LIBERTY CHOIR 27 26 LIBERTY CHOIR Liberty Choir The Longford Prize Winner 2025 Thank you To our funders, small and large. We appreciate you all and we wouldn’t be where we are without you – but special thanks must go to the following who have made a particularly outstanding and long-term contribution to the success of Liberty Choir: the Arts Council (and relationship manager Chloe Brookes – thank you for being with us from the very start and on), The Bromley Trust, the Forte Charitable Trust, Garfield Weston, Julia and Hans Rausing Trust, John Thaw Foundation, King Charles Charitable Fund, Maria Bjornson Memoria Fund, McGrath Charitable Trust, The Marchus Trust, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey, the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, The Tedworth Charitable Trust, Trusthouse Charitable Foundation, The Victoria Wood Foundation and the Wimbledon Foundation. To our patrons Cherie Blair and David Gilmour; our ambassadors Jenny Agutter, Chris Atkins, Vicky Bell, Ross Bell, Tim Bryan, Mark Downer, Michael Gove and Kate Ruby; our board Alexandra Felix, Nick Hardwick, Jenny Holden, Oliver Huggins, Steve Manwaring, Paul Webster, to our small operational team which works like a big team – Siobhan Harkin, David Hurst, Diana Saline, Kate Steere, May Wong and all who came before, thanks to fundraising consultant Clare McIntosh, and Denise Mueller-Brown who produces our newsletters; our music team Alice Williams, Becky Mitchell, Colm Molloy, David Perkins, Ian Radcliffe, Jeremy Cooke, Katherine Strohmaier, Laura Casas Cambra, Marika Rauscher, Miles Russell, Sarah Kershaw, Tom Millar. We would like to give a huge thank you to the excellent musician and friend Alex Roberts who was with Liberty Choir right from the start and has always got it and given so much of his passion and talent to the charity. Our loss has been the Welsh National Opera’s gain where he is now clarinettist. Our prisoners and our volunteers who make up Liberty Choirs every week are the marrow of our organization – the former who have the courage to walk into the room and to persist, the latter for their loyalty to the men and women and patience at dealing with a broken system; they never give up. And our prison graduates, as well as their family members, who repay that loyalty and have moved into supporting roles for us, as fundraisers, ambassadors and who just stay in touch because of the bond that is created in the worst place they have found themselves in. A special call out here to Ross and Vicky Bell who have raised staggering sums of money for Liberty Choir every year since we met Ross in HMP Wandsworth in the very first session in 2014 and are wonderful ambassadors for us – always showing up, always saying “Yes” whatever we ask. Ian Hislop was one of the first people approached to support Liberty Choir in the build up to the launch on 1 April 2014 and he took out his cheque book, in his office in Private Eye, and said, “How much?”. He has supported us with larger sums every year since then and trusts us to use it well, which means so much. He is one of many people who have helped us through the years. Clare Conville is another outstanding benefactor, who uses every opportunity in her considerable network to bring money to Liberty Choir. She goes above and beyond and has transformed the fortunes of our small charity. A big thank you also to what were her fellow members on an initiative of a development board: David Bermingham and Gill Morgan, still very much engaged with LC, as well as Christine Costello and Lisa Gordon. Thank you to our partners in prisons, the Governors and their staff – some of whom are truly exceptional. Also to those we work with: The Clink restaurants, PACT, The Koestler Trust, Bouncebank to name a few. Laura Thorne, our independent evaluator completed eighteen months of work assessing its effectiveness and we were delighted to see she found strong evidence that it is. This brochure was produced with stellar support from the top tier of British journalistic talent. Thank you especially to the dream team of Caz Roberts and Mark Harrison, who have worked for less than even a charitable rate, and have been endlessly enthusiastic and patient throughout. Esteemed editors, Gill Morgan and Paul Webster, gave their services for free. Jesse Jenkins kindly agreed to a reduced rate for printing. Their combined generosity means we’ve been able to make a high-quality brochure on a small budget. We are helped by so many people and organisations - we try to make sure they are all listed on the home page of our website. The Bedford Pub has been incredible, hosting so many events for us for free and we will be looking at employment possibilities with them for our graduates. And thanks also extend to The Groucho Club for their kindness to the charity and support, too. LIBERTY CHOIR SAVES LIVES AND MAKES YOUR LIFE SAFER Brochure Team Editor-in-chief: Ginny Dougary Editor: Siobhan Harkin Design: Carolyn Roberts Principal Photography: Mark Harrison Location Manager: Becky Pennick Project Support by Thomas Cleeton Printing by Jesse Jenkins of Park Graphius Consultants: Paul Webster and Gill Morgan Proofreaders: May Wong and Peter Wilson You can make a donation through our website www.libertychoir.org Liberty Choir UK Registered Charity Number 1173799 Registered office Jackson Hall, Portland Place, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 1QN www.libertychoir.org
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