London Lunch

Our London Lunch, held at the fabulous RAF Club in Piccadilly, was once again a sell out event with over 100 Fellows and guests making the journey despite some artic conditions around the country.
As usual it is an occasion to meet up with friends from across the industry, make new acquaintances, and enjoy the fun and fellowship.

The RAF Club did us proud with a super lunch after which we were royally entertained by Rachel Clift, CEO of our industry charity, Ben. Rachel told us how her experiences as an elite athlete (she holds 144 Hockey caps for Great Britain and England including representing her country at the Beijing Olympics) prepared her to meet the challenges in her future career. An inspiring story.The charity is in very safe hands and we will certainly continue to support Ben.
After Rachel’s speech our President, Peter Lewis Jones, gave a humorous vote of thanks followed by running the Heads and Tails competition which was won by Fellow Steve Harris who was presented with a Magnum of Champagne. The proceeds from the competition go to Ben, and the final figure was £1395, before Gift Aid.
We decided to have our very own “Black Thursday” (yes a day ahead!) offer whereby a fellow could introduce a guest on the day to join the Fellowship and we would wave the usual joining fee. We were delighted that this resulted in 5 new members signing up and one more subsequently which added to the 39 new members in 2025 to date.

Finally may I thank committee member Nigel Barfoot for all his hard work in “making it happen” these events take a huge amount of effort to ensure everything goes to plan. Also thanks go to his glamorous assistant John Russell and indeed their wives, Babs and Norma who manned our reception desk.

This final event of 2025 lived up to all expectations and was a fitting end to our programme for the year. Judging from the feedback everyone really enjoyed themselves, as can be seen from the photographs, and that is the most important factor.

Peter Cottle