General News

The Lansdowne Club in Mayfair was the venue for the second Livery ‘Call My Wine Bluff’ on 9 May.

Some 115 guests enjoyed a fabulous three-course dinner under the splendid barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Club’s Ballroom. Four mystery wines were introduced during the meal by the three wine experts, Jeremy Hill, Andy Cole and David Almeida of Vinotopia wine merchants, each giving an entirely plausible account of grape varieties and origins.

Mary Foster winning the Heads and Tails, conducted by PM Julian Sayers

Of course, two of these were bluffs and the audience were enjoined to make a choice. All great fun.

The auction, amusingly conducted by Chris Mills, and raffle were hotly contested and raised over £8,500 for our Charitable Fund.

James Peck and family enjoying the proceedings

Credit must go to The Mistress Farmer, Terri Davies, who was instrumental in organising proceedings, ably assisted by the Clerk, Assistant Clerk and Senior Warden.

The Master delivering the wooden spoons to the losing table.

Leadership was topic of the day at the Annual Lecture and Dinner, held at Plaisterers’ Hall, London, on April 25. Attracting 175 Liverymen, alumni, sponsors and guests, the dinner provided top quality food as well as food for thought. “Every industry needs great leaders,” said Master, Richard Davies. “We need to encourage and empower a new generation of managers who have the ability to see the world differently.”

Kathryn Bishop CBE was the keynote speaker, sharing her extensive experience of teaching leadership and implementing it across different industries. She explored 200 years of leadership thinking, proving that no single style of leadership is universally appropriate. “There are lots of different ways to lead, and context affects leadership success – some contexts favour leaders who are task-focused, while others favour those who are relationship orientated.”

Leadership styles range from risk-taking heroes to thoughtful, analytical leaders, to sole innovators and empathetic coaches, Catherine explained. Some people are leaders because of their charismatic personality, others because of the way they make you feel; or it could be due to their characteristics and what they choose to do. “You can’t be good at them all – we need to understand that we are all incomplete leaders – we don’t have to be perfect in every circumstance.”

She likened leaders to an orchestra conductor – they are rarely able to play every instrument in the orchestra, but are still creating a coherent and effective team. “The leader also doesn’t have to have all the answers. It’s not what you know – it’s what you do with what you know.”

Kathryn emphasised the importance of identifying weaknesses, both within a skillset and personality profile, and working together with others to plug those gaps. “Distributing leadership is the only way to achieve large scale shifts, it’s about sharing and encouraging leadership, not just having one person at the top.”

It’s also critical to assess each circumstance and decide on the most appropriate leadership style for that context, she added. “Draw on your natural strengths whenever you can, and develop your potential and fragile strengths. Identify your resistant limitations and build a leadership team around you – together you’ll be much stronger than any individual one of us can be.”

The March meeting of Court saw three new Liverymen clothed (see picture), followed by a packed hall for lunch. Our speaker was Kelly Hewson-Fisher, an alumna of the Challenge of Rural Leadership course.

The Master with freshly-clothed Liverymen Gary Mills-Thomas, Sebastian Edwards and John Davie-Thornhill

Kelly spoke with a rare passion about the effect the course had had on her confidence and ambition. The Master’s speech reinforced the importance of our courses in shaping the new generation of industry leaders. He was pleased to take wine with the new members of the Farmers’ Company.

The Elworthy Trophy is an annual Tri-Service (Sea, Army, Air) cadet competition organised and conducted within London District. On the day of the competition later this year, the teams – consisting of eight cadets from London-based cadet units – chosen to represent each service, take part in a round robin of competitive activities in the grounds of the Cadet Training centre at Frimley Park, Camberley.

Court Assistant, Liveryman Anne Courtney, who is the Liaison Officer between the Farmers Company and our affiliate the Middlesex Wing of the Air Cadets, attended a training session for the air cadets at RAF Northolt on Saturday 10 March 2023. After a briefing from Wing Commander Niall Cumming, Flt Lt Chris Pocock walked Anne around the various activities being taught.

Anne reported: “It was a pleasure to attend the training Elworthy Day at RAF Northolt and see our affiliation with the Middlesex Wing making a real difference to the lives of the Air Cadets in the North London area.  The competitions I observed included first aid, rifle shooting, and leadership skills, together with minibus pulling. The cadets were having a great time and so were the officers!”

One hundred WCFA members, guests and partners attended the 2022 WCFA Learning Extension Days – over a day and a half at Loughborough University – for a full programme entitled “Insight & inspirations from the wider world”.

The 29th November started with an action packed speed networking event – which made many hoarse, shouting over others – followed by a drinks reception and dinner with Amie Burke as our after-dinner speaker. At the dinner, Chris Manley was presented the new Farmers’ Company Alumni award – a silver rose bowl donated by Liveryman Peter Bennett.

Peter Bennett (L) presents Chris Manley with the Alumni Award

The 30th November kicked off with keynote speaker Gareth Timmins, former Royal Marine and author of “Becoming the 0.1% – how to build an elite mindset” – who made many think. Three streams then took place during the day, on social media (Tom Martin), the value of mentoring (Nicola Miller) and funnelling great ideas to enhance your business (Sian Gardner & Martin Horton consultants).

