Your Guild Needs YOU. 5 Day’s Left to Join or Support Via Our Crowdfunder!

Our Chief Executive Talks About Her Experience of Community Organising at the Guild, Where it has Come from, and Why we Urgently Need more Organisers!

Why are we crowdfunding?

Our Community Organising approach secured an ongoing working relationship with the Mayor of London. Through a meeting with Guild leaders Sabeha Mia of Juta Shoes, Maher, Anjum of  Oitij-jo Collective, Dee O’Connell of The Broke Down Palace, and Robyn Simms from Square Root Soda at Spitalfields Farm two weeks ago the Mayor agreed to work with us on our Commercial Rent Manifesto. Since the pandemic struck there are now so many more strands to our work, we desperately need another Organiser to help make it all happen.  

In recognition of the hardship faced by small businesses, freelancers, and social enterprises we are offering a ‘pay what you can’ way to join the Guild if you join via our crowdfunder’  before 17th May. See the full list of existing members, partners, and supporters at the end of this blog.  

OUR CROWDFUNDER ENDS IN 5 DAYS, DON’T MISS OUT JOIN OR SUPPORT TODAY:  https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fair-rents-for-small-businesses

Growing a  powerful voice for effective action on members’ common issues is an important reason to join or support the Guild.  Membership also gives small businesses a supportive peer-led community for added capacity and resilience as we recover together. 

Need more reasons to join? Here’s seven;

  • KICKSTART JOB PLACEMENTS we are a Government Kickstart Gateway saving you paperwork on applications and supporting with training providers we process your new fully funded job placement, helping young people at risk of long term unemployment back into work
  • BLACK POUND DAY increasing visibility of our Black members
  • GUILD MARKETS events at Old Spitalfields Market
  • MEMBER EVENTS gatherings for peer-to-peer solidarity, enabling members to connect, share information and help each other through trading collaboration and mutual support
  • RENTCHECK with your help will be launched in June this year and will be essential to anchor rents at the low end of the market
  • ACCESS TO OUR LEGAL FUND for members who need it most when the moratorium ends in June
  • EAST END TRADES GUILD STORE where our members can sell their goods and services

My Community Organising Story

Counting the votes for the priority issues of founder members of the Guild in 2011. Rents, business rates then planning were the top three voted on. Philip Pittak – Crescent Trading, Francesca Abimbola – Franceskka Fabrics, Leila McAlister – Leila’s Shop, and previous CUK Director Niel Jameson. Photograph by Sarah Ainslie.

I have been Organising for the EETG since 2010. I was called to the craft through my Dad Paul Nicolson an ex champagne salesman turned Vicar who ran his campaign group Tax Payers Against Poverty from his home in Tottenham for 19 years prior to his death last year. He said to me “You should be an organiser darling, you would be good at it” I didn’t need more encouragement. Yesterday he would have turned 89.

Dad commissioned the Minimum Income Standards research from the Family Budget Unit in 1999 which was used by UNISON and London Citizens to persuade Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London, to introduce the London Living Wage.

Shortly after the career advice, I got myself on to a master’s program in Community Organising at Queen Mary University and ran the Sussex Marathon to help pay for my fees. It was grueling getting myself through training and working full time while studying as a single parent in London. I had to be incredibly disciplined but even then debt was inevitable, I simply could not manage the rent and the bills in London for two.

After two years of hard graft, I came away with a Master of Arts Degree. My family came to support me at my Graduation. My son Marley on the left. My brother Rod, Sister Claire and my Dad. I wear tartan dedicated to my Scottish Mum Robina Dallmeyer.

It was while I was studying, that I first went to visit Paul Gardner at Gardners’ after reading about him in Spitalfields Life. Together with The Gentle Author, Paul Gardner, and many of his comrades, we uncovered the common issues to affect small businesses in the neighbourhood. We held our launch assembly at Christchuch Spitalfields in November 2012 and we have been working together ever since. 

Everyone who attended remembers this launch assembly with great fondness, the founding members made it a glorious event.

Community Organising is joyous and tremendously rewarding but like anything worthwhile, to do it properly takes time and is extremely challenging. A vast amount of patience, skill, training, and learning on the job is required. Sadly it is massively undervalued, sometimes misunderstood, and often invisible.  Much of my own labour over the last decade has been voluntary or low-waged. I have doggedly kept at it for so long because I believe in the craft just like my Dad did.

