Ian Fantom
I WAS disturbed to read that the Wedgwood College and Conference Centre, formerly known as the Wedgwood Memorial College, could face the axe next year (Staffordshire Newsletter, 'College faces axe', 24 Nov 2011).
I have occasionally attended events at the college from the early 1970s onwards, in particular for the excellent Esperanto Summer Courses at the college. In 2003, as Information Officer of Esperanto Association of Britain, I met the then new Principal of the College, Jill Ward, and was impressed by her go-ahead attitude in developing new ideas. Two years later I was carrying out research into the loss of membership of the association, and this revealed startling new information about the College.
The contracts between the Stoke City Council and the Esperanto association amounted to 90 pages of complex legal texts. From the minutes it became clear that the Esperanto association, a registered Charity, had paid for Esperanto House to be built on College land for the Council. Members of the association were given the impression that the whole house was at the full disposal of the association, whereas in fact that applied only to one room. It then emerged that a delay in signing the contract had been due to the discovery by someone on the Council that the Principal of the College was at the same time on the Management Committee of the Esperanto association. He had, in fact, been taking a leading role on both sides of the negotiation. I became inquisitive as to how Charity money had been diverted to a town council in an obfuscated property deal.
In 2007 I received a circular from the Friends of Wedgwood Memorial College Association, stating that they interpreted moves by the Council as indicating an intent to close the College. They were asking anyone with connections to the College to write to the local council, MPs, and anyone with influence, in order to save the College from closure. They stated that the College was by then self-financing, and so they inferred that the motivation could be asset-stripping.
The Management Committee of the Esperanto association would have known all about that, since the former Principal was still on the committee.
Yet not a word had been communicated to the members. So I sent out a circular, asking members to support the campaign of the Friends of the College. This met an angry response from the Management Committee, who told members that I had sent out 'disinformation'. The secretary of the Friends of the College was mystified at such a response.
By putting the future of the College into doubt, the Council could clearly have been creating the uncertainty that could bring about the College's demise, a point made at the time by the Friends of the College. An inquiry into the viability of the College concluded that the College was indeed viable. I gave evidence to that inquiry regarding the property deal.
If the College is now making a heavy loss, and is being closed down for that reason, then there is clearly something very wrong. I think there should now be a full public inquiry into Stoke-on-Trent property dealing, into the diversion of Charity funds into that particular property deal, and into the demise of Wedgwood Memorial College.
Enborne Road
Newbury
Berkshire
