Coachlines - July 2024

27.07.24 Assistant Lyn Litchfield

Meet the Team – Communications Committee

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How time flies. It seems only yesterday when I launched this new feature “Meet the Team” in Coachlines. It has now reached its 10th and final edition, and it’s the Communications Committee’s turn to introduce ourselves.

The title of our committee is self-explanatory, we are here to communicate, and facilitate the communications of our Company, both internally and externally, about our missions and about what we, as a modern livery, stands for – an active Livery investing in young people.

We have been entrusted with raising the awareness and profile of the Company and to explore all avenues which will encourage engagement from current members, potential new members and also interest from the sectors we represent: coachmakers and coach harness makers, aerospace, automotive, services, and the City.

We produce the monthly e-magazine Coachlines as well as the annual printed publication The Coachmaker – Our Livery Year. We also act as the administrator of the Company’s LinkedIn account, through which we post about events that the Coachmakers has hosted and participated in. We are also in charge of issuing press releases about our awards, apprentices and bursaries. This autumn we plan to produce a new “Members’ Handbook” in which we will introduce the long history of the Company and document the key features of our Livery today.

There is a lot going on at any given time. Do you have an interesting story to tell or some good ideas to share? Are you communication savvy and willing to be part of the team? If you are and if you have, please do feel free to reach out to me lyn.litchfield@gmail.com.

As Chair of the Committee, I am fortunate to have an exceptional, skilful, and highly motivated team surrounding me. Many of you have got to know me quite a bit through reading the Editor’s Letter in Coachlines. I was trained as a TV reporter and a news journalist, and once upon a time, I even hosted my own weekly talk show on TV. But all this is in the distant past and it’s my passion for automotive that brought me into the Coachmakers eight years ago.

Instead of writing about each of my team members, I thought it would be more fun to let them introduce themselves to you directly. Their different writing styles will in turn showcase their personalities. I have promised that I would not edit their texts.

So, here you are. May I please proudly present my A list team to you.

Comms Committee Secretary, Liveryman Mark Jurd

I have been married for 39 years and have three daughters. I am half German on my mother’s side and am bilingual as a result. Before running my own business, I worked primarily in the service industry in a variety of roles; ranging from air steward to police officer. I opened my own catering business in 1995, which I ran successfully for 27 years. Covid forced me to take stock in 2022 and I have been semi-retired since then.

I worked on a German dressage yard in my gap year, where a lifelong passion for horses was born. An injury precluded me from riding and I was introduced to carriage driving, and the rest shall we say, is history. I am fascinated by the elegant equipage and traditional English vehicles in particular. Membership of a number of specialist clubs followed, leading to a variety of organisational roles, editorship of the Road magazine, and, more recently, my own publication Nimrod and The Coaching Club, 150 Years. I regularly commentate and judge at traditional driving events in Germany. I joined the Coachmakers in 2022 and hope my involvement will help perpetuate the traditions of English coach and harness making.

Press Officer & Deputy Editor of Coachlines, Freeman David Barzilay

David was trained as a journalist before holding several senior positions with both local, regional, and national newspapers. His last full-time journalistic post was as Northern Ireland correspondent of the London Evening Standard. He regularly writes for motoring publications about both modern and classic cars. For many years he edited Collectors Gazette. His has written several books including a history of the British Army in Ulster and Motor Racing Moments.

He is a former Scotland Yard press spokesman and has held senior public relations positions with Good Relations, Burson Marsteller, Daniel J Edelman, and Hill Holliday Connors and Cosmopulous. He has run his own public relations consultancy for more 30 years and was Chief Examiner in Public Relations for the Communications and Marketing Foundation (CAM). He currently advises several clients on public relations with particular attention to media relations including the Ruskin Museum (Bluebird k7), Blick Rothenberg, a leading audit tax and business advisory company, and Classic Motor Cars, a restoration company where he sits on the board

He launched the War Child and Romanian Orphanage Charities and ran public relations campaigns for BT Global Challenge – the round the world yacht race, which was his idea, before working with Robin Knox Johnson on his round the word Clipper races. He ran PR for the VE Day celebrations and the launch of the most successful British Airways advertising campaign ever. He was for some time a senior consultant to Saatchi Strategy, a think tank and crisis communications agency, part of Saatchi and Saatchi.

