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| The Public Speaking Competition, 24th March 2004 (held in conjunction with The Guild of Educators) A very successful second Public Speaking Competition was held at Bakers' Hall on 24th March. Judges were drawn from the Guild and Company and were chaired by Lord Justice Ward who, despite the very high standard displayed by all the contenders, were able to reach a unanimous decision that Eleanor Powers from The City of London School for Girls was the outstanding student and our own Third Warden, Hugh Morris, the overall winner this year. Hugh was awarded The Beevers Cup Public Speaking Cup donated to the Company by last year's winner, Richard Beevers.
An audience of about 40 was treated to a great range of humour, pathos and serious treatment of both the prepared and unprepared topics. It was truly amazing how some people could turn any theme into an opportunity to present their favourite ideas! The Company wishes to thank The City of London School for Girls, The City of London School, The Guild and The Worshipful Company of Bakers for their involvement in the evening.
2004 CHARITIES SUPPER A full gathering of the Master, Alan Broomhead, Wardens, Members and Guests were welcomed to the Supper by the Chair of the Charities Committee, John McLean Fox. Some 123 people filled the Hall to capacity and demonstrated the huge measure of support that existed for the Company’s Charities work. It was actually a momentous occasion, in that it was the first Company event at which it had been possible to confirm that the Company’s joint venture with Cass Business School, The City Centre for Charity Effectiveness, had been legally approved as a Company Limited by Guarantee and a Registered Charity. This was very gratifying for the Task Force that had been working so enthusiastically to establish C3E for the past two years or so. As part of the planning activity it had been working hard to raise funds for the venture, and it was announced that, at Christmas, C3E had received a grant for £70K from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, which brought the total to date up to around £220K. Though there was still a long way to go, the task Force had been greatly encouraged by the Foundation’s expressed hope that their grant would help to persuade other funders to follow suit and back C3E. Barclays Bank was another Founder Funder with a similar grant, represented by Martin Mosely of Barclays at the Supper and thanked publicly. Another active supporter, Clare Thomas of Bridge House Trust, was also attendingn the Supper and was warmly thanked; she had given the Company leads to some early consultancy clients, and had since given a grant to C3E to help it on its way. Sir Kenneth Stowe, Chair of the Treasury’s Futurebuilders’ Fund Reference Group, was also thanked for his personal support for C3E. A brief summary of C3E’s activities was given. The unit is based at Cass Business School, City University, and offers a number of Degree and Diploma courses related to Voluntary Sector Management, as well as a series of Short Courses and Masterclasses that are about to be launched this year. C3E will also offer a range of consultancy services concerned with Charity Effectiveness, in addition to continuing the Company’s pro bono consultancy and mentoring work for smaller Charities that are unable to pay fees. It is planned that Research projects on Sector issues should also form a significant part of C3E’s activities. Attention was drawn to the Company’s Annual General Meeting and Member’s Reception to be held at Cass Business School on 7 April, to which all Members were invited. Two non-Company members of C3E, Caroline Copeman, a Course Leader, and Professor Paul Palmer, who is looking after the Masters Programmes, were warmly greeted and thanked for their co-operative involvement.
