account was then closed.
A brief history of the Fund
BAPCA's then newsletter, Person To Person, announced the creation of the Fund in January 2003. There had been a fair amount of activity in the three or four years leading up to the announcement. Mary Kilborn had sadly died at the end of June 2000. Mary was personally known to many people in PCT Scotland and throughout BAPCA , and to many more people through her important and thought provoking article entitled 'The Quality of Acceptance' first published in 'Person Centred Practice' in 1996( BAPCA's Journal which was published 1993 -2004). There is also the annual Mary Kilborn lecture held at Strathclyde. This is an enduring acknowledgement of her life and her contribution to the person-centred community.
When the Fund was established, 'Person To Person' reported;-
'The initial finance for the Fund came from the unexpected surplus generated by the PC Forum held in Glasgow in 1999. Mary's warm energy and hard work as one of the organisers contributed to the Forum being a success and both BAPCA and PCT Scotland agreed to use their equal shares of the surplus to start the Fund.'
The purpose of the Fund was clear; it was to help BAPCA/PCT Scotland members to travel to training events outside their own country to both deepen their own understandings and enrich the working practices of colleagues through subsequent written accounts of their learnings. Mary was herself multi-lingual and had a huge commitment to creating cross-border links and it was felt appropriate to name the Fund after her.
There was a great deal of planning required to establish the Fund which involved Dot Clark, Irene Fairhurst, Peter Roberts, Pete Sanders, Allan Turner, Gill Wyatt, and later Nick Baker and Beatrice Millar. The Fund would be a sinking fund, that is, it would go on until all the money was spent and it would be administered along agreed criteria by a holding group of four people, comprising two from PCT Scotland and two from BAPCA. The first group of four were Nick Baker, Dot Clark Beatrice Millar and Peter Roberts and they met up at the BAPCA Durham Conference in the autumn of 2002 to discuss how they would work together. This, in fact, was the only meeting of a full holding group in the life of the Fund ! The first applications were received in 2004.
The Fund began with just under £11,000.Over the years there has been a range of donations. Some were valued one-off contributions (PC Trainers Group, 2005 Mary Kilborn Lecture collection, anonymous individuals) and a hearteningly regular series of donations from PCT Scotland members . Over the years this has added £2,570 to the Fund. Bank interest from the Co-op bank account has added a further £176 over the years.
The Fund has enabled twenty one BAPCA/PCT Scotland members to attend international events. Like any good helping activity, it does not end with the individuals initially helped. Hopefully they each gained from their experience directly by attending, and indirectly by becoming published writers with their contribution to the PCT Scotland newsletter or 'Person Centred Quarterly' BAPCA's newsletter. By cascading the learning through their articles to their colleagues in the wider person-centred community, the money has benefited a great many more people.
Over the six years of the Fund's active life, less than £8 has been spent on expenses, the holding group absorbing other postage and stationery costs.
In 2008 BAPCA asked the holding group to administer a bursary of £2,000 to help members attend the World Conference for Person-Centred and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counselling in Norwich.
Holding Group Membership
Nick Baker 2002-10
Dot Clark 2002-08
Pam Courcha 2009-10
Barbara Malinen 2007-10
Beatrice Millar 2002-10
Bettina Millar 2006-07
Peter Roberts 2002-06
Holding Group/'Trustee' reflections
Nick Baker: To help colleagues get to events either to present papers or lead a workshop or simply attend has felt a good thing to be doing: a facilitative thing. Whilst at times it has felt like yet ANOTHER activity at the end of a busy day, I soon came to see it for what it truly was in all its aspects- person-centred relating. The holding group/'trustees' had to work out ways of handling largish sums of money based on trusting the applicants. More than that, the team of four needed to create and sustain working relationships between themselves which had at times to accommodate quite thorny problems utilising primarily internet/ letter/ telephone contact. On top of that, the team of four kept changing ! ( or so it seemed). I know that I got a great deal out of my colleagues' thoughtfulness, attention to detail and their unwavering support and commitment to the work and to each other. Precious time.
Dot Clark: I am glad and sad to mark the winding up of the Mary Kilborn Memorial Fund. I was involved from the start until late 2008, when I embarked on a six month retreat and was even more inaccessible than I had been as a non-emailer!(The other holders cheerfully tolerated the inconvenience my lack of electronic availability caused and patiently communicated with me by letter and phone over our time working together.) Like Beatrice, I have vivid memories of the day she and I spent at Peter and Sheana Roberts' house clarifying the fundamental principles on which we wished to base the administration of the Fund. We had a rich exchange and agreed that we aimed to share power and responsibility as much as possible by being explicit about the criteria, distributing money whenever the criteria were met and trusting that recipients would feed their experiences back to the person-centred community. I am glad the surplus from the 1999 Forum has been used in this way, as a fitting memory to Mary who, at the time of the Forum, was a fellow trainer with me on the Certificate course run by the Counselling Unit at Strathclyde University. I am sad that that chain of connection has come to an end with the closing of the Fund; but Mary's memory lives on in other, still vibrant, ways. While each of the four holders saw through any application that began with a contact to them as individuals, I am very appreciative of Nick carrying the financial administration of the Fund, following on from Peter's initial work, throughout its life. To Nick and Beatrice, who have been holders from start to finish, and to the others involved over the years, it's good to say 'Job Well Done'.
