Christmas 2004 NewsletterThe Master’s MessageI was very honoured to be installed as Master at Common Hall on Wednesday 27th October and I was particularly delighted that so many of you were able to join me in the delightful surroundings of Tallow Chandlers Hall for the Installation Dinner afterwards. It was a great pleasure to welcome Tony Lancaster, Master of the Insurers Company, Patricia Brain, Master of the Lightmongers and one of our own Liverymen, Peter Knight, Master of the Constructors as our official guests. I was also delighted to welcome our newly installed members; Jonathan Perkins, Steffi Spitznagel, Peter Talbot and Michael Wellbank as Freemen and Anthony Tobin from Canada, Houston Putnam Lowry from the USA, and also Peter King as Liverymen. Our transatlantic friends were very impressed by our trio of musicians from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama who finished their lovely recital with a rousing rendering of Rule Britannia in which we all joined! I have had a very busy start to the year and on 1st November the Clerk and I were guests of the Actuaries Company at Staple Inn Hall with its wonderful hammer beam roof where we helped them celebrate their 25th year of the Livery. On the following evening I attended the Annual Dinner of the Academy of Experts at the Royal Overseas League. On 9th November we had our first event at Merchant Taylor’s Hall when over 20 members participated in a magnificent Rioja Wine Tasting and Auction in aid of Charity. Some of us did not go home empty handed! On 13th November the Senior Warden and I walked in the Lord Mayor’s Show, supported by the Junior Warden in Waiting and in the company of the Modern Livery Companies and their vintage bus complete with jazz band. Although sunny it was bitterly cold and we were very happy to be entertained with copious champagne by the Master Mariners on HQS Wellington at the halfway mark! On Wednesday 24th November I processed in the St Cecilia Service at Westminster Abbey and participated with some of our members at luncheon in the Banqueting House later. The following day I was the guest of the Solicitor’s Company at their Livery Dinner at the Drapers’ Hall. On Monday 6th December I attended the Installation of the Lord Mayor as Chancellor of City University at the Guildhall followed by luncheon in the Crypt. I hope to see you all at the Banquet at the Drapers’ Hall on Wednesday 16th February 2005. In the meanwhile I wish you all a Very Happy Christmas and a Very Prosperous New Year.
The Master The Master, Dr Ann Underwood, JP, BDS(Lond), LDS.RCS(Eng), Dip Arb, FCIArb, was educated at Notting Hill and Ealing High School and the Royal Dental Hospital, University of London. She qualified as a Bachelor of Dental Surgery in 1959 and as a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in the same year. Since qualifying, she has practised under her maiden name, Dr Ann Blizard, and for the most part as principal of her own dental practice employing associate dental surgeons and ancillary staff, in which she is still actively engaged. The Master is a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Medical Society of London and the Carlton Club. She is also active in other Liveries, being a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners and a Yeoman of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. In 1982 the Master was appointed a Justice of the Peace by the Lord Chancellor in the Petty Sessional Area of Brent in the Middlesex Commission, and she has been sitting as a chairman in both the Adult and Family Courts in that area ever since. She joined the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators as an Associate in 1989, and she gained her Diploma in Arbitration from the College of Estate Management in 1993. She achieved Fellowship of the Chartered Institute in 1995, and since that date has acted as sole arbitrator in more than thirty disputes arising under the Denplan Scheme. She has also been appointed arbitrator by the British Dental Association on many occasions to deal with similar disputes. The Master is divorced with three sons and one daughter. She currently has four grand-daughters who are a particular joy, and keep her busy much of the time. She also enjoys the theatre, music and the cinema. She loves wine, and has forged particularly close ties with the Burgundy Region, where she is taking us next summer, on that account. She has also walked and travelled extensively all over the world. The Master is currently learning to play golf, which it is sometimes said ruins a good walk, but we wish her every success in that endeavour. She is also spending quite a bit of time improving her bridge in time, she claims, for her eventual retirement. That too is a difficult enterprise, in which we wish her well, but most of all we wish her a very happy year as Master of the Arbitrators’ Company. New MedalsThe Master and the Immediate Past Master have very kindly and generously presented the Company with a splendid gift of new medals for the Senior and Junior Wardens and the Clerk, as illustrated above. These were first worn at Common Hall this year (see photograph on front page), and have been much admired. It has also been decided that the original Master’s medal presented by the Founders will now be worn by the Senior Past Master.
