Coachlines - November 2022
24.11.22 The Master Julian Leach
Master’s message November 2022
The Lord Mayor’s Show
The Lord Mayor, who holds office for one year is a very important person. His/her status is equivalent to that of a Cabinet Minister even though they have no function in Government. These days they are drawn from people who have held senior positions in the financial sector of The City of London. Their job is to promote The City of London and UK plc both home and abroad and will spend a good deal of their mayoralty abroad. The Lord Mayor is elected by the Livery Companies and will have been a Sheriff of the City of London (there are two each serving for one year) and will also be an Alderman who represents a ward in the City of London, like a local councillor. They are known as Aldermanic Sheriffs.
The reason that I mention this, is because, although the Sheriffs and Lord Mayor were elected a month or so ago, The Mayor Making, when they take office, is held annually on the second Friday in November. The ceremony is known as the Silent Ceremony, because it takes place in The Guildhall in silence and is the transfer of the trappings of power from the ‘Late’ Lord Mayor to the new. Our new Lord Mayor is Nick Lyons.
As Coachmakers, we are also very proud to have an Aldermanic Sheriff in our midst. One of the two new Sheriffs, Alderman Alastair King is an Assistant on our Court. This is the first time in living memory that we have had a Sheriff, indeed an Aldermanic Sheriff in our Company. We offer him all our support and wish him good fortune in any other aspirations that he might have in the City of London.
The Wardens and I were fortunate enough to attend the Silent Ceremony and the Presentation of Addresses to the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs, during which we presented Sheriff Alastair with a gift from the Company. The Silent Ceremony was extraordinary. Very symbolic and actually quite moving. We were very honoured to be there.
All of this leads on to the Lord Mayor’s Show which takes place the day after the Silent Ceremony and historically was the Livery Companies celebrating their new Lord Mayor and leading him to the Royal Courts of Justice to sign his oath and then to his new home, The Mansion House. Nowadays many Livery Companies take part, including ourselves. There is a report on this elsewhere in this Coachlines. There are also marching bands, troops of horses, charities, even one or two commercial enterprises. The procession is over a mile long and the streets of the route is lined with thousands of people. It is a fantastically enjoyable occasion.
Our Company
Continuing on my theme that I started last month, I want to tell you a bit more about what we do. We consist of two ‘organisations’. There is The Company, also known as the General Fund which is the organisation you joined. It runs the social side, the dinners, the committees and employs the Clerk and Assistant Clerk.
The other ‘organisation’ is our Charity. This is a fund of almost £2M. The income from this is used to provide the awards and apprenticeships to the students that we select and is about £100,000 pa.
Some of the Livery Companies are extremely wealthy. They have beautiful halls, often attached to prime City real estate, from which they derive income and might well have a property portfolio inside and outside London. They usually have a surfeit of income that serves to enhance their charitable funds. Last year, the combined charitable giving of the London Livery Companies was in excess of £75M.
We do not have that kind of wealth. Our modest hall in Noble Street was bombed out of existence in the Blitz. The running costs of The Company (General Fund) are financed by you the members who pay joining fines and, what the City calls ‘quarterage’ (your subscriptions). We also find sponsorship for such things as the Lord Mayor’s Show and sell advertising to finance the Directory. Livery Committee events usually make a small surplus and dinners tend to ‘wash their face’. We have decided that we need to increase our membership by 50 people, to cover increasing costs.
The Charity is enhanced by sponsorship from time to time, the Banquet and ad hoc things we do such as our participation in the Goodwood Revival last year, each of which raised more than £40,000 each. We have an aspiration to increase our Charitable Fund to £3M in the next five years.
We have realised that we need to be cleverer about raising money for both sides of our organisation and with that in mind, under Renter Warden we have formed a Fundraising Committee and have been fortunate in finding people experienced in this field in our membership. At the same time we are also open to any ideas that you might have.
Rakesh Sharma has recently taken on Chairmanship of the Membership Committee which has embraced the task to increase our membership. We are fully cogniscent that we must not compromise on the quality of candidates. As well as other dark arts we have aways benefitted from Liverymen proposing colleagues, friends and family. In order to help the Membership Committee in its mammoth task, we would love you to ‘open’ your address books for them. If you want them to, the Membership Committee will make the approach, or you can do it yourself. Either way, please signify your willingness, or supply names to Rakesh at: r1sharma@hotmail.com. You all have connections into our industries who will make very worthwhile Liverymen.
Our next major event is the Carol Service on 8th December. You should have received an email about it but you can also find it under the events page on our website. Do come. The music is going to be magnificent.