Last Post - 17th January 2011

On Thursday this week I shall have the privilege of installing Jim Surguy as the next Master Marketor. It has been a joy to be the warm-up act for someone whom I am sure will be one of the great Masters.

This year I have been blessed with a wonderful team - as Senior Warden, Jim has provided cheerful wise counsel and moral support. Middle Warden, John Flynn, and Junior Warden, Sally Muggeridge, have been a delight to work with and have also shared the joys of the 2010 highlights. Our Clerk, Adele Thorpe, has been a wonderful coach and guide to me in the ways of the City, as well as organising our Great Events and so much more.

My husband, Roger, has been a diamond.

The Court members, both Past Masters and Court Assistants, have been tremendously encouraging and I am indebted to the Chairmen of Committees and their members for all their hard work and creativity on behalf of the Marketors.

Here is some quantification of what I have taken part in during the year (who says marketers can't handle numbers?):


27 Marketors' events - Great Events, seminars and social


5 tasting lunches


39 internal meetings e.g. committees (and that's only a fraction of the number that took place, attended by others)


8 regular Master & Wardens' meetings + 2 specials


4 Business Court meetings and 4 Ceremonial Courts


81 livery events outside our own Marketors' events, sometimes 2 in one day, occasionally 3. Includes a small number for the Master's Consort, invited on his own to join another companies' Masters' Ladies' or Mistresses' events (and where he was always extremely popular!)


26 external business meetings such as the Financial Services Group and a project for the Lord Mayor.


129 posts on this blog


5 articles written for our quarterly magazine, MARKETOR


203 personal letters sent, 153 of them written by hand (with a fountain pen!)

450 Christmas cards sent


5 box files of memorabilia from our own and others events


3 evening dresses, shoes and handbags, 1 day suit, 2 hats bought.


1 Royal Charter received - definitely NOT 'all my own work'.


And those words sum it up. It has been a team effort: I have just been the person fortunate enough to enjoy the responsibilities and privileges of being the leader for a year. I look forward to the honourable estate of being a Past Master and to supporting our new Master, Jim Surguy, in his year. I shall be Vice-Chairman of the Marketors Think Tank and will continue to represent the company on the Financial Services Group.

On the personal business front, I have treated this year as a professional sabbatical, hard work but constantly learning. In the coming months I shall try to expand the small amount of consultancy work that I have been able to do in 2010, and to seek non-executive opportunities where I can apply my blue chip B2B marketing experience, particularly in the areas of corporate reputation risk management.

If you have been reading, thank you.