Regarding the Company’s recent charitable work, the speakers last year had been focused on the mentoring activity, whereas this year it was on consultancy projects. This didn’t however mean that mentoring had gone into decline, quite the reverse in fact. The redoubtable and irrepressible Gordon Stoker, despite undergoing major surgery recently, had increased the offers of mentoring from 36 a year ago to 50 today, an excellent achievement. He was warmly thanked for all that he had done, as was the equally irrepressible Stephen Bubb, CE of ACEVO, with whom the Company has been co-operating on this front. Stephen, who was the guest of his mentor, Paddy Fitzgerald, and all the other mentees at the Supper were enthusiastically welcomed by the Chair, and they enjoyed a stimulating evening together with the Company. Examples of the Company’s consultancy activity were portrayed in turn by three speakers, to whom a high level of gratitude was expressed for their generous participation. The first speaker was Rosaleen Mansfield, Chair of Disability, Pregnancy and Parenthood International. The charity had been introduced by Sir Ivor Cohen, who was attending the Supper; he had asked originally if the Company were able to assist this charity to merge with another charity, Disabled Parents Network. Rosaleen spoke about the assistance given by the consultant from the Company, Richard Finn, and paid tribute to his help in facilitating this endeavour. The second speaker was Val Potter, Co-Director of wpf Counselling and Psychotherapy, a counsellor and psychotherapist herself and the current Chair of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. wpf is one of the premier organisations in the UK in this field, and Val spoke about the help being given by Mike Jeans and John McLean Fox in attempting to assist wpf to improve its strategic market focus and positioning. The third speaker was Chris Robinson, CE of CHASE Children’s Hospice Service, covering SW London, Surrey and Sussex. He spoke about the way in which John Stares had helped the charity to address certain governance issues during 2003. CHASE had been introduced to the Company by Sir Kenneth Stowe, and it was highlighted that a wonderful outcome from this involvement had been that the founder of CHASE, Julia Lever, had become a member of the Company. Towers Perrin had corporately supported this event and much pleasure and gratitude on behalf of the Company was expressed by the Chair, who had been a former associate of Kinsley Lord Towers Perrin. Towers Perrin colleagues were thanked most warmly for their invaluable endorsement of the Company’s Charities work. Tribute was also paid to the way the Clerk, Claire Dyer, had organised the event, as it had been a very demanding occasion for her – especially managing to fit everyone in and avoid having to eat in the kitchen herself. Following the speeches and toasts the Master concluded by drawing attention to the fact that John McLean Fox had presided as Chair over the past seven Annual Suppers, and that he would be handing over to Gareth Rees in September 2004. The master had asked Keith Burgess, Brian Small and Mike Jeans from the Company to comment accordingly, and a number of complimentary remarks were made about John’s leadership and the growth in the various Charities initiatives during those seven years.
The Installation Dinner, 16th October 2003 Alan Broomhead was installed as 12th Master
of the Company on
Thursday 16th October at Ironmongers Hall. The occasion included a
formal affiliation ceremony with The Sea Cadets which will underpin
our financial support to them and signals the commencement of our
pro bono consulting effort to help their new Chief Executive in his The existing Wardens moved up a step with Allan Duguid becoming First Warden, Barrie Collins Second Warden, and Hugh Morris becoming Third Warden. Our new Fourth Warden is Mary Collis and we look forward to her becoming our first Lady Master in 2007.
The Master presented Mike Jeans with a book to recognise his tremendous contribution as a member of the Court of Wardens for 11 years, the only person to have served continuously since its inception. The Master paid tribute to the work of Barry Curnow as chair of the Education Committee which he vacates in order to become President of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes. Bob Garrat was welcomed as the new chair, as was Ian Daniell who takes over as chair of the Membership Committee. The Annual Company Debate, 18th September 2003 Some 32 Members of The Company and their guests attended The Company’s Annual Debate at Pewterers’ Hall on 18th September. They had gathered to consider the motion “This House Believes that Art has Nothing Meaningful to Bring to Business”. The debate was chaired by The Master and had illustrious speakers on both sides. Leading the proposers as Ben Evans, Director of the London Design Festival, who was supported by Charlie Errington, a journalist and artist himself. Fielded against this team were the opposition led by Martin Hoenle, Director of Sales for Ideo, who was seconded by Professor Sandra Kemp, Professor of Research at the RCA. In line with Company tradition, a vote was taken on the motion at the opening of proceedings to establish the audience’s views before they had heard from the speakers. The results of the vote were 3 votes in favour of the motion, with 23 votes against and 4 abstentions. At the end of the proceedings, The Master thanked the speakers and invited contributions from the floor, observing that views on the motion may well depend on one’s definition of art. There were a number of questions and observations after which Ben Evans and Martin Hoenle summed up for the proposers and the opposers respectively. The Master then asked for a repeat of the vote to see which team had swayed the audience’s views. The results were 10 votes in favour of the motion with 19 votes against and 3 abstentions. In line with Company rules, The Master declared that the proposers had persuaded more of the audience to their way of thinking than at the outset and declared them the winners. The speakers and audience then enjoyed drinks and refreshments whilst many
informal discussions on this fascinating subject continued. Our thanks go
to Freeman Alisdair Mann and to Garrick Jones of CGEY for making the evening
such a successful event.
