Club Calendar

See Club website for information about Club Events brought great experience and leadership to The Club and will be sadly missed. Their obituaries are included later in this journal.

Following the Easter break, Minister of State, Mark Spencer gave the Monday Evening Lecture in late April and was followed by Committee meetings the following day, where the Audited Accounts were ratified and will be formally proposed at the AGM in July. Other pieces of business were discussed included dress code and amendments were made to this as well as the important proposals that Mr Richard Maunder and Mrs Karen Mercer would be the Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively in 2024, subject to AGM ratification. The past Chairman’s Lunch was also held during the same week which attracted 22 past chairman who had a combined membership of 781 years! At the end of a monumental week, we finished it off with the St George’s Day Lunch with our guest speaker, club member and broadcaster, Mr Adam Henson who proved to be a highly popular, dynamic and passionate speaker and finally the U35s held a ‘King & Country’ dinner to celebrate the forthcoming Coronation.

Following on from the October 2022 Members Survey, The Club Executive Team have been working their way through the 140 pages of analysis from the survey, reviewing all the comments and suggestions. Dress code was an emotive topic and clearly one that needed review.

As a result the Executive Team put this forward to the Committee in April. The General Committee, through the House Committee debated the topic at length.

Early May was rightly dominated by the Coronation of King Charles III, however, in the week leading up to this, we managed to conduct our annual Pinnacle Awards. There is a full report in this journal however, this was to be the last awards at which Professor Bill McKelvey was to be Chair of the judging panel after 8 years in post, before handing over responsibility to Professor Nigel Scollan. Immediately after the Coronation Bank Holiday, the Chairman and were at the Balmoral Show and were delighted to welcome 60 members and guests to the Royal Belfast Golf Club for our pre-show dinner. A great evening and a superb speaker in Peter Hannan. The rest of May came fast and furious with Craig and Kirsty taking a party to the Royal Windsor Horse Show, the U35s taking in the Army/Navy Match at Twickenham, many members attending the City Food Lecture and an evening talk, dinner and visit to Buckingham Palace for the ‘Dressing the Georgians’ Exhibition. The month was rounded off with visits to the Chelsea Flower Show and the Chairman hosting a breakfast Reception at the Suffolk County Show for over 50 members with a superb talk from David Barker, but also a surprise appearance and address by secretary of state Thérèse Coffey MP.

By mid-June, The Club was embarking on tours to the Dyson Farm near Lincoln and later that week, a superb gathering of over 80 members and their guests were hosted for the pre-Highland Show dinner held at our reciprocal Club in Edinburgh, the New Club. A great evening rounded off in style with a talk by farmer, journalist and broadcaster, Jamie Blackett.

In late June, a small party of members enjoyed dinner in The Club before having a tremendous evening at the ballet where a performance of Cinderella was watched against the backdrop of the Royal Albert Hall. Completing this reporting cycle, was a trip to Norfolk which included visits to Sandringham and the month was rounded off by a Club Reception at the Royal Norfolk Show attended by 50 members.

As you can see, it has been a fast pace of activity both in London and around the country.

At present “smart casual” dress is allowed every weekday until 10.00am and additionally from 6.00pm on Friday and throughout the entirety of the weekend.

The Committee have now agreed that the rule will change so that on Fridays, “smart casual” dress can be worn for the whole day and throughout the weekend.

This rule change will take effect from Friday 1st September 2023

“Smart Casual” dress includes; smart denim jeans and trainers.

Under no circumstances are ripped jeans, plastic beach flip-flops and shorts allowed at any point in the club.

For the time being all other dress code rules remain the same, so please do remind yourself and advise your guests before you arrive.

June kicked off with 38 members embarking on the Chairman’s Tour of Pembrokeshire. A diverse, enjoyable and educational 3 days were complimented by endless sunshine as the county looked at its very best for the entirety of the trip.

A week later Kirsty and I led a tour party of 30 on a ‘Financial institutions’ day, visiting the Lloyds Insurance building and learning about the history and unique way in which insurance contracts are settled. All this before going on for lunch and a trip to the Bank of England Museum. The party returned to The Club for dinner where guest speaker Sophie Lawrence from Rathbones Greenbank gave a very interesting talk on ethical and sustainable banking.

It has always been an aim of mine to provide the maximum outreach to the membership and increasing that, when we can, away from The Club premises. We seem to have this in reasonable balance and the feedback I get is almost always hugely positive and hope that the ‘member experience’ any member has, be it dining in the Restaurant, meeting, away-day trip, London, touring around the country or meeting others at our receptions around the UK, is always memorable and enjoyable.

With those words from the previous paragraph distilled in my thoughts, reflect on my time as hugely memorable, enjoyable and rewarding and the fact that it has been very genuinely an absolute pleasure to be a part of your unique and special club. It has been wonderful to meet most of you at some stage and have made many new friends during the last 7 years. I wish you all, and The Club, the very best in the years to come, and wish Didi all the very best in taking things forward.