A special charity event this year was our support for the City’s biennial Christmas Market on 27 and 28 November. Elisabeth and I were co-Chairmen of the Market, which is an enormous event over an evening and a day attended by 5,000 people, HRH Princess Alexandra, and the Rt Hon the Lord Mayor, Charles Bowman, with events from food tasting with Cyrus Todiwala and Loyd Grossman, to Pikemen & Musketeers’ displays, school choirs, and a German ‘Weihnachtsmarkt’ outside the Guildhall.
The World Traders Stand at the Red Cross Guildhall Fair was a tremendous success and we would like to thank all of you who turned up and bought or donated items of jewellery at the fair or the carol service or who made donations. In particular we would like to thank those who helped out on the stand driving up sales – Amanda Shackell, Corinne Larsen, Fiona Taylor, Gaye Duffy, Janet Martin, Jyoti Shah, Katy Thorpe, Martin White, Mary Hardy, Mavis Gold, Merlene Emersen, Michaela Lorenc-Suhrcke, Simon Spalding, Vinay Gupta, and Yvonne Duff. We would like to single out praise for the following three members who donated particularly large amounts of items to sell – Mary Hardy, Harprit Siri ( Pitu) and Brian Somers. Our stand had jewellery, wonderful stuffed animals, reindeer meat, and some intriguing Räuchermänner (‘burning men’, incense burners in the shape of festive fishermen). Elisabeth and I ordered these – World Trade! – and after learning quite a bit about transhipment, taxation, and delivery they arrived. They were on a sale-or-return basis to the Company (hint, a few left if you want to buy them!).
None of this would have been possible without the commitment and leadership shown by Adèle Thorpe. For over a year she worked diligently and creatively to make our stall a source of pride. You will be pleased to learn that the profit from our stall exceeded £4,100, our best ever. The market itself pulled in nearly £160,000.
It was wonderful to see our entire City community coming together for charity and comradeship in such a convivial and generous way. It is impossible to imagine a more wonderful way to celebrate Christmas than doing something for the common good with dear friends. We shall always treasure that memory. With sincere thanks, from Elisabeth and me, to all who made this such a very successful enterprise.