Organising is pragmatic, there is no ideology, action is rooted in the common interests of a diverse group of people, not in dogma. It has been explicitly developed to grow power for the common good, putting local people center stage to own and lead the solutions to the problems they face.

The first time Sadiq met with us in 2016, he came for Breakfast at E. Pellicci. We take him to all the best places! Here he is with Anna, Nevio and Maria Pellicci and ex-boxer Warren Richards from Cafe Caribbean. 

The approach has its roots in the civil rights movement and has been developed in this country by many organisations including our partners Citizens UK who breathed life into Dad’s research for the Living Wage with East London members of TELCO in the 90’s. Citizens UK works with institutions of faith, labour, and education. In an age of declining membership to such institutions, and the boom in micro-businesses our Guild provides broad-based, inclusive representation and influencing for human-centered, small-scale, and community-rooted enterprises. Our innovative model fills the gap created by the rapidly changing face of work.  

Because of my experiences as Organiser / Director of the EETG, it is my mission to ensure that as we grow we pay our Organisers properly, and with your help, we can do just that. I would not wish the anxiety and stress that I went through as a rookie Organiser upon anyone.

Although I am still not well off and not a member of the property-owning class, there are obviously intersections of privilege and I understand I am one of the lucky ones. I am incredibly grateful to all the members past and present for teaching me so much about my vocation, about the culture of our community, and the innate social and economic value of Guild members.  I am so excited by the potential we have to create immense positive change at this decisive moment in history. I never stop learning from the people I work with. It is because of all my experiences both good and bad that I am committed to ensuring that no one is excluded from becoming a Community Organiser at the Guild because of their background or circumstances. 

I know that my Dad would be incredibly proud to see what our community achieved with the help of his encouragement.

We’ve done so much already, imagine what we could do with even more members and supporters and a new Community Organiser! As Margeret Mead said; “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”. And think of the party we will have for our 10th birthday next year with all of us together again.

The additional member of staff we recruit with your support would help galvanise connections for recovery in East London. Please consider chipping in whatever you feel comfortable with to our Crowdfunder before it closes on Monday.

Remember, when we hit 10k we get match funding! Here’s that link again: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fair-rents-for-small-businesses

VAST GRATITUDE!

Krissie Nicolson, Founding Organiser and CEO of London Trades Guild & East End Trades Guild. 

Here is the full list of our current members, partners, and supporters;