He has advised the Royal Navy on PR strategy and ran PR campaigns and fundraising activities while working with sponsor Jaguar Land Rover for aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

He is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the Naval and Military Club

He is married to Jenny and lives in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. He has a lifelong interest in in anything that moves fast, and he collects old toys.

Renter Warden David Barrett

David Barrett joined the Communications Committee earlier this year as Renter Warden. David is honoured to have been asked by the Court to serve a two-year term as Warden 2022-2024 ahead of Past Master Richard Charlesworth who has been selected to serve as Master again (subject to election) for 2025-26.

David served a 40-year plus career in automotive design, engineering and project management; mostly involving sports cars and commercial vans. Twenty years with Ford of Europe was followed by consultancy work and then a 17-year career in the US at General Motors and then the Canadian auto parts industry.

Having been a 16-year-old Apprentice Draughtsman school-leaver, he subsequently studied a BSc in Engineering Technologies with the Open University from 1988-1994.

On his (first) retirement in 2007 he returned to the UK and luckily fell into a complete change as Clerk to the Makers of Playing Cards Company (chartered in 1628), wher he served for 12 years (second retirement!). Early on in the City he realised that joining the livery was of enormous value and privilege, based on his career to date the Coachmakers’ Company was the obvious choice and he was admitted straight to liveryman in 2009.

Almost every livery company and guild Clerk is a member of the Fellowship of Clerks, the brother and sisterhood association that provides support, guidance, information and fellowship for serving Clerks. David was elected to its Executive Committee in 2012 and in 2016 was honoured to become Secretary for a term of seven years (third retirement!). During this time David was a member of the Livery Committee of the City of London, which organises Common Hall gatherings, courses and forums. He continues to organise the annual Garden of Remembrance at St Paul’s in November.

Today David enjoys the status of Clerk Emeritus at the WCMPC, he is a Freeman Ironmonger (a career bending metal), also a member of the City Pickwick Club, the City Livery Club and the Bishopsgate Ward Club. David has been pleased to join numerous Shrieval campaign committees for non-Aldermanic Sheriff, nowadays in his spare time David supports the Sheriffs’ & Recorder’s Fund at the Old Bailey, managing its fundraising banking, box office and event admin.

Freeman Jason Moseley

Jason is CEO for IBIS. His vision and mission are to grow the brand globally and continue to expand IBIS as the leading thought-leadership organisation for the worldwide collision repair market. He also takes an active role in many IBIS conferences as conference director.
Previously, Jason was a board director at the Retail Motor Industry Federation, heading up the collision repair division. Prior to that he spent six years at Solera in a senior global role, developing and deploying core data and product solutions to the various Audatex markets.
Before joining Solera, Jason was Chief Operating Officer at Thatcham (The Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre), where he established the first UK market parts certification programme, bringing quality and transparency to the sector.

In 2006, he was the industry driver of the UK´s highly regarded repair standard and the associated implementation of the assessment scheme, that continues to be the benchmark. This culminated in Jason receiving the 2007 Collision Industry outstanding achievement award.

In 2010, his team launched a new interactive online repair and maintenance data solution for bodyshops and garages. He has sat as a non-executive director on a number of boards and particularly enjoyed his time with the Institute of the Motor Industry Awards Board, focusing on raising skills and recognition of individuals in the automotive aftermarket.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Engineering honours degree and has also held senior positions in various global automotive first tier supplier businesses.

Liveryman Adrian Smith

Adrian comes from Aberdeen, in the northeast of Scotland. He ran his own Saab car dealership from 1982 until the demise of the brand in late 2011. He was also a director and shareholder in a specialist instrumentation company that grew from a start-up of eight employees in 1982 to more than 100, mostly as a result of the buoyant oil industry in the North Sea. Adrian exited the business, selling his shareholding to the other director close on five years ago.

He is a past President of the Scottish Motor Trade Association (SMTA) and was a director there from 1988 until 2020 and is currently Chair of the Grampian Motor Training Trust, a position he has held since 1987. He is married and has two grown up sons, one an airline captain and the other with a specialist musical restoration business. Adrian is an avid Formula 1 fan having visited many races including Australia and Japan and still has a collection of Saab cars. He admits being an aviation and car ‘geek’ being able to identify aircraft and cars much to the annoyance of the family!