Right: Senior Past Master Clifford Clark, MC (Master in 1982/83) Constitution and OrdinancesDuring October 2004, copies of the Company’s new Constitution and Ordinances were distributed to Members. The principal changes have been the inclusion of Honorary Freemen among our members, and the provision for the admission to the Freedom of Liverymen’s adult offspring who are not involved with arbitration or alternative forms of dispute resolution. Their number is strictly limited to 10% of the membership. Hopefully we shall soon be able to welcome a few non-arbitrating offspring as Freemen at our Company functions. For further details and an application form, please contact the Clerk at the address given on the rear cover of this newsletter. Charitable TrustsOne of the many objects of the Company is:
The First and Second Charitable Trusts pursue these worthy objectives on the Company’s behalf. Those of the Second Trust are wider than those of the First, but their capacity to achieve them is dependent on the generosity of the members. The Trusts are in constant need of donations, which may be sent to the Clerk at any time, and will be gratefully received, particularly during this festive season of goodwill. (See Clerk’s contact details)
Past Master MildredRonald Mildred, who sadly died on 20 September 2004, aged 89, was a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Faculty of Building. He developed an interest in arbitration in the 1960s, and was one of the group in the 1970s who believed in the establishment of training courses in arbitration practice for members of appropriate professions. He devoted a great deal of time to this interest, and the work of these pioneers led to the establishment of arbitral qualifications by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in the 1970s and 1980s. Ronald served on the Council of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators for many years, and was Chairman of the Council in the year 1978/79. He also had a particular interest in the City of London, and he was an active member of the working group which prepared the way for the formation of our Livery Company, The Worshipful Company of Arbitrators, in 1981. He became a member of the Court of Assistants, and was elected Master in the year 1991/92. He was also very interested in the work of Expert Witnesses, and wrote a book on this subject entitled “The Expert Witness”, which was published in 1982 by George Goodwin. For many years he practiced in Bristol, and later he moved to Salisbury where his son was living with his family. He became a well-known figure in the City attending many of the musical and cultural functions. He later moved to live in Nailsworth in Gloucestershire, where he was also highly regarded. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his surviving relatives at this sad time. Berty Vigrass OBE Beadle retires Many of us will be saddened to hear that Ken Tappenden, our highly regarded Beadle, has decided to resign his position with the Company on medical advice. Whilst we warmly welcome his successor, Roy Warman, who is a member of the City of London Beadles Guild and the Society of London Toastmasters, it is appropriate that we should pay tribute to Ken’s contribution to the Company since becoming Beadle in March 1999. I first met Ken at Guildhall on 4 April 2000 when I was a slightly apprehensive candidate for the Freedom of the Company. The welcome he gave me is something I will always treasure. He made me feel the most important person in the world, which was such a memorable introduction to the Company. That same day, at lunch, he tapped me on the shoulder, and with a very straight face said: “About that speech Sir”, [long pause, I gulped], “no need for you to make one today”, then glided off with a grin, doubtless to rerun the same prank on another initiate. From attending Company functions, we are all well aware of the Beadle’s ceremonial duties, which include announcing guests, leading processions and calling order for speakers and toasts. His lesser known duties include being responsible for the safekeeping of the Company’s regalia and other valuables, and for their safe transport to official functions. Thus there is a physical dimension to the Beadle’s duties behind the scenes, which has regrettably on this occasion led to Ken’s premature retirement. He is however particularly pleased to be handing over the Company’s inventory fully intact. It seems he was not so fortunate himself, as when he was appointed in March 1999, a pair of candlesticks and an ornamental carving knife had been