58. Champagne Afternoon Tea with the incoming Lady Mayoress and Shrieval Consorts, Goldsmiths’ Hall, 1 November 2023

All Consorts in post at the same time as the incoming Lady Mayoress, Elisabeth Mainelli, were invited to meet her and the incoming Shrieval Consorts Gary Langley and Jane Masojada, for champagne afternoon tea at the Goldsmiths’ Hall.  This event was organised by the Livery Pictures Committee.  Sadly, Jane was unwell and thus unable to attend.

The stunning Goldsmiths’ Hall has the appearance of a grandiose stately home.

With a very good turnout in support of Elisabeth, we all spotted both new and unfamiliar faces and were soon mingling in a bid to get to know everyone.  We all admitted to difficulty in remembering names, faces and Livery companies. 

After a welcome from Anne Somers, Chair of the Livery Pictures Committee, Elisabeth introduced herself.  One of her personal charities will be a project entailing marshalls to be on duty on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at Liverpool Street Station to help those in need manage to get a black cab to take them home.  This is connected with her main charity, tackling Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG).  We look forward to learning more about this very worthwhile cause, and about the annual Lady Mayoress’s sleep out in aid of this charity. 

Elisabeth will be supporting – and asked us to support too – her husband’s initiative of “Connect to Prosper”, aiming to create more connections that help the world progress to solve problems.

We were then free to mingle further and partake of tasty delights for our afternoon tea, in a resplendent setting.  All too soon it was time to leave.  We all look forward to working with Elisabeth, Gary and Jane during their year in office.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

230. Installation Court, Apothecaries’ Hall, 3 July 2024

Image
The Installation Court was held in the magnificent setting of the Apothecaries’ Hall. The focus of the Court meeting was on the growth of the Company and increased activity and income. The Company was very pleased to welcome Liam Hogg, Lee Morton and Gerald O’Shaughnessy as new Liverymen, and Martin Ballard, Avtar Jirh, Tom Morton, Michael Nates, Lina Nieto, Elizabeth Price, Mark Smith, John Ward, Judy West and John Wylie as new Freemen of the Company.
Read more

229. Sunset Cruise and Dinner, River Thames, 2 July 2024

Image
My thank you event for the Court and Company had to involve water, so what better way than a sunset cruise on the Thames!   I wanted a memorable expression of thanks to members of the Court, Past Masters, Fellow Masters, Consorts and friends. I took the advice of the Master Waterman and approached several companies to hire a boat for the evening. The first we declined when we found that the catering was not of the required standard. Everything was going well for the second boat until I advertised it to the Court and had more responses than could fit on the boat. So we got a bigger boat and filled it. The caterer was concerned how they could feed us all but I was confident it would work. On Monday morning I took a call from the boat company to say that the refuelling on Saturday night had resulted in contaminated oil getting to the engine and they offered a fourth boat …. the Wellington ! I politely declined, as I knew the Wellington would not be cruising anywhere. Eventually the...
Read more

79.Lord Mayor's Address to the Livery, Mansion House, 22 November 2023

Image
I have taken so many pictures of the current Lord Mayor standing at a lectern I thought that it was about time for a change so a previous Lord Mayor instead.   One of 625! This was one of the occasions when Masters had to be at the Mansion House to hear the Lord Mayor.   It was an impressive but informal occasion. The Lord Mayor started with thanks to the cadet forces from the Army, Navy and Air Force for their help at the Lord Mayor’s show.   He then outlined his vision and plans for the year ahead.   In particular he emphasised the importance of the Livery and cross-Livery working.   We were given a handout on 12 of the different pan-Livery activities.   Although we have engaged with many of them, I felt that we were active members of relatively few and we needed to revisit our pan-Livery activities. The Lord Mayor then focused on his theme of Connect to Prosper and the various initiatives that were helping to deliver it.   He described the seri...
Read more