4COSE
69B BOUTIQUE LIMITED
A G PRICE FLORIST
ADAM DANT
ALDGATE PRESS
ALLY CAPELLINO
ALTERNATIVE LONDON
ANDROMEDA ALCHEMY
ANGELA FLANDERS PERFUMERY
ANGELS CHILDCARE OF LONDON
ARBEIT STUDIOS
ARCHER + BRAUN
ARMSTRONG AUDIO
ASSEMBLE
ATELIER MILINARY
ATOM LONDON IT SUPPORT
BACON STREET SALVAGE
BADDELEY BROTHERS
BANCROFT GARAGE
BEAR BROOKSBANK
BELIGI
BEN DAY
BETTER HEALTH BIKES & BETTER HEALTH BAKERY
BIRKITT HILL & BLACK
BLACK TRUFFLE
BLACKHORSE LANE ATELIERS
BOBBY DAZZLER
BOMBETTA
BOOKARTBOOKSHOP
BOXHEART
BRACKETS DIGITAL LTD
BRICK LANE BEIGEL BAKE
BRICK LANE BOOKSHOP
BRIDGEWOOD & NEITZERT LTD
BRINKWORTH DESIGN
BUHLER AND CO
BUTTONBAG LTD
C E BURNS & SONS WASTE PAPER MERCHANTS
CAFE CARIBBEAN
CALDERA
CALVERTS
CAMPANIA
CARAVAN STYLE
CAREFULLY SORTED
CARIBBEAN KITCHEN (HACKNEY) LTD
CAROLINE BOUSFIELD GREGORY, WORKSHOP
CASEY’S OF CLAPTON
CELINE CONDORELLI
CHARLENE MULLEN LTD
CHRIS DYSON
CHU’S HERBAL TEAS
CITIZENS UK
CLIMPSON & SONS
COLLINS BENSON GOLDHILL LLP
COMPANY DRINKS
CONSTRRUCTIVE & CO
CONTENT LONDON LTD
COPPERMILL LTD
COUCO EYEWEAR
COVERS
CREATIVE WORKS
CRESCENT TRADING
CURVED BRICK CO
DALLAS-PIERCE-QUINTERO
DALSTON EASTERN CURVE GARDEN
DANDY STAR
DARCY TURNER
DARREN BRADBURY
DAVID DITROI
DE SELBY LTD
DENNIS SEVERS HOUSE
DEPOTSTORE
DIDDY’S BAR
DIP KING
DIY ART SHOP
DJA ONLINE SERVICES LIMITED
DOT STUDIO
DOUGS DOGS LIMITED
DOWSE & CO
E. PELLICCI
E17 EASTMAN CAMP
E5 ACUPUNCTURE
E5 BAKEHOUSE
EAST CITY TAIKO
EAST END PRINTS
EAST LONDON BREWING COMPANY
EAST LONDON PRINTMAKERS
EAST LONDON RADIO
EASTEND PRINTERS
ECHO
EDIE ROSE
ELLA DORAN DESIGN LTD
EMPYAH
ESTABLISHED 25 ATELIER
EVER BETTER SPORT
EXALE BREWERY
EYE LONDON OPTICIANS
FABRICATIONS
FAR NEARER
FAY SEBEL FURNITURE
FIFTH COLUMN
FIVE POINTS BREWING COMPANY
FOUNTLONDON
FRAIZUP
FRAME LONDON LTD
FRMD
FUGITIVE MOTEL
G. KELLY
GARDNERS
GENESIS CINEMA
GH CITYPRINT
GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY
GREENNET
GRESHAM BLAKE
GRUNBERG & CO
GUARDIANS OF THE ARCHES
HACKNEY BREWERY LTD
HARMONY HALL
HENRI
HOLY SHOT COFFEE
HOOKSMITH PRESS
HOST OF LEYTON
HOXTON CABIN
IDOL HAIR
ILOH LONDON LTD
JAINES AND SON
JAMES BROWN
JAMES INCE UMBRELLAS 1805
JC MOTORS
JENNY BOAT
JEREMY FREEDMAN
JUST SPACE
JUTA SHOES LTD
KATE SHERIDAN
KATELYN TOTH-FEJEL
KATHRIN BOHM
KEN’S KITCHEN
KESE CUSHIONS
KHADIJA\’S CAKES
KITCHEN PROVISIONS
KO COMBAT ACADEMY
KONTIKI STUDIOS
KOPYKAT PRINTING
L’EAU A LA BOUCHE
LABOUR AND WAIT
LAXEIRO
LEFEVRE
LILY VANILLI
LIVE ART DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
LIVE ART DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
LIVING WINDOWS LTD
LOCAL BUYERS CLUB
LONDON BIKE KITCHEN
LONDON BOROUGH OF HACKNEY
LONDON BOROUGH OF TOWER HAMLETS
LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAMSTOW
LONDON CENTRE FOR BOOK ARTS
LONDON CITIZENS
LONDON FIELDS AND GARDENS
LONDON PICTURE CENTRE