mislaid. By painstakingly retracing where the Company had dined during the previous years, he eventually found the missing items quite safe in a well known Livery Hall, where at wedding receptions it had become the usual practice for the happy couple to cut their wedding cake with the Arbitrators’ ornamental knife! No more however as it has been retrieved. We thank Ken most sincerely for the conscientious and dignified manner in which he has discharged his duties to the Company during the past 5 years. We hope that the engraved crystal decanter presented to him at the Installation Dinner will serve as a happy memento of his time with the Company, and we wish him good health and much happiness in his retirement. Assistant Derek Ross Prize Winners On the eve of the recent Installation Dinner, the Master, the then Junior Warden, Michael Stephens, and the Chairman of the First Charitable Trust, Assistant John Rushton, went to Greenwich University to present a cheque in the sum of ₤500 to Chris Barber, a student on the Greenwich University MBA course and the winner of the First Charitable Trust’s dispute resolution essay writing competition. Mr Barber (pictured right with the Master) had analysed an actual dispute about a domain name that called for resolution by ADR methods. The Company’s support for Greenwich University’s ADR Option in their MBA course is much appreciated by the University and also by the London Branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, whose lectures by Ron Baden Hellard are an important part of the course. 
Earlier this year, at the Court Meeting on 7 July 2004, the Master presented Mr Rangan Chatterjee with his prize (left) from the First Charitable Trust for scoring a distinction in the City University Diploma in Law course examinations for 2002/3. 
We are still not sure if Past Master Victoria Russell won a prize for her costume at this year’s Lord Mayor’s Show (right). She certainly deserved one. Rumour has it that she has been approached to appear at the Notting Hill Carnival next year!
Events this AutumnI love the ceremony of the Installation of the new Master. It combines a dignified reference to the past year with hopefulness for a splendid future, as I know it will be under Ann Underwood’s leadership. The bouquet of next year’s summer visit to Burgundy already suggests something well worth savouring. This autumn we have enjoyed a series of small functions. We attended the first concert given at the Wigmore Hall after its summer facelift and then followed it with a guided tour of the Wallace Collection, with its incomparable collection of possessions of Madame de Pompadour and her lover Louis XV. Pieces of their furniture and of her own Sevre porcelain are thought by many connoisseurs to be of finer quality than those in the Louvre. Next was a well supported visit to the secret gardens of the City led by Past Master Victoria Russell’s cousin Mary Coales, which was enjoyed by a good crowd. Not so the visit to the London Wetlands Centre, where we saw more foxes, (three of them) than Members of the Company. A great pity as it is well worth visiting. Imagine 120 acres alongside the Thames next to Hammersmith Bridge, with ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, fields and even cows grazing. During the year it is visited by over 120 different species of water foul, migrant and resident. No other capital city has such an amazing ornithological resource. May I end my year by saying how much I have enjoyed it, and express to everyone my thanks for the support you have given so generously to my wife and to me. It is indeed a year we shall often recall; a year we shall never forget. Thank you all. Immediate Past Master, Andrew Drysdale
Charitable Wine TastingIntrepid members of the company have abseiled down tall buildings, run marathons and otherwise pursued heroic endeavours in support of various charities; a strong contingent from the Company recently, at significant personal sacrifice, forced themselves not only to attend a wine-tasting at Merchant Taylor’s Hall in support of the highly deserving charity, Action Medical Research, but also to taste (and drink, since the wine trade tradition [necessity !] of spitting out was entirely optional) nearly 140 different Riojas including some famous names (eg Marqués de Murrieta, La Rioja Alta, Marqués de Cáceres) and some new to the UK. Your correspondent can report that both the Master and the Immediate Past Master were particularly dedicated pursuers of this charitable endeavour. It was also noted that one senior member of the company stayed close to