Pam Courcha: I joined the group as a trustee in 2009 and at first was a bit surprised to find that funds were running low and that my participation would be short! However I can say it has been most enjoyable and the few applications that came my way during this last year demonstrated a genuine care for the person centred approach and a commitment to share this. I use the word "care" as the applicants work felt quite special. I responded to the request by PCT Scotland for a new trustee for two reasons. I believe the international dimension which the Trust supported is vital to disseminating ideas and practice within the wider person centred community. But also Mary had been my first supervisor, staying alongside me through my Diploma training and first years of practice. It was a small way in which I could contribute to the continuation of her international interests. The Fund has been a relevant and effective memorial.
Barbara Malinen: I became a trustee of the MKMF in late 2006. It seems now as if that time has passed very quickly. It has been the least onerous of responsibilities. Communication with other Fund holders - mostly by email but sometimes by phone - has always felt straightforward and enjoyable. I have really appreciated their thoughtfulness and willingness to spend time making decisions. It has also been a great pleasure to be able to say yes to the applicants – the criteria established when the Fund was set up are so few, and so clear that mostly this is what we have been able to do. I have valued the contact with all the applicants – their commitment to the PCA and to communicating that across national boundaries has been awe inspiring. I have also been warmed by their gratitude for whatever help we have been able to offer – and by their care in only asking for what they needed.
It feels right to go with the ending of the Fund, not kicking against it or trying to find ways of keeping it going – and despite this I also feel sad.
Beatrice Millar: One of the intentions behind the setting up of the Fund was to create a warmer, more collaborative relationship between PCT Scotland and BAPCA, and this is one of the aspects of being a Fund Holder that I have really enjoyed. For me this collaboration started with a wonderfully stimulating and focussed day of discussion in 2002 with Peter Roberts and Dot Clark, neither of whom I'd met before, but who, together with Peter's wife, Sheana, made me so welcome at the Roberts' home in Scotland. It was here that we really got to grips with the principles of operating the Fund which we wanted to be expressing person-centred values at every stage of the process, and how this was going to translate into practice. Often, in the course of the past 8 years when we've been faced with a dilemma or difference of opinion on how to proceed, I've referred internally to the spirit of those talks with Dot and Peter to guide me in my reflecting and decision-making.
Since then I've worked with three other PCT Scotland Fund Holders, mostly by email, but I am fortunate to have attended two Psychotherapy and Politics conferences in Scotland, so had the pleasure of meeting some of the people whose names I was becoming so familiar with. At the most recent of these, I was delighted to be able to attend the annual Mary Kilborn lecture which I felt was long overdue, given my involvement in the Fund. From what I have witnessed there and at other events, I believe that there are now excellent relations between PCT Scotland and BAPCA and a great wish to support each other in our common purpose.
I have also really enjoyed and felt supported by the evolving relationship, again mostly by email, with the occasional phone call, with the other BAPCA Fund Holder, Nick, who was involved in preliminary discussions even before me and has doggedly stayed the course! I have felt supported and nourished by his humour and openness and have really appreciated his willingness to undertake the financial administration and report writing for the Fund.
I have also been very touched over the years by the enthusiasm and commitment to the person-centred approach of the applicants and their gratitude at being helped to further their work through participation in international forums.
Bettina Millar: I was pleased to be able to contribute to the wider person-centred community by being a member of the Mary Kilborn Memorial Fund for a while and to support the personal/professional developments of those that were able to access the Fund. It seemed a great way of making use of the money that had accumulated, initially thanks to Forum 99( a fascinating event, by the way) in a collaborative way between the two organisations that were involved. And my thanks go to the founding members of the holding group, who worked out all the details. I particularly liked that Mary's international interests were being honoured, because I personally benefited from the fact that she was one of the first trainers in Scotland, who encouraged facilitators from other countries to run very affordable training for PCT Scotland members. As there are so many more extensive exchanges these days and more training events on offer, it is easy to forget how special and enriching that was at the time. So, in a way, the ball she set rolling has had quite an effect, I believe, and I am sure that the same is true of the Fund that was created in her name.
Peter Roberts: I think that the only comment I would like to make is that in our work to set up the Fund as appropriately as possible, this presented an opportunity to be challenged to achieve quite a difficult task through relating with others and trusting the process of open and honest dialogue which epitomised the best of person-centred working . I benefited greatly from this and met significantly with Irene Fairhurst, Dot Clark and Beatrice Millar and subsequently Nick Baker and other members of the holding group. Thank you Nick for your care and long standing commitment to hold the continuity with Beatrice.