98. Lord Mayor's Livery Company Coffee Morning, Mansion House, 11 January 2024


The Lord Mayor arranged a series of meetings with Livery Company Masters to discuss:

1.      Equality, Diversity and Youth Engagement

2.      Livery Engagement with the City of London Corporation

Sixteen Masters from across the Livery gathered to share their experiences, ideas and actions to outreach to and engage and reflect the diversity of the City, London and the nation.  I noted that, while we should not beat ourselves up, looking at the profile of those present, we reflected the challenge as we were predominantly white, male (two women) and older. Our professions are now far more diverse, with different cultures and approaches, including to what we eat and drink.  Our younger members and potential members have different values and outlooks compared with those of older members.  Our guests and potential members must feel comfortable as well as enjoy what we do.

Ideas from other Masters included:

·         A welcome event for everyone with whom the Company has been in contact over the past year

·         Introducing temporary Court members so new/younger members can experience and contribute to Court without obligations

·         Apprenticeships for ca 20+ year olds

·         Engage with local schools including giving career talks

·         Support for cadet units and raising awareness of the Livery

·         Livery lite - affordable reduced membership fees, include one dinner each year

·         Pay for graduates to attend the installation meeting

·         Under 40 lower entry and membership fee (substantially less than the £600 and £525 respectively for a Company)

·         Free events sponsored by members

·         Accept that older members have the time to give, younger members busy with job/family/careers

·         Half price young guest tickets for events

·         Hold an event targeted at professionals/practitioners from different cultures/traditions

·         Hold a public exhibition about your profession/trade

We recognised and appreciated the increased commitment of the City to the Livery and the increased budget.  The contribution of the Livery is shown in the impact report. https://liverycommittee.org/about/livery-companies-and-guilds/the-2022-pan-livery-report/.  We were asked to help our clerks complete the data required for the report, which is to be produced every two years, especially the information on pro bono work.

The Lord Mayor encouraged all Livery to make more use of social media especially the City of London Livery Community Linkedin page. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12921054/

The contribution of the Water Conservators to the Coffee Colloquy and Knowledge Mile lectures was particularly appreciated.

It was a very interesting and informative discussion.  I look forward to seeing the conclusions.  In the meantime there are some good ideas for us to get on with.

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