NL September 2018

Message from the Master:   2017-2018 

The Editor requested an Impactful message at the end of my year: 

[I actually completed the Abseil without leaving a dent in the concrete (but a dent in the pockets of my many generous supporters] – thank you all !

We have clearly supported the Lord Mayor, Charles Bowman, this year in several ways: by Supporting his Charitable endeavours – donating over £3,000 for events he has sponsored in his year; Engaging with City Giving Day when £1,000 was given to my Master's Charity – MS Action; Walthamstow: Promulgating his message of the importance of Trust in business to the City at various events; And agreeing an affiliation with a RAF unit (600 Squadron, Northolt) helping him achieve his target of 100 Livery affiliations with the RAF in his year of office. 

We have engaged with a committee (Pan Livery) representing all Livery Companies, which seeks to promote the totality of the Charitable; plus actively supported the Financial Services Group; the Livery Companies Skills Council; the Livery Schools Link; being mentioned in despatches to the Livery Committee. 

We have successfully supported the Sheriffs: both by supporting the Sheriffs Challenge and in various charitable endeavours (including nominating & supporting the school that won the Sheriff’s Challenge cup; (and we hold the Poulters Pan as a result of success in the Shrove Tuesday Challenge.) 

In addition, we have supported the Sea Cadets; on the 30​th​ September I presented their Choisin Cup to the team gaining most points in their annual weekend challenge; several members attended their Camp at Pirbright. We supported the Lord Mayors Show; Attended their Trafalgar Day celebration and the earlier Band competition at the Tower; as well as increasing our charitable donation. 

We have continued to provide enormous support to a wide range of charities through the work of the Probono Committee.

As well, we have celebrated our 25​th​ Anniversary: by reflecting on the past at the Installation Dinner; the Celebration Dinner and Annual Service (also through celebrating the contributions made by John McLean Fox, Bill Penney and others) and looking to the future through the work of Education; the work of the Centre for Management Consulting Excellence core group; and our main speaker at the Celebration Dinner - while adding a little silver to our treasure. 

Impact?   Perhaps next year! 

DAVID

- Letter of acknowledgment from the Queen on the occasion of the Company's 25th anniversary  http://wcomc.org/2018sept30-6

- At the end of the day, an “intelligent machine” is an oxymoron. Intelligence is precisely what cannot be encoded in rules or algorithms. Computers are only good at what they do, not because they can “think” (they can't) but because they have the huge advantage over us of being rigidly, reliably unthinking.

Those of us who lived through the darkest days of the 2008 financial crisis at close hand will recall the catastrophic consequences of the blind delegation of decision making to arcane algorithms that were never intended to be deployed without a good deal of nuanced interpretation, intuition and judgement, taking cognizance of idiosyncratic local conditions. No machine, no matter how “intelligent,” can ever do this on our behalf, or anything like it.  In his paper, "Icarus: Disembodied Knowledge, Bureaucratic Thinking, and the Hopeful Return to Reality", cybernetician Dr James Wilk, Liveryman, a seasoned digital transformation adviser, explores the requirements for deploying AI intelligently, the historic roots of our present digital malaise, and the fallacious, tacit philosophical assumptions behind it...

-Post-referendum Britain is living on debt... but is the Bank of England killing the golden goose that is consumer spending...? Past Master Vicky Pryce, former Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service, writes on 02.08.2018 for the News publication https://infacts.org/...

- Silent temporal resistance (or how to screw up other people's plans!)... Dr Simon Davey, Freeman, revisits the 2018 Urwick Lecture...

- City Giving Day 2018 celebrated the work and success of hundreds of charities and communities that the City supports. WCoMC was one of the supporters, in at "At Home" at Barbican with the Master and Mistress...  The Mistress writes...

- Gill King, Almoner, works with a WCoMC team to distribute to a brilliant cause the precious books of the late Founding Liveryman, Allan Williams...  Livery is for Life! The corollary...  

- FINANCIAL TIMES – Leader 3 August 2018  …"A false step by the Bank of England.  There is no compelling reason for higher interest rates.” … Read full article....

Bailed from Jail... The Master (ex-Prisoner No.105) expresses his heartfelt thanks for the Members' generosity in springing him with no questions asked...

The Mistress writes... The Master came home and said "You'll be cross with me!" ...Conversation continued for about 30 minutes; then I poured him a whisky... then I asked what I'd be cross about...  "I've signed up to abseil down the Cheesegrater..."

NOTICES

- 19.00 for 19.30   The Installation Dinner.  Black tie. - Preceded by The Installation Ceremony at 18.30
at   Grocers' Hall, Princes Street, London EC2R 8AD
on   Thursday 18th October 2018;  Ticket price £125

Carriages 11.00pm  Book here....