Education Supper, 26th June 2003 - Tallow Chandlers' Hall This year's Education Supper was held at Tallow Chandlers' Hall and the beautiful June weather enabled the pre-Supper Reception to be held in the Hall's Courtyard. Assistant Barry Curnow officiated at the Supper and First Warden Alan Broomhead was in the Chair as The Master was sailing in the Three Peaks Yacht Race. The wines selected by the Wine Committee were a great success and contributed to the general enthusiasm for the competition to guess how far he had sailed. Funds were raised for C3E and there was a winner on the evening! The Urwick Cup and Prize was presented to Miss Dimple Shah by Mrs Chris Thomas, in whose late husband's memory the Supper was held. We were honoured to have Professor David Rhind, CBE, Professor Colin Coulson-Thomas and Mr Jonathan Charkham, CBE as our guest speakers for the evening.
The Three Peaks Yacht Race I entered a team of five and my yacht ‘Marian Maid’ in this year’s Three Peaks Yacht Race that began on Saturday June 21st seeking sponsorship for the City Centre for Charity Effectiveness. I am delighted that over £4,000 in individual sponsorship and potentially £20,000 in corporate sponsorship has been pledged so far. This money will make a tremendous difference to the City Centre, which can now get on with its plans. I would like to thank those Members of The Company who have been so generous in their support. As you may have heard we had a difficult Race. The start at 1500 at Barmouth was in Northwesterly light winds. Marian Maid got a good safe start at the windward end of the line in the middle of the fleet. Over the next 7 hours we beat to windward heading for Bardsey Island. The wind was fickle though and we missed having oars when occasionally the wind died completely. In Bardsey Sound we used the inshore backeddy and managed to raise our spinnaker. This did wonders for our position and as night fell we began to overtake the leaders of the fleet along the Northern shore of the Lleyn Peninsular. By dawn, we were again to windward of the fleet near Llandwyn Island. Coming in over Caernarfon Bar we worked our way up to fourth in the fleet as we approached Musselbank Buoy in the mouth of the Menai Straits. At Musselbank Buoy the Race Rules say that engines may be started to enter Caernarfon. 20 metres from the Buoy the wind dropped completely and we were pushed back in the fierce current. I decided to tack off to the shore in the hope of finding less tide, but it was not to be. We grounded on a sandbank at 0640, just one hour after high water on a falling neap tide. The Race Marshals agreed that we could land our runners, Nich Shepheard and Graeme Humphrey, from our position even though this meant that they had to do an additional 6 miles into Caernarfon. Chris Neil rowed them ashore in the rubber dinghy and then carried the runners and their packs across a bog and two streams to keep their feet dry for the running. It was 1105 as the runners left the checkpoint for Snowdon, well behind the rest of the competitors, who by then had returned from their run. The weather on Snowdon turned to 60mph winds and 3 metre visibility by the time the runners got to the top. They sheltered in the Café at the summit but then had to come down the railway track as the trains had been cancelled due to the dreadful weather. Meanwhile, Francis Wyburd and I, on board Marian Maid, dried out on the sand of Caernarfon Bar. I radioed the Coastguard every hour to report on our condition and I worked out that we should refloat at 1530. However, at this time there was clearly insufficient water to get us off so I radioed the Coastguard for assistance. They called out the Beaumaris inshore lifeboat that sped to our aid. Fortunately, the Lifeboat was able to pull us off the sandbank into the deep channel that lay only 2 metres away. Unfortunately, however, under the Race Rules this meant we had to retire as we had received assistance. Our Three Peaks Challenge came to an end barely 24 hours after we had started. Patrick McHugh,
The Annual Company Lecture, 22nd May 2003 - A Constitution for the European Union?
