Volunteers Week 1-7 June
As part of Volunteers’ Week, we’re shining a spotlight on some of the remarkable individuals who give their time and talents to support our mission. Today, we meet Giverny McAndry, one of our brilliant Trustees bringing a wealth of experience and knowledge to the Trust.
A charity lawyer with Russell-Cooke LLP, Giverny studied Music and Law at the University of Cambridge, where she sang with the chapel choirs of Sidney Sussex and Trinity Colleges. Giverny also co-founded Sing Inside, a charity that brings collaborative singing workshops into prisons across the UK, and continues to serve as its Head of Policy. She was also previously a non-executive director of the Stay At Home Choir, a global community of more than 25,000 singers from over 80 countries united by a shared love of music. Alongside her professional and voluntary roles, Giverny continues to sing freelance with a number of consorts and choirs.
Giverny writes for Volunteers’ Week about her passion for choral music, the importance of volunteering, and what inspires her to support the work of Cathedral Music Trust.
Cathedral music is a tradition of extraordinary beauty and national significance, yet it faces real and pressing challenges, from funding pressures to the shifting cultural landscape and changes in choral education. As a charities and philanthropy lawyer with a background in classical music, I could not pass the opportunity to contribute my professional skills to an organisation seeking to sustain cathedral music for centuries to come, and I was appointed to the Board aged 29.
The best thing about being a Trustee is enjoying a powerful sense of collective purpose, and learning more about a cause I love. Board meetings are not dry or perfunctory; they are conversations (sometimes heated discussions, intense debates, invigorating exchanges…) between extremely knowledgeable and passionate individuals. Good trustee boards are stronger than the sum of their parts, and being part of the Cathedral Music Trust board is a privilege in this regard: each colleague brings a distinctive perspective — musical, financial, educational, ecclesiastical, legal, operational, often informed by rich organisational or institutional experience — while sharing a genuine commitment to sustaining and enriching our unique choral tradition.
Professionally, trusteeship has broadened my horizons beyond my own specialisms and helped me develop into a more rounded charity practitioner. The necessary shift from my day-to-day role as a legal advisor into a scrutineer and decision-maker is both exciting and humbling. It is right that trustees feel a real, weighty responsibility for shaping the direction of a charity, safeguarding its financial health, and determining how its resources are best deployed. All fundraising is hard-won and cannot be taken for granted, and trusteeship has deepened by appreciation for the generosity of donors of every size.
It has also given me a renewed appreciation for the power of voluntary commitment. That a group of people, giving their time and expertise freely, can achieve things with lasting value is a life-affirming reality. Combined with and magnified by the work of the Trust’s extraordinarily dedicated staff, this is an indisputably brilliant thing. Seeing the impact of the Trust’s work gives me faith, even when the wider world seems bleak.
I wholeheartedly recommend trusteeship to others and urge those considering it to apply. What matters most is that you bring curiosity, diligence, and a willingness to engage. Prospective trustees should not be put off by the notion that one needs to be an expert in every aspect of a charity’s work; a board should be a team comprised of people with complementary skills. Equally, I have long believed that charities that affect one beneficiary positively are just as valuable as those which aim to change the world: impact need not be global in scale in order to be worthy. If you care about any charitable cause, and you have skills or experience that could help guide an organisation, then trusteeship is a wonderful way to make that contribution count.
Cathedral music endures because people choose to sustain it, and in my experience trusteeship is wonderful way to be one of them.
Giverny McAndry, Trustee Secretary, Cathedral Music Trust
To find out more or speak to a member of the team about becoming a Trustee or volunteering for Cathedral Music Trust email [email protected]
