News

City Farms fundraising lunch

On Monday, May 20, our Livery hosted a City Farms fundraising lunch in the splendid location of the Honourable Artillery Company, welcoming invited guests drawn from City-based firms and organisations.

This inaugural event, hosted by Master Guy Brogden, who welcomed guests alongside Gemma Cooper of Surrey Docks Farm and Chris Pound of Hackney Farm, raised awareness of and promoted the valuable community work carried out by the 12 City Farms, and the benefits and opportunities to City firms who invested in supporting City Farms.

There are 12 Inner-City farms in London (32 nationally) who grow crops and rear livestock. These are charity farms that are run along commercial lines for the benefit of their local communities by engaging with young people, people who have social welfare challenges, and helping visitors to understand more about farming and where food comes from. City Farms collectively welcome over 400,000 visitors per year.

Over the past few years our Livery Company has also organised and funded visits by young people to working commercial farms in the countryside and this has been a great success. This inaugural lunch was a great success in expanding our activity by engaging with London corporate companies to offer a charity experience for their staff to do occasional work at one of the City Farms. Firms have already been engaged to help with feeding and mucking out the animals, planting and harvesting crops or engaging with the farm attendees.

With huge thanks to Carter Jonas, we now have a short video highlighting the excellent work City Farms do for many people in their local community. This link will take you to the video; https://vimeo.com/944421309/5fb438ee6b?share=copy

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The Inter-Livery Clay Day

The rain (just) kept off for the annual clay shoot, held at the West London Shooting School on 16 May. Your Company fielded two teams of four, ably captained by Peter Craven for his second year.

Captain Peter Craven takes careful aim

 

A well-organised two days saw 103 teams shooting over 12 stands of varying type and difficulty, with four-man and two-man flushes in between.

 

The overall competition was won by the Watermen, with Farmers B coming second of the ‘non-livery’ teams – our best result for years.

Liveryman Assistant Robert Sears won a prize for his bizarre footwear!

Guest gun George Hurrell did really well, coming 14th overall, out of 412 participants. Your captain wasn’t too shabby either, with a score of 45, coming in the middle order.

A fun day was rounded off with the customary supper at Boisdales, courtesy of ex-captain and Past Master Alston.

The team enjoyed the post-shoot lunch

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Presentation of the Livery Salver

Westminster Dragoons:  the Master presented the Livery Salver at Troop Headquarters in London.

The full Squadron Westminster Dragoons.

Presentation of Award (L to r) OC Mike Crofts, 2 Lt Cowan Taylor, Cp Taylor Master.

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Middlesex Wing Air Cadets

Wing Commander Niall Cumming and our Livery Liaison Officer Victoria Rayner attended the Jack Petchey Foundation Awards on February 3, held at Greenford Town Hall on the outskirts of London.

The Jack Petchey Foundation was set up to inspire and motivate young people from across London and Essex, and over 1,500 schools and youth organisations participate.

The Middlesex Wing won an award in recognition of the achievements of the cadets and staff across the Wing.

The photos are of Wing Commander Niall Cumming and LLO Victoria Rayner presenting the gold medal award to one of the Wing Cadets.

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Inter-livery pancake race

A fun-filled day was had by 41 City of London Livery Companies, albeit with the rain, for the 20th inter-livery pancake races at Guildhall Yard – superbly organised by the Worshipful Company of Poulters for The Lord Mayor’s Appeal, Barts Charity, Tower RNLI and Master Poulter’s Pelican Trust.


The racing was sadly cancelled due to the rain – so we all moved down to the crypt for the tossing competition. The Worshipful Company of Farmers team included the Master, Guy Brogden, Liveryman Sebastian Edwards and his wife Rebecca and Journeyman Victoria Rayner.

The Master performed very well but sadly, at the end of his 30 seconds, lost out to a magnificent 80 tosses by the Master of the Worshipful Company of Tylers & Bricklayers. Respect to them!

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Advanced Course in Agricultural Business Management

The Worshipful Company of Farmers is delighted to announce the launch of the online application process for the 73rd Advanced Course in Agricultural Business Management (ACABM) commencing in November 2024 under the tutelage of Keith Barriball and Karen Brosnan.

Interviews, by invitation, will take place in the City of London on 3-4 July. The programme will comprise pre-residential online content delivery at the beginning of November, followed by a two-week residential programme at the Royal Agricultural University on 10-22 November inclusive, and then post-programme group Zooms in both December and February 2025. In addition, there is an opportunity for one-to-one online coaching.

More information on the 73rd course, fees and access to the online application portal is via https://www.rau.ac.uk/for-business/professional-education/acabm. Applications will close at 23:59 on 30 April. Good luck and we look forward to receiving your applications.

 

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RAF Waddington visit

On November 8, a group of liverymen visited RAF Waddington for lunch, hosted by the Station Commander Mark Lorriman-Hughes OBE, and presentation of the WCF award by the Master.

The visit was organised by LO Michael Chennells in conjunction with LO, FS Steven Wheatley and Sargent Ross Mc Keon, ably assisted by Stacey Jones.

Our visit was led by the Master Guy Brogden and his wife Catriona. The group of 33 liverymen arrived at the officer’s mess at 8.30 for a 9.00 start.

We then travelled by coach to the part of the base where the Red Arrows are based, and split into two groups to take it in turns to enjoy a detailed presentation on the Red Arrows and a visit to the hanger where they are housed, along with a detailed brief when there was plenty of time for questions.

We then returned to the Officers Mess where we were welcomed by the Station Commander, who updated us all on the current activities on the base, this followed by a presentation from LO Steven Wheatley.

The morning session was then concluded by the presentation of our award along with a keepsake by the Master to Corporal Matt Healey in recognition of his excellence in implementing systems changes and upgrades across the base.

Lunch was then taken in the Officers Mess where we enjoyed a three-meat carvery, following which the Master expressed our thanks to the team at Waddington for entertaining us for the day.

We completed the day by a visit to the RAF Waddington Heritage Centre which covers all aspects of the history of the RAF from the very beginning to the present day.

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Lord Mayor’s Show a success

This year’s Lord Mayor’s Show was blessed with blue skies all day, which helped swell the cheering crowds lining the route.

Our ‘float’ consisted of two Case tractors, one of which – the enormous Quadtrac – attracted most of the public’s attention.

Richard Price and the team from the NFU; headed by Minette Batters, Red Tractor and Surrey Docks Farm did a splendid job preparing for the Show, and the incredibly warm reception from the crowds along the way made it all worthwhile.

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City Farms visit commercial units

During the half-term break the Farmers’ Livery Company and Redhill branch of the NFU funded and organised two visits to three working commercial farms in Surrey and Bedfordshire.

Sincere thanks must go to our very accommodating hosts, Nellie Maiklem, Paul Knight and Tim Burton for opening up their farming businesses to more than 75 young people from Surrey Docks, Wellgate and Stepney City Farms.

The main enterprises on the farms we visited focused on the rearing of dairy cow replacements, with two farms also operating large dairy herds. We were also taken on a walking and tractor and trailer tour of the farms to see the arable and other diversification enterprises.

Animals are always a point of interest for the farm visitors,with some watching the cows being milked and others bottle-feeding the calves. Fortunately, it didn’t rain on our visits so a sunny and cheery day was had by all.

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Pollinating London together

The Worshipful Company of Farmers has been working with a project to help create spaces for pollinators in London. We recently were awarded our membership certificate with thanks from the project: Pollinating London Together.

pollinating
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