A change of topic shortly beforehand can only have added to the numbers attending this year's CoMC Annual Lecture presented at Pewterers' Hall on 22nd May. The reason? Lord Jenkin decided on the change just a day or two before the media debate began... A synopsis of Lord Jenkin's talk is available for Member access only in the Library The Master’s Dinner, 10th April 2003
“When I became Master last October I promised that I would pursue three themes during my year of office. Firstly, to provide a friendly and supportive environment for professional management consultants during difficult economic times. Secondly, to ensure that The Company continues to be financially secure through the proper management of its activities and thirdly, to have some fun on the way. Certainly, friendship, financial security and fun were all achieved at my Master’s Dinner at Ironmongers’ Hall and the atmosphere in this splendid Hall was a testimony to the enjoyment of the guests. I know that a number of long standing friendships were renewed as well as new friendships formed during the evening. My principal guest, Sir Peter Davis, is an enduring friend of mine, as well as being a sailing foe and once my employer at J Sainsbury plc. He spoke in an interesting and intimate way of his experiences as a leader of large public companies. It is clear that he considers the main talents needed by business people are leadership, communication and customer awareness. Any new Company such as ours necessarily spends its early years searching for its proper role amongst the ancient and established City Livery Companies. Attaining Livery on its own would be meaningless without the exceptional work that The Company undertakes for charitable and voluntary bodies. Do you know that The Company has now provided over 600 hours of ‘pro-bono’ consulting work for Charities and Voluntary bodies and that we currently mentor 38 chief executives of charities? All this work is undertaken under the auspices of the Charities Committee led by its Chairman, Assistant John McLean Fox. I would like to pay a particular tribute to John and to thank him for his outstanding contribution and leadership. I would like to end by thanking the Members of The Company for making this a first memorable six months for me as Master - we have been able to help our Members find friendship, relevance and meaning in difficult times, have made a real contribution to many charities and it certainly has been fun.” Patrick McHugh The Timeless Value of the Livery",
The Members' Reception at
The Inaugural Public Speaking Competition, 6th February 2003 On 6th February at Wax Chandlers’ Hall, The Company launched its first Public Speaking Competition held jointly with the Guild of Educators. The competitors spoke before a distinguished panel of judges led by District Judge Monty Trent. He was supported by The Masters and two Wardens from both The Company and Guild. The competition was in two parts; adults (both from The Company and Guild) and sixth formers from The City of London School for Girls, with prizes awarded to the best speaker from each section and an overall winner’s prize from the evening. The standard of contribution was very high. Competitors had to deliver two speeches, one three minute speech they had prepared beforehand from a set list of topics and one two minute speech on a given topic for which they had three minutes’ preparation time. The audience heard highly entertaining contributions on such topics as “Abroad”, “Belt and Braces” and “Annoying People”. The second round subject for all competitors was “Time”. The speakers having finished, the judges made their selections and declared the winners. The City of London School for Girls emerged on top, with Eleanor Powers winning the overall prize and Vikki Male winning a closely fought six formers’ section. The Company was also successful with Freeman Richard Beevers emerging victorious from a very competitive adult section. Our thanks and congratulations also go to Nick Caton, Rupert Turton, Stephen Salinger, Rachel Sui Yee Chan, Daisy Christodoulou, Scarlett Jennings and Camilla de Ste Croix.
The Annual Charities Supper, 22nd January 2003 – Salters’ Hall It was wonderful to see so many people at this year’s Supper, and particularly the guests who are being mentored by members of the Company as part of the pro bono scheme that we have arranged with ACEVO. 2002 was an excellent year for our Charities work in its various shapes and forms – it grew and expanded in scope during this period, and I would just like to highlight a few key aspects of this:
We were enormously grateful to the principal guests of the Company who agreed to speak at the Supper.
Thanks go to all those who attended the Supper – it was a most enjoyable evening. Assistant John McLean Fox
The Tenth Anniversary Celebration Luncheon On Wednesday 6th November 2002 at Mansion House, The Company held the first occasion in its history in the presence of a serving Lord Mayor. During his last week of office the then Lord Mayor, Alderman Michael Oliver with his Lady Mayoress joined us at The Tenth Annivesary Celebration Luncheon to celebrate the ten years that have passed since we started as a Guild. It was a splendid occasion with some 200 Freemen and their guests sitting down to lunch in the glittering Egyptian Hall at Mansion House, the Lord Mayor's residence in the City. I was able to say a few words about our achievements as a Guild and Company over the last ten years and First Warden Alan Broomhead spoke glowingly about our guests. The Rt. Hon. Lord Currie of Marylebone also gave us insights into his new role at OFCOM as well giving a huge plug for the City Centre for Charity Effectiveness, our joint venture with him at the Cass Business School. The then Lord Mayor replied and thanked us for presenting him with books that he had taken on a recent visit to South Africa and donated to CIDA, an urban university in Johannesburg and the then Lady Mayoress presented me with a gift of a PC mouse! The Luncheon also marked a celebration on our progress towards Livery and much excitement was expressed about this and about the City Centre for Charity Effectiveness and since these, and our birthday, were the main aims of holding the Luncheon I think we should mark it down as a milestone in our Company's history. So once again in fun, friendship and for the future, thank you all for your support. Patrick McHugh,
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