Page 10 - Yearbook issue try out

So, what did you do

in lockdown?

Well, lots actually: MICHELLE GURNEY reports on fellowship

EMEMBER those heady January days
when we had never heard of COVID-19?
R We had celebrated the Installation Dinner
at the Haberdashers’ Hall after the service at
St Bartholomew the Great; at Christmas, the
legendary lunch, the carol service and our first
“Christmas fayre”; the New Freemen’s Dinner at the
Goldsmiths’ Hall; First Thursdays at the Guildhall;
our Burns Night dinner in the Hall; quizzes, wine
tastings, walks and tours – all in all, a fine and full
programme of activities to support fellowship.

Then it all went horribly wrong: suddenly we were
in lockdown. Although it now seems obvious, at
the start of lockdown, the feasibility of maintaining
our reputation for fellowship seemed almost
impossible.

Like so many organisations, we had to find a “new
normal” to replace and enhance our programme of
face-to-face events and engage the membership,
especially when it became clear it was going to be
months rather than weeks.

What would we have done without Zoom – a Candle in the wind:
product of which few of us had even heard in Michelle dressed for a virtual dinner
March 2020? And what would we have done
without the incomparable Alan Simpson? There were many more days in the week to fill.
A programme of “Talking Tuesdays”, organised
Through Zoom, First Thursday has morphed into by Court Liveryman Steve Smith (equally
the hugely successful “Virtual Thursday”. Members incomparable in terms of Zoom), featured talks
from across the country made an effort to defy with WCIT and external speakers on subjects from
the virus and, as well as the plenary sessions, Workplace Stress to the Battle of Britain, from IT
we used the breakout room facility to support and Climate Change to Contemporary Glass, and
more intimate chats and discussions. The wine an interactive Gin Tasting, presented by Liveryman
served at home is probably better than that at the and Gin Master Andrew Parsons.
Guildhall too! That rapidly became every other
Thursday, and we filled the gaps with other online The fascinating talk on the Black Death by Dr
events: a well-attended quiz, a wine tasting and Barney Sloane of Historic England enabled us to
a virtual walk, with our weekly newsletter also see the impact of a pandemic from almost 700
featuring regular quizzes and even a photographic years ago on our specific neighbourhood in the
competition to keep people occupied. City of London.

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