Master’s message – June 2026

Hello fellow Coachmakers,

As I write this I am reflecting on the fact that it is coming up to the end of June, so my year as Master is almost over, when it seems no time at all since I was elected in September. Well, as they say, time flies when you are having fun!

As any Past Master will tell you, there are so many wonderful experiences you get to enjoy when Master, and whilst there is also an enormous amount of admin, meetings, Zooms, and phone calls to attend to, the stand-out memories are the City and Livery events the Master gets to be part of. To be able to experience some of these occasions with my wife Zoë makes it twice as memorable.

The climax of any Master’s year is the Annual Fundraising Banquet, and this year’s event took place at the Honourable Artillery Company in the City.

As you know, we often hold our Banquets at either the Guildhall or Mansion House, although I have attended a few at other important Livery Halls, as chosen by the Master of the year. Last year, the then Master Steve Fitz-Gerald hosted a highly successful event at Mansion House which, due to his and the team’s excellent efforts, raised sufficient sponsorship to pass £30,000 to our Charitable Fund.

Senior Warden Mark Broadbent is at an advanced stage of planning his year as Master in our 350th year next year (subject to election.) Mark will be hosting a fabulous Banquet at The Guildhall, so I decided that this year’s Banquet should be a bit lower key, coming between such grand events. So, with great help from Junior Warden Eric Wallbank, incoming Chair of the Charity Committee Roger Woodbridge, Hon. Court Assistant Lesley Upham and the dynamic Clerks, Craig and Deborah, we decided upon the Headquarters of the Honourable Artillery Company. The HAC is the oldest regiment in the British Army, receiving its charter from King Henry VIII in 1537.

I was fortunate to get sponsorship of the occasion from my former colleagues at Bentley Motors, who had previously agreed to sponsor ‘my’ Banquet in 2020 that was lost to COVID, which was very magnanimous of them. We had a capacity attendance of 170 Liverymen and guests, and thanks to fine weather were able to enjoy the Champagne reception on the forecourt of Armoury House, watching the Royal British Legion Band and Corps of Drums, Romford, before a fabulous dinner in the Long Room. We recognised our ‘Persons of the Year’ from our affiliated service units at Commando Helicopter Force, the Royal Dragoon Guards and RAF Brize Norton, and enjoyed a fascinating speech from our guest of honour Axel Dewitz, Member of the Board for Finance and IT at Bentley Motors.

We held a silent auction during dinner with many fabulous experiences and items to be bid for, organised by Assistant Eric Wallbank and Liveryman John Fuggles, which was highly successful. So, whilst numbers are yet to be finalized, we hope to be able to pass in excess of £20,000 to the Charitable Fund. I hope you will agree, this will be a more than adequate result of a lower-key Banquet.

The evening went amazingly well, and we received many appreciative comments, so enormous thanks go to the Clerk and Assistant Clerk who put in a huge amount of work over many weeks, with long days and short nights for the couple of weeks leading up to the event. They should be very proud of what they achieved.

As you may recall, I have been campaigning for more Liverymen to attend at least one dinner during each year, and your response has been encouraging, but we still need more. Towards the end of this year we will let you know how many Liverymen have attended to illustrate the point. However, thank you to those who have come along, I really hope you have had a good time.

Please don’t forget there is one further Livery Dinner to take place, which will be at Girdlers’ Hall on 16th July. This is the Coaching Dinner that follows the Summer Court, so our Coaching Awards will be presented. Girdlers’ is a hall not often used by other Livery Companies as it is not available to hire, it is only because of our close relationship with the Company that we have been invited to use the hall on the basis we will contribute to its charity.

The capacity is only 125 so early bookings are advisable, especially as we will have a great guest speaker that evening.

Rebecca Stephens MBE was the first British woman to climb Everest in 1993 and the following year the first British woman, and only the third in the world, to climb the ‘Seven Summits’. As well as her mountaineering exploits, Stephens has sailed the Southern Seas to the South Magnetic Pole and Antarctica and crossed the South Atlantic island of South Georgia. With the polar explorers Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr Mike Stroud OBE, she competed in an eight-day Eco-Challenge, which consisted of running, biking and canoeing across the Canadian Rockies. She also happens to be a lovely lady who you will enjoy listening to and meeting.

I also want to implore you to consider attending more of the wonderful events organised by the Livery Committee under the enthusiastic Chairmanship of Richard Robinson. The LivCom is a small but industrious group of your fellow Liverymen who spend a lot of their time researching and organising fascinating and fun events in the UK and beyond. These are great, good value visits and experiences, but we have been struggling to get members of the Livery to engage with them, so the committee members are in danger of losing motivation, which would be a great shame.

Together with Mark Broadbent, the team is working on some fabulous events for our 350th year from September, so please take the time to look at the events they are planning and sign up for some of them. I promise you will have a great time, with fellow Liverymen you may know, or not, and whilst these are organised to encourage fellowship and fun, know that any surplus will go to our charity.

Thank you for taking the time to read this,

All the best,

Richard