the most expensive wine on display (£74.99) in order both to keep a very careful eye on it and to test each individual bottle as it was opened in case of quality variation. The excellence of the wines on display was matched by the excellence of the Tapas created by the Merchant Taylors’ highly creative chef, Simon Fooks. The evening was rounded off by an entertaining auction of rare wines, particularly including large-format bottles, and wine paraphernalia, with the ex-Christie’s auctioneer repeatedly trying to wind up the Events Committee Chairman to overbid. In addition, the Master was seen to hoover up the exquisite Georg Riedel glassware on offer. Action Medical Research (registered charity #208701) has been funding vital medical research for more than 50 years and has established an impressive track record, being wholly or partly responsible for the first UK polio vaccine, pioneering hip replacement surgery, medical use of ultrasound, testing the rubella vaccine and many other successes. The charity supports cutting edge research geared towards the prevention, treatment and alleviation of disabling diseases affecting all ages and all sectors of society. Recent projects include Meningitis – a possible new treatment; Fracture healing – resorbable fracture fixation plates; Migraine, Stroke and incomplete spinal injury therapy. Well worth the sacrifice of tasting expensive wine, don’t you think? By popular demand, the Company will support this event next year – date to be advised but around the same. Diary of EventsJanuary tba: Royal Albert Hall and Luncheon Company News: New Admissions Liveryman Bob Crease, a Chartered Civil Engineer and Member of the Board of Directors of Channel Tunnel Rail Link, who was admitted to the Livery on 7 July 2004.
Liveryman Phillip Fidler, a Chartered Quantity Surveyor, Chartered Arbitrator, Adjudicator and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, who became a Liveryman on 7 July 2004.
Liveryman Duncan King, a barrister, part-time special immigration adjudicator and part-time judge advocate sitting on military and air force courts-marshal and member of the Summary Appeal Court, who took the Livery on 27 October 2004.
Liveryman Houston Lowry, a practising American Attorney and Arbitrator based in Connecticut. Member of AAA’s Commercial Panel and Co-Chair of the ABA’s International Arbitration sub-committee, who was admitted to the Livery.
Liveryman Anthony Tobin, a Canadian Barrister, Chartered Arbitrator and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, who became a Liveryman on 27 October 2004.
Freeman Matthew Bastone, a Chartered Quantity Surveyor, Arbitrator, Mediator and accredited Adjudicator , Member of Arbrix and the Society of Construction Law, who became a Freeman on 7 July 2004.
Freeman Peter Greig, an Independent Contract Management Adviser, and Member of CIArb, Assoc. of Planning Supervisors, British Tunnelling Society, Society of Construction Law, Adjudication Society, British Institute of Comparative Law and the Dispute Review Board Foundation, who was admitted to the Freedom on 7 July 2004.
Freeman Karl Davies, Chief Executive of the City Disputes Panel and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, who became a Freeman on 7 July 2004.
Freeman Domenico di Pietro, a Solicitor with Mayer Brown Rowe & May’s International Arbitration Group, Member of International Bar Association, LCIA and British Italian Law Association, who was admitted to the Freedom on 7 July 2004.
Freeman Steffi Spitznagel, a Solicitor with her own consultancy handling International Commercial Arbitration, Mediation and Litigation in the Construction and Engineering Industries, who became a Freeman on 7 July 2004.
Freeman Peter Talbot, a Chartered Quantity Surveyor, Chartered Arbitrator, Adjudicator and Accredited Mediator, Member of Arbrix, SCL and the Adjudication Society, who was admitted to the Freedom on 27 October 2004.
Freeman Jonathan Perkins, a Barrister and full-time member of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, who became a Freeman on 27 October 2004.
Freeman John Welbank, a Registered Architect, Chartered Town Planner, Accredited Mediator and Master of the Worshipful Company of Architects in 1994, who was admitted to the Freedom of the Company on 27 October 2004.
Court of AssistantsHearty congratulations to our two newly elected Court Assistants, Assistant Anthony Graham Scott and Assistant Jonathan Wyatt, who were welcomed to the Court by the Master, Wardens, Assistants and Past Masters on 27 October 2004. |
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