LONDON SOFTWARE TRAINING
LORD OF THE WINGS
LOVE EAST MAGAZINE
LUCINDA ROGERS
LUNA & CURIOUS
MADAME LAVEAU’S VOODOO CREMES
MADE FROM SCRATCH LTD
MAES LONDON
MAISIE POPPINS LTD
MAISON DES REVES
MAKE TOWN
MARULIN LIMITED
MARYBOW PROPERTY
MASALA
MATTER ARCHITECTURE
MAXWELL PINBOROUGH FURNITURE
MERCURY INK
METHODICAL
MICHAEL LARGE, SETFORDS SOLICITORS
MILAGROS
MILTON AGENCY
MIMI BERRY
MINGLE AND COMPANY
MODERN FABLES ESCAPE ROOMS
MONSINI G
MOOSE
MOTHERHOOD OF BROTHERHOOD
MR DEXTER KIRK FABRIC PR & MARKETING LTD
MS ALLEGRA ROSE
MZ ACCOUNTANCY
NATASHA KERR
NELLY DUFF
NEUROVERSE
NEW ECONOMICS FOUNDATION
NEWHAM BOOKS
NEWMANS STATIONERY
NEWSPEAK HOUSE
NOM LIVING
NOOK SHOP
OLIVE LOVES ALFIE
OMNISCIENT HOMES LTD
ON-IDLE LTD
ONIMOS VINTAGE CLOTHING
OUTDOOR PEOPLE
OXFORD HOUSE
PACK AND CLOWDER
PAGES OF HACKNEY
PAINT HAIR ALCHEMY
PARADISE CYCLES
PARADOX DESIGN + COFFEE
PENDRAGON FRAMES
PEPONITA
PLAY VINYL
POLLYANNA TRAINING THEATRE
POPLAR UNION
PRINTERS & STATIONERS
PROVISIONS
PYLON CERAMICS
QUAKER STREET CAFE
REBEL COFFEE
REKINDLED
RESILIENT EDGE ARCHITECTURE LTD
RICH MIX
RICHIE & NIKKI LTD
ROB RYAN
ROCHELLE CANTEEN
ROKER
ROOM TO THINK
ROSSO CORSE LIMITED
ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS, MANUFACTURERS & COMMERCE
ROZENBROEK
S.E.H KELLY
SALTY COMMUNE
SAXON PACKAGING
SEARCH & DESTROY
SHAPE FURNITURE
SHOREDITCH NAILS LTD
SIAM BOTANICALS UK LTD
SKANDIHUS LTD
SKIN & SANCTUARY
SNAP STORE
SOAPBOX
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE PRINTING LTD
SOCKO
SOUP STUDIO
SOURCE LIFESTYLE
SPACE EMBRACE
SPITALFIELDS CITY FARM
SPLICE POST
SQUARE ROOT SODA
ST JAMES WORKSHOP
ST. JOHN RESTAURANT COMPANY LTD.
STACY BIAS
STENNAH AND HOPE
STINGRAY GLOBE CAFE
STOOKI
STREET STUDIOS
STUDIO UMUT YAMAC
STUDIO WIC
SUBLIME
SUPER ROOTS
SYMPOSIUM
SYNDICATE WEST ARCHITECTS
TAPESTRY
TATTY DEVINE
TAX ASSIST
TCO LONDON
TELCO
THE BACKWARD VENDOR
THE BROKEDOWN PALACE
THE DE BEAUVOIR DELI
THE GENTLE AUTHOR
THE GREEN WOOD GUILD
THE HR DEPT EAST LONDON
THE KENTON
THE LIQUID PARLOUR
THE MERMAID
THE OITIJ-JO COLLECTIVE
THE OLD BANK VAULT
THE OLD KINGS HEAD
THE OLIVE ROOMS
THE PLANE TREE
THE PLOUGH
THE PRINCE ARTHUR
THE REFINERY E9
THE ROCK HOUND
THE ROYAL OAK
THE SPIATLFIELDS SOCIETY
THINGS PLACES MESSAGES LTD
THINK FOUND
THINQ DIGITAL
TIM WARREN SET BUILDING
TIN CAFÉ
TOP UP SHOP
TOPUP TRUCK LTD
TOWER HAMLETS MUMS
TRIFFIDS
TRIP SPACE
TURNING EARTH E10
UNHOLY BAGELS
UNNAATY LIMITED
URBAN GOOD CIC
URBAN SPECIES
URBAN TUINA
URBAN UPHOLSTERY
URBIANA
USUAL OBJECTIONS
VENNER
VERDI’S RESTAURANT
VINARIUS
VORTEX JAZZ CLUB
VOUT-O-REENEES
WALL & JONES
WALTHAM FOREST FLAMES
WHITECHAPEL COFFEE COMPANY
WILD AND WOOLLY
WITH SEP
WONDERLAND CERAMICS
WOOD STREET BAKERY
WOOD STREET COFFEE LTD
WOOD STREET WALLS CIC
WOODEN HORSE
WOOLIDANDO
YODOMO LTD
YOGAHOME
YONDER
ZETTELER LTD
ZHERO