The Master and question time panel

A debate on “farming’s image will only be fixed if we all take responsibility for fixing it ourselves” took place with Charlie Ireland of Ceres Rural; Anna Jones, author of “Divide: the relationship crisis between town and country”; Tom Martin, social media influencer; and Jonathan Roberts, director of external affairs for CLA.

Now the Committee starts planning for 2023 – save the dates of 28th and 29th November.

Tuesday the 8th of November 2022 brought two of the oldest and most important professions together with our annual visit and presentation at RAF Waddington, the Farmers that feed the nation and the RAF that defend the nation.

The day commenced with a very warm and informative presentation from the Station Commander Group Captain Mark Lorriman-Hughes, who briefed us on many interesting facts about the base, which is home to around 3500 service personnel and, as one of the RAF’s busiest stations, the hub of UK Intelligence.

During his tenure, the base has already welcomed the Red Arrows, who have recently transferred from RAF Scampton. We were then briefed on plans to improve their single persons accommodation which dates back to the 1940’s and 50’s to equal that of modern University Students Accommodation, but all the quotes are coming in at double what they have budgeted for and so there would inevitably have to be some cut backs, a great example of how input cost inflation is affecting everyone!

Bird strike is an ongoing H&S issue, and to help combat this, the entire air field has recently been reseeded after discovering that the existing grass was infested with Leatherjackets which were attracting the birds. Providing that you don’t count the cost of aviation fuel as this is an essential requirement, this will help the base reach their target of Carbon Net Zero, as the new variety of grass (Fescue) is deeper rooting and so will store more carbon!

We then moved onto the awards ceremony, following the reading of the citation of the winner, the Master then presented the award to Senior Air Traffic Control Officer (SATCO) David Pickard, along with a keep sake, both of which were sponsored by Liveryman Tony Ireland.

The Master with Senior Air Traffic Control Officer David Pickard

After enjoying a three-course lunch, we then split into two parties for a tour of the control tower and the station’s Vulcan bomber.

The control tower was staffed by four personnel who are responsible for all air traffic movements in the area, as well as ground movements on the base and road traffic on the adjacent A15, where traffic lights are located which are put on red every time an aircraft is coming into land. We were very lucky to witness an F-35 Lightening Aircraft, which is one of the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world, coming in for a test landing.

All Pilots regularly carry out practice landings as part of their training, at the same time we also witnessed the potential issue of Bird Strike by seeing a flock of Gulls feasting on hopefully the last remaining leather jackets.

We were then briefed on the base’s history with the Vulcan. Waddington was the first base to receive the ground breaking Vulcan Bomber in 1957 with No 83 Squadron. The base’s last remaining Vulcan XM 607 is one of the most famous after carrying out the bombing of the runway in Port Stanley during the Falkland Islands War. The aircraft is currently being restored for ground use only by a small but very enthusiastic team of volunteers, who have just six months of Hanger space in which to complete the task. We look forwards to seeing the results.

Sunday 13th November saw the Master and Wardens, with the team from Surrey Docks Farm, take part in the annual Lord Mayor’s Show.

Richard Price writes: “It has been a both a pleasure and honour to work with a great team of people to deliver this year’s Worshipful Company of Farmers’ entry for the Lord Mayor’s Show. The journey had started in January 2022 when we assembled the team of people charged with delivering an entry, which showcased British produce and celebrated 70 years of the company supporting farming in the City.

Richard Price (L) and Andrew Blenkiron

“The original theme was to celebrate Her Majesty’s Jubilee, which would include a grey Fergie from 1952 and the current T8 model from 2022. After the passing of the Queen, the royal household and Pageant Master’s office were still very keen to see the tractor in the procession, so we removed the Jubilee material and promoted the 70 years of farming in the City.

“The team included Massey Ferguson, NFU, Red Tractor and Surrey Docks Farm. It was great to pull everyone together and we managed to deliver a fantastic float which included 10 of the youngsters from the Surrey Docks farm. Gemma and Claire do a fantastic job at the farm and I was amazed at the volume of people that visit the farm over the course of the year.

“The visit on the day before the show with the NFU ambassadors was excellent and everybody enjoyed seeing the nuggets of innovation around the site and to experience the passion that they all have in what they do. It was great to catch up with all the NFU ambassadors and for the Master to be able to thank all the relevant people and organisations for everything that had done for the 2022 entry. The post-meeting meal at Haz restaurant near St Paul’s was kindly sponsored by Massey Ferguson.

“NFU and Red Tractor put a lot of time into the graphics, design and look of the float, which was excellent. It was Amy Hubbard’s first Lord Mayor’s Show and she was very organised and proud of what she and her team had achieved. We are also very grateful to Andrew Blenkiron of Euston Estate, for all the preparation of the float, and to Jonathan in the Estate workshop for putting it all together. Andrew has looked after the last five years of our entries in the Lord Mayor’s Show and has quietly put a lot of time into this with his Euston team. We are very grateful to him.

“Saturday morning started at 6am for Andrew and I, meeting Rainthorpe’s Transport, who delivered the tractor trailer and grey Fergie. By 11am all of the NFU ambassadors, Surrey docks youngsters and the Master and his team were ready to start their journey through the city of London on the 3 mile procession.

“The cloudless, warm day went very well and we had a great response from the public supporting the float, our Company and British agriculture.”