City Blog

This has been self-improvement week!

It started with the kick-off of this year’s Haberdashers Monmouth Initiative. The purpose is to enable Sixth Formers to visit offices and get a feel for the working life in a profession. Haberdashers’ partner with a modern Livery Company, which uses its connections to get firms to participate. The students gathered for a meal at Haberdashers’’ Hall.

How exactly does the Lord Mayor take Office? I knew it happened the day before the Lord Mayor’s Show but the How was a mystery!

Our Clerk very kindly invited me to attend Friday’s ceremony, generally called the Silent Ceremony and in a crowded Grand Hall of Guildhall. Lasting about 20 minutes with the symbols of Office being passed across, the only audible words are the incoming Lord Mayor making a one sentence oath to perform the duties of office. Its very silence brings it great dignity and import.

Like a visitor to New Zealand, a country I love having lived and worked there, I find people asking how I’m finding the role of Master. It is of course deeply interesting.  The predominant feeling so far is that it is also very busy. This is partly the inevitable result of being installed at the same time as a new Clerk and Assistant to the Clerk took up their duties! No complaints - we consultants know about handling change, don’t we!

Seminar on Management Consulting Gives Food for Thought

An Unforgettable Ceremony and a Happy Dinner!

A tumultuous week, headlined by my Installation by IPM Geoff Llewellyn and an Address to the Members and guests at the end of the Ceremony!

The Installation Ceremony and Dinner will live in my memory. More importantly though, it was a celebration of our Company – looking back with pride and looking forward with expectation.

The speech of our Distinguished Speaker Alderman Sir Paul Judge, Sheriff of the City of London was a piece of hard sense about business sandwiched between some very good humour!

Since my last Blog, I've chaired the Election Court, which to my great pleasure, elected First Warden Edward Sankey as my successor and advanced Patrick Chapman and David Peregrine-Jones to First and Second Wardens. I wish Edward every success in his year which will start on Thursday.

Something of an hiatus since the last blog because of Summer holidays, so a bit of a catch up is due!

To the good ship HQS Wellington on 20 June for the Summer Court followed by the Education Supper – a very full afternoon and evening.

Summer Court was well attended and we covered a number of important issues including the decision that we would declare two Warden vacancies in the Elections to be held in September – so as to bring the number of Wardens back up to four. There’s a lot of work to be done and extra input is always welcome!

The last month since the Celebration Dinner seems to have been like going over a waterfall - or perhaps a turbulent breakwater as suggested by Jeff Cant's account of the Royalist Regatta in the "Recent News" section. Actually I don't recognise Jeff's account at all, since my recollection is that we spent the two days reclining on the poop deck in velvet smoking jackets reading Swinburne - I think Jeff must have been smoking something funny!

To tea with the Queen on 6 June at a Royal Garden Party!

To the Honourable Artillery Company on 9 May for the first of the Management Consultants' Celebration Dinners which we intend will become a part of the industry's annual calendar. We broke records for attendance with 180 people joining us for the reception in the Long Room at the HAC and dinner in the Prince Consort Room - very nicely decked out in our Company colours!

We also had a very nice write-up of the evening from Mick James, the leading specialist journalist covering our industry for “Top-Consultant”, who attended the event.

In my last blog, I anticipated a pretty grotty Easter break but the reality exceeded even the worst expectations! Least said, soonest mended on the weather front, I think, and now that Spring does appear to have sprung it may seem churlish to complain about a "white Easter" of which I certainly did not dream!