NL March 2018

Your Master's voice:

Our school won! At the Old Bailey our Sheriffs Challenge school,Oasis Academy at Ponders End, followed the instructions from PM Ian Daniell, Assistant Kanan Barot and Freemen Rhonda Best & Collette Stone to make the best presentation; and Malala was judged most inspiring 'change agent' alive!

PM Mike Jeans, supporter of Chartered Accountants' school in the previous round, re-badged to also support Oasis at the Old Bailey! Come to the Education Supper to see Sheriff Neil Redcliffe formally present the cup to The School. 

My Mistress Mary has been busy organising the 'consorts' - a recent development enabling The Mistress to know what The Master actually gets up to at events!  (See article on City Consorts' International Women's Day event) - but it means I now have to book my meetings at our flat to avoid conflict....

At The Members' reception (compere 3rd Warden Bob Harris- prospective Wardens note new duty) I had great pleasure admitting three new Freemen: Sue Ells; Steven Mayhew; and Simon Rose. Two Liverymen also: Lewis Conquer and Graeme Lythe.  And the feedback from the evening suggested at least three more guests of members intended applying to join .

The sadder responsibilities of my role meant I attended the funeral of one of our younger Liverymen, Ian Lawson. A much more cheerful one was attending the annual meeting of City University (Rector The Right Hon Lord Mayor).

See you at Shoptalk and the Education Supper....

David

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and Happy Easter....!

Visit to the City of London's Distillery:  A blueprint for lifting the spirits, from Past Mistress, Karen Sankey.  Warning: delicate scientific instruments can be put out of balance by the lifting and replacing on the bench of one's g&t glass...

New Zealand revisited - and not a turkey in sight... or how we swapped an English winter for a Kiwi summer... PM Patrick Chapman and Ann trawl through the watering holes of Godzone country....

On pro bono assignment in Malawi: The rural communities are mainly subsistence farmers; just close enough to walk a couple of hours to work in the city...  a supremely fit Liveryman Chris Sutton volunteers as an accountant, while using every opportunity for  hiking, mountaineering and exploring....

The Company's Charitable Fund recently provided funding for the development of "The Honorary Treasurers' Handbook", which offers essential advice, information and support for Charity Treasurers and Board members on how to strengthen their financial accountability.  Second Warden, Denise Fellows describes the softer skills of being a charity Treasurer....

City Consorts celebrate International Women's Day 2018. Social Historian, Carol Harris, outlines the attitudes of the period, and traces some of the horrendous events with which the suffragettes were involved...  The Mistress, Mary Johnson, elucidates...

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Seeking applicants for the role of Almoner !

After 6 years in the role, and having done a magnificent job, Liveryman Gill King now considers it is time to move on.  Applicants please contact the Master:  davidjohnson.wcomc@yahoo.co.uk   - and check out the Almoner's Role:  http://wcomc.org/the-company/almonerv2

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Gia Campari's Opera Singers' Reunion: to sing some of the choruses with which they electrified audiences last year at the Fidenza Opera House, Italy

NOTICES 

Shoptalk: Tues 10 April at 5:30 for 6pm.  "Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Real World Consulting".  At The Counting House, 50 Cornhill EC3V3PD.  £15 on the door, to cover venue and food.   Book here...

 Monday 16th April from 10.45 am to 3.30 pm. at Painters Hall, Little Trinity Lane EC4V 2AD.  ‘NYLONS and NATTER’ LADIES and CONSORTS LIVERY DAY – an invitation from the Mistress Horner and Mistress Management Consultants to ladies and consorts. Tickets at £85 per person. For more information, Contact : clerk@horners.org.uk 

- Wed 25 April at 6:30-10:30:  Education Supper 2018.  At Guildhall, Gresham St EC2V 7HH  "The Future Role of Apprenticeships"  with Keynote Speaker Antony Jenkins, Chair of the Institute for Apprenticeships; updating on their first year of operation and future plans.  Cost £85.    Book here... 

- Wednesday 23rd May 2018 – 6.0pm for 6.30pm in the Church of St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate, London EC1 (at the junction of Holborn Viaduct and Giltspur Street): The Royal Fusiliers Memorial Chapel Committee invites attendance at The Third Annual Memorial Lecture, when  Field Marshal The Lord Guthrie GCB LVO OBE DLwill speak on “The Morality and Tradition of the Just War” This lecture is free of charge, but there will be a retiring collection for the Chapel. Allowing time for questions, the lecture is likely to end at about 7.30pm, but further discussion may take place informally over a glass of wine afterwards.  Those wishing to attend are asked to send their names by e-mail to: mjd451@gmail.com by Wednesday 16th May.  Bids will be confirmed, but no hard-copy tickets will be issued.

 - “City View” the magazine of the City of London Corporation.  Download the latest edition… https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-the-city/about-us/Pages/publications.aspx

- Bi-monthly Livery Briefings, and the Programme of City Briefings and Courses, details of all of which are to be found at http://www.liverycompanies.info/diary--news/ The City Briefings in 2018 will take place on the evenings of 21 May, 8 October and 20 November. The Livery "Wardens and Court Assistants Course" will be held on 26 September.

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Management Consultants expertly handling conflict in the Client's Workplace, through the mechanisms of Distraction and Confusion.... 

A typical Whiteboard session:...

A moth goes into a podiatrist’s office. The podiatrist asks, ‘What’s the problem?’, and the moth says, ‘What’s the problem ?!  Where do I begin?’

‘I go to work for Gregory Illinovich, and all day long I work. Honestly Doc, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t think Gregory Illinovich does. He only knows that he has power over me, and that brings him happiness somehow.’

‘I wake up in a malaise, and I walk here and there. At night, I sometimes wake up and turn to some old lady in my bed. An old lady that I once loved, Doc.’

‘I don’t know where to turn to. My youngest, Alexandria, she fell in the cold of last year - as many of us did.’

‘My other boy - and this is the hardest pill to swallow, Doc… My boy, Gregaro Ivinolininovich… I no longer love him! As much as it pains me to say, when I look in his eyes, all I see is the same cowardice that I catch when I take a glimpse of my own face in the mirror.’

‘If only the cowardice was stronger, then perhaps I could bring myself to reach over to that cocked and locked gun that lays on the bedside behind me, and end this hellish façade once and for all!’

‘Doc, sometimes I feel like a spider, even though I’m a moth, barely hanging on to my web with an everlasting fire underneath me. I’m not feeling good.’

The doctor says, ‘Moth, man, you’re having trouble. But you should be seeing a psychiatrist. Why on earth did you come here?’

And the moth says, ‘Because the light was on.’