The Worshipful Company of Loriners - A message from the Master

Dear Fellow Loriners

Winter has merged into Spring with glorious daffodils and blossom everywhere and I realise that I have been Master Loriner for just over two months. Lockdown is beginning to ease and there is a sense of cautious optimism that a semblance of normal life will resume.

In spite of Zoom and everything taking place virtually, there have been plenty of events and social gatherings over this period. We must therefore be grateful for modern technology which has kept us in touch and at least enabled us to do our shopping!

At the beginning of February, I attended a Lady Masters’ Association networking evening which was extremely useful and on the 16th, I was present at an enjoyable evening with the Chartered Accountants for Pancake Day. This was followed early in March with an invitation to the Saddlers’ Celebration of British Saddlery. This was an excellent presentation of all aspects of the Saddlers’ activities from the making of saddles to educational courses, training and fitting. As Loriners, we were delighted with the numerous references to the collaboration between our two companies and grateful for the permission of the Saddlers to distribute the recording of the event to our own members.

Later on in March I attended the Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch which this year took the form of a series of lectures. I signed up for a date with Michael Palin talking about his ‘Travellers Tales’ with fellow explorer Levinson Wood.  

There has been an abundance of lectures, webinars and presentations to take part in which has proved just how inventive many livery companies and institutions in the City have been. I have been invited to so many and am grateful for the sense of friendship and camaraderie in these rather strange times.

Company events, of course have been very restricted but we have carried on with our Zoom ‘Meet and Greet’ evenings. In February I was put under a gentle spotlight by Assistant Simon Walsh and answered questions about my career and my new role as Master. Later that month we had an excellent tour with Fiona Lukas, an award-winning Blue Badge guide, around the City’s Wren Churches followed in March by an Evening of Magic with Alan Hudson - more detail below - whose tricks and sleight of hand dumbfounded us all. These two events were extremely popular and I was delighted to receive a huge ‘postbag’ of thank you messages and very positive feedback for both events. My thanks go to the Upper Warden and the Under Warden who joined with me in funding the Magic Evening.

On 15th April we continued the theme by inviting members to meet our Honorary Treasurer John Morton and our Honorary Grants Coordinator Debra Moorby. It was a question and answer session - hosted by Liveryman Lyndon Jones - and we learned that the Company's finances remain in good shape and that Quarterage, introduced in 2018, is playing an increasingly important part in our finances. Debra explained that over £50,000 is donated every year to worthy equestrian charities and she gave some examples of where our donations have "made a difference". 

We have two more events already planned. In May, Mark Smith from the Antiques Road Show will talk to us about the Dickin Medal, the animal VC - more details below - and in June Fiona Lukas returns to take us on a tour of the alleyways of the City of London.

Company events which have been on hold are now being reconsidered for the Autumn and will need a reorganization of the programme, but some equestrian events for the summer have already got tentative dates. I am sincerely hoping that the Loriners’ weekend to the Isle of Wight in October will go ahead and that the Mansion House Banquet will take place on 30 November.

The Master and Wardens meet fortnightly and the committees meet regularly and continue with the ongoing work of the Company. Past Master Sue Douthwaite is still working hard alongside the Saddlers’ Company and the Society of Master Saddlers to set up the Equine Fitters Council. The Stewards are keeping in touch with their charities and the grants were awarded and paid at the beginning of the year for which we have received many grateful letters. Links with the military are thriving and invitations to the UKAFEA events are already in the diary.

On the communications front the new website is up and running and has been well received and the on-line Loriners’ Newsletter is proving a popular read.

I am looking forward to the next few months which I hope will see us with plans to meet in person, but restrictions, finances and the willingness of members wanting to travel into London all have to be taken into account. 

Our "Virtual Magic" Show

On Tuesday 16th March the Wardens and I organised an evening of “Virtual Magic” by the very talented Alan Hudson.

Who would have thought that a magic show by “zoom” would work – but it certainly did! And even being so close to the action it was still impossible to work out how he did what he did – ask young Will (the son of one of our members) who at one stage was seen with his eye so close to the screen that he could have climbed in!

During the show Alan randomly picked victims (members) to assist him. The first “glamorous assistant” was Kevin Howard! Alan showed us five receipts from some “not so salubrious” stores that with a flick of his wrist he turned into five crisp £20 notes, another flick and they were back to the receipts and (flick) back to the £20 notes which he offered “virtually” to Kevin Howard (who has offered to buy us all a “virtual drink”). The virtual “high five” didn’t quite go right, in fact this continued throughout the show as some people didn’t seem to know their lefts from their rights!

There were the usual card tricks of course, which bamboozled us all and an exhibition of sleight of hand using a thimble that not only disappeared and appeared from his fingers but changed colours and even multiplied – How? Don’t ask me!

We also had a lesson on Wikipedia. Members were asked to use their smart phones to go online to Wikipedia and randomly choose things from the hundreds of thousands of topics and words – he got it right every time.

There was quite a bit more but, to finish off, Alan picked up a sealed envelope from the shelf behind him which had been on display and untouched throughout the show. He carefully opened the envelope and withdrew a piece of paper folded over several times. As he unfolded each segment, it had written on it the correct random choices that individual members had made throughout the show.

A truly amazing and brilliant show, a fantastic and funny entertainer, a total success. Thank you for joining us and thanks to Liveryman Jonathan Wallis for writing this report.

Dates for your diary

Our next Zoom gathering will be on on Tuesday 11 May 2021 at 7 for 7.30 p.m. Mark Smith from the Antiques Road Show will be speaking about the Dickin Medal - the VC for animals.

During the Second World War, the PDSA's founder Maria Dickin introduced this Medal to recognise the incredible bravery displayed by animals.

8 June 2021: A virtual tour around the alleyways of the City

30 November 2021: Mansion House Banquet

9 December 2021: Our Christmas Party

Pan-Livery report on charitable giving

It is well known that the Livery movement as a whole is a major donor to charities and institutions. The size and impact of all donations and support was not really known so a survey was conducted recently to see what difference the whole Livery movement makes, particularly in the last year.

A summary of the findings is available here - donations exceed £70 million per annum, making us one of the top 6 grant makers in the UK.

We now have an additional way in which you can support the work of Loriners' Charity which will not cost you a single penny!

If you use Amazon to make purchases, find out here how to make a free donation to our Charity. Every little helps, so please make use of this facility.

Mary-Jane Atkinson

Master Loriner 2021-22

20 April 2021