Trust Director Emma MacLennan Announces Retirement
It was with great regret that the Trust learned that Emma MacLennan has decided to retire from her post as director to the John Smith Memorial Trust, with effect from the end of 2007. She has decided that after eight years in office, she should hand over the responsibility to a new director.
Emma became director in 2000 and has been responsible for what we all recognise as the outstanding growth in the work and the prestige of the Trust, particularly the development and successes of the Fellowship Programme. By the time she hands over to her successor she will have managed eight full programmes and supervised the work and subsequent development of over 160 John Smith Fellows. The programme itself has become hugely richer in content and ambition. But Emma has also inspired a remarkable development in the meaning and permanence of the Fellowship by building enduring contacts with the Fellows and encouraging them to meet with each other to assist each other to pursue the ideals of the Trust in their work, their lives and their thinking. She has brought many influential and experienced people in to help with the work of the Trust and, as a result, we have an unrivalled body of supporters who make the wealth of their experience available to the Fellows both here and in their home countries.
Emma
When Emma ceases to be director at the end of this year we hope to find a way to salute her achievements more fully. But at this stage we want to pay special tribute to Emma’s personal commitment to the Fellows. Every one of them knows Emma personally and she regards each as a friend. She has welcomed many to her home and has visited many in their homes. She has corresponded and spoken with Fellows whenever any great changes have taken place in their lives: she was the first to learn of and rejoice in promotions, weddings, births, awards, successes, new scholarships and return visits to the U.K. For the Fellows, she has become the face of the Trust, the person who gives the idea of fellowship a true meaning. This achievement flows from Emma’s intense devotion both to the ideals that underlie the Trust and to the young people who seek to live up to those ideals, to make the Trust truly a living memorial to her friend John Smith.
She will be greatly missed; but she and we must find some way to ensure that the friendships that she has built through her time with the Trust will continue and that her wisdom and experience are not lost to us.
Emma at the 2006 Final Dinner