How 116 Pall Mall is helping the homeless
Connection Crew’s Senior Communications Manager Margarita Ktoris and our Head of Hospitality at 116, Jeremy Warrillow, explain the story behind this groundbreaking organisation and how the partnership came about...
Partners With The Right Values
Jeremy: Here at 116 Pall Mall we have the privilege of working in a wonderful heritage building coming up to its 200th birthday, but this presents its own unique set of challenges – one is how to make us more sustainable. A 200-year-old building was not designed to be environmentally friendly and reverse engineering a building this complex would be prohibitively expensive. So we are having to look at other ways of helping the environment and society.
One of these is with the companies we partner with – Benugo, who run the catering operation, have a really strong social conscience when it comes to supplying sustainable food, and Mitie in facilities. We have recently taken another small step with Connection Crew.
Who Are Connection Crew
Margarita: We are an event crewing company. So, we can set up and dismantle events, ‘do all the heavy lifting’, as they say. That can be everything from manual handling, loading and unloading, lighting, building stages. We can send a small team for a seminar in a hotel to a large team for a full-scale takeover for a five-day conference.
We mostly service corporate events, which can be anything from an awards ceremony to a brand activation and everything in-between. We also work with TV and theatre companies, festivals. As you can imagine, it’s an incredibly varied job for a crew member.
As a Community Interest Company (CIC) we have social impact goals to employ at least 25 percent of our crew from a background of homelessness – including people at risk of homelessness. We work with a network of 20 charities in London. They will refer people to us who they think will be suitable. We never want to set anyone up to fail. So they will go through the same onboarding process as someone who has applied to work with us from the open market.
The Story So Far
Margarita: Connection Crew started 14 years ago and was formed out of The Connection at St Martin’s, in Trafalgar Square which is one of Europe’s largest homeless centres.
One of the support workers, a man called Jamie Clark, wanted to find a way to offer the people he was supporting opportunities for employment that also offered the scope for career progression.
There was a growing awareness around social enterprises and Jamie wondered if he could set one up to create the jobs himself.
Paul Grecian, the founder of Gallowglass (one of the UK’s biggest crewing companies) happened to be a family friend of Jamie’s. Paul advised Jamie on how to set up a crewing company within the charity sector.
So, Jamie trained up his people and it was going well but there was a limit to the types of jobs they could fulfill.
Then Charlie Dorman got involved. He was a production manager, stage manager and record producer and is still one of the directors. He started building industry expertise into the service, working with Jamie to change the mix of crew experience so that 1 in 3 members of the crew had a background of homelessness.
This meant Connection Crew could deliver more complex jobs and a more professional service. And ultimately it meant that Connection Crew could grow and employ more people making their way out of homelessness.
Next year we are re-launching our ‘employment preparation’ programme for those who might not quite be work-ready so that we can broaden our social impact even further.
Working With 116 Pall Mall
Jeremy: Connection Crew first came to note working with our in-house AV supplier Oxygen Events. They were then recommended by a potential client and we put two and two together. Being a local charity, initially based across the road in Trafalgar Square at St Martins, also appealed to us. We work closely with the events team there, and even though there is no crossover or direct link it instinctively felt like a good fit.
Just as importantly, they are good, understand our business and we have had first-rate service.
It is one of the many under the radar jobs in hospitality that are incredibly important - a good crew makes life so much easier for us and our clients.
How They Choose The Crew
Margarita: “We have agreements with the charities around what support all parties should be providing and what arrangements must be in place I.e. all candidates must have sheltered accommodation or some equivalent. We also provide peer-mentoring for people who come to us through a charity to help them through those first few weeks of work.
“To date, we have employed 248 people who have come from a background of homelessness and they’ve completed over 136,000 hours of work. We’re conscious of giving people the right amount of work so they can progress. This is not just some box-ticking exercise.
One of our first crew members, Franck, the first ex-homeless member of the crew soon became a full-time production manager in the events industry and now calls to book the crew himself!”
How Connection Crew Helps Its Partners
Margarita: “Because we are a CIC, and we report annually on our social impact to the regulator, we can provide evidence of our impact to our clients. We can tell clients how many hours of work their business has provided to Connection Crew’s ex-homeless crew members and we send a certificate with those hours printed on annually.
“It is specific to every client and can be used to demonstrate a company’s commitment to CSR that, in turn, can help them win new business.”
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BOOK YOUR EVENT AT 116 PALL MALL
One of the most prestigious London venues, 116 Pall Mall is situated in the heart of the West End and offers a range of flexible function rooms across five floors, perfect for any kind of event or venue hire for up to 1,500 people.
You can even hire our whole building exclusively on weekends.
Make an enquiry for more information.