The London Hellenic Centre
Message from the Director of the Hellenic Centre in London
September 2020
Dear Members and Friends of the Hellenic Centre
I hope that you and your families are all well and healthy.
It is six months now since the Centre had to close during these unprecedented times. I contacted you in April with the forward-looking hope that at this time you would be receiving our Diary of Events with the list of our autumn events. Unfortunately, this is not the case this year: the nature of the Centre means that an effective reopening of live events remains dependent on directions from the UK government.
In the meantime, we remain present through our Website, Facebook and other Social Media. I am pleased that many of you are following us there, as these will remain important channels for communication even after the Centre reopens. If there is one thing that this period has reinforced, it is the importance of technology in addition to the irreplaceable nature of social interaction, and I encourage our members who are less familiar with technology to take the opportunity to interact with us there.
We have a programme of virtual events for this autumn. Many are already on our website but soon there will be more, amongst them lectures from academics, presentations on Greek language, literature, health, archaeology, philosophy, concerts and exhibitions.
The Centre is an independent charity. Contrary to what many people believe we have no major funding from governments or institutions. Historically we have relied primarily on our corporate venue hire in order to fund a rich and diverse cultural programme. The Centre is presently suffering financially and our income has dropped by more than 90% this year. It is therefore urgent and important that you can support us at this difficult time. We are thankful for the continued financial support from those of you who have been able to help and we hope that many more of you will consider doing so in the future.
The Trustees of the Hellenic Community Trust are doing their best to support both the staff and the building so that we are ready to resume our activities as soon as this is allowed.
We have been welcoming you to our events for 25 years and we are confident that we will overcome this terrible situation and that the Centre will once again be full of events and people.
Please stay connected with us, enjoy our virtual events and we look forward to the time when we will welcome you to our building again.
Warm regards
Agatha Kalisperas
Director of the Hellenic Centre
