Women In The City Lunch

We’ve had a very inspiring and exciting partnership with Women In The City for a while now, and the annual lunch at the Plaisterer’s Hall is a great institution. The main event is respectfully formal, with toasts to the Queen and the Royal Family, as well as the Corporation of London, which fit both the venue and occasion perfectly. Less formally, there is also the chance to mingle, network or just chat with like-minded business people. As well, of course, as the all-important awards which include the Future Leaders Award and the Woman of Achievement Award.

Glasseswebb’s Mo first heard of the organisation when she sold a pair of glasses to its founder, Gwen Rhys, and this inspiring woman’s enthusiasm for everything she does meant that we couldn’t help getting involved, becoming a brand partner. Gwen was appointed in 2008 Assistant to the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers, and is now its Prime Warden, which appealed to both Mo and Tim Webb, who are both Freemen of the City of London. 

Gwen is also heavily involved in the City Guilds, and this body’s aim of helping young people to train, to learn, to forge a career productively, was something else that appealed to us in a big way. It is a responsibility of anyone in business, indeed any adult, to think about the generation who will come after us, and the help we appreciate having ourselves when we were young.

Glasseswebb donated a £200 voucher towards glasses, joining other raffle prizes at the lunch such as dinner, bed and breakfast at Hanbury Manor (http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/travel/stngs-hanbury-manor-marriott-hotel-and-country-club/), a £200 voucher from fashion label The Fold London (http://thefoldlondon.com) and a free weekly sandwich from Plan Bread (http://www.planbread.co.uk).

There was heartwarming news after the event, too. The winner of the Glasseswebb voucher was Glenn Norman, of SGN, who emailed us to say: “Many thanks for the voucher I won at the raffle on Friday. I would like to  donate this prize to The Jack Sims Trust where it will be raffled. Jack Sims Trust is a charity we are supporting at my offices for a young child of one of our employees who needs surgery in the US.” Some people are just great, aren’t they?

Also attending was our friend Rebecca Simpson, who Mo invited along to the lunch. “I was always sceptical of awards ceremonies,” says this City of London stockbroker. “But I’m so glad I could attend. It made me think: what have I done to help others come up through my profession? Because you do a lot better pulling people up than pushing them down.”