- Be sure to be there on the day!  Saturday 10 November - the Lord Mayors Show  - 11am - join the Sea Cadets for the Parade- 12.30 – Lunch - We have managed to secure for our lunch the first floor of the George pub, in the Strand, directly opposite the Law Courts with magnificent views of the Lord Mayor and his entourage arriving for lunch. Whether marching or just viewing, you, your families and friends would be most welcome to join us for lunch at the George. On the first floor we will have exclusive use of the bar. Lunch will be basic pub fare - soup, sandwiches, chips etc - at reasonable pub prices. It would help the pub to organise logistics if you’d let me know if you intend to join us.  Contact : John Corneille at   jcorneille@fastmail.co.uk

- 15 October: 6.00-6.30pm Arrival; 6.30-7.30pm Lecture; 7.30-9.00 Drinks/Canapés; 9.00pm Finish. At Schroders' new Head Office at One London Wall Place.  The Financial Services Group (FSG) of Livery Companies announces its next Annual Lecture, which is open to all members of the FSG Livery Companies and their guests: “Rethinking Reputational Risk” by Anthony Fitzsimmons. Chairman of Reputability and co-author of “Rethinking Reputational Risk: How to Manage the Risks that can Ruin Your Business, Your Reputation and You”.  To book tickets online by 30^th September, at £40 per person, please go to www.eventbrite.co.uk by using https://bit.ly/2MDQy2n  

 Flyer:  file:///C:/Users/UZZ/Downloads/Flyer%20for%20FSG%

20Lecture%202018%20(1).pdf

- Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill:  Masterpieces from Horace Walpole’s Collection from 20 October 2018 – 24 February 2019. clerk@makersofplayingcards.co.uk has offered WCoMC this opportunity to view the magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, furniture and curiosities created by Horace Walpole for his celebrated gothic villa at Strawberry Hill, which was later dispersed all over the world in the famous sale of the century of 1842, and will be reassembled for the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of famous 18th century collections including masterpieces by Joshua Reynolds, Anthony Van Dyck and Hans Holbein, reunited in its original setting in the fine rooms at Strawberry Hill.  Bookings are being taken for guided tours.

For further information, please email: 

exhibition@strawberryhillhouse.org.uk  

or visit www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk

- Bi-monthly Livery Briefings, and the Programme of City Briefings and Course:    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  8 October and 20 November. 

 - Save the Date:   We have arranged another Mentoring Forum for the Company’s serving and would-be mentors on November 20 at the Wood Street Bar from 17.30 until 20.00.  Further details from Nanette Young at mail@young.co.uk or David Glassman david@glassman.com

- an exclusive Sale of very high quality ladies’ fans at a reduction of 40%, with 10% of all proceeds being donated to the Lord Mayor’s Appeal.  In the words of Samantha Bowman, Lady Mayoress, “…I strongly endorse this magnificent initiative taken by Rockcoco Fine Fans in conjunction with the Worshipful Company of Fan Makers.” For more information please contact Denise Frankel on 07957 606895;

email denise@rockcocofans.com; or visit www.rockcocofans.com.

- Save the date: On behalf of Alderman Peter Estlin, we are delighted to invite members of our livery company to support ‘A City Scrooge’ event held at Mansion House on Monday 17^th December in aid of The Lord Mayor’s Appeal. The acclaimed actor and writer, Mr Simon Callow, will entertain guests at the event with a unique private performance of "A City Scrooge”. This special performance will comprise excerpts from Charles Dickens' classic story “A Christmas Carol” together with interpretations by Mr Callow. The evening will be hosted by Alderman Peter Estlin and his wife Lindy. Please find further details on the invitation attached. Tickets cost £100 each and can be booked online via The Lord Mayor Appeal website here. Seats are limited therefore early booking is strongly recommended.

MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS - First to volunteer for the "SOBER OCTOBER" Programme...

A Management Consultant walks into a pub in Ireland and orders three pints of beer. He takes them to a table and drinks alone, sipping in turn from each glass. Before long, he goes back to the innkeeper and asks for three more pints.

"Our Colleen would be happy to bring you your beer one pint at a time, sir. That way it will be cold."

"Well, I'm drinking with me and me brothers. One's in America; one's in Australia; we'll probably never meet again in this lifetime. But we always drink beer together!"

The Consultant became a regular in the pub. Everyone thought it was a sentimental story and greeted him with well wishes whenever he showed up. Until one day, when he ordered just two pints...

The news got around, and the pub was a little quiet when the Consultant later walked over to order two more pints. The innkeeper shook his head, and said "we're all grieving with you. We're very sorry for your loss."

The Consultant looked puzzled for a while, then smiled. "Oh no, I know what you're thinking; but me brothers are fine. It's me! Doctor told me to stop drinking!"