Press releases Take your place for the Lord Mayor’s Show 2008
Friday 26 September 2008

Pictured is Oscar Melder, two, a member of the under-fives project at Stamford Hill Community Centre who helped decorate ELFA’s Lord Mayor’s Show float. Elfa provides a food co-operative outside the Centre. Photo by Jeff Moore.

Notes for Editors

For further information, please contact Loretta Lui at the City of London Corporation on 020 7332 1754 or by email: loretta.lui at cityoflondon.gov.uk;

The Role of the Lord Mayor

The Lord Mayor of the City of London is an international ambassador for the UK financial services industry and spends up to 80 days a year traveling to around 20 countries to promote this industry and the Square Mile as a place of excellence in which to do business.

As head of the City of London the Lord Mayor is involved with local government and London-wide issues, ranging from the City of London’s work in the regeneration of neighbouring boroughs to transport and environmental issues which affect the City.

On behalf of the Sovereign and the Government, he also acts as host when the City of London provides hospitality for visiting heads of state and foreign dignitaries. In addition, the Lord Mayor provides a platform for Government Ministers to make keynote speeches. The Prime Minister attends the Lord Mayor’s annual Banquet at Guildhall, whilst the Bankers’ Dinner each June is the occasion for the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s annual keynote speech, known as the Mansion House Speech. The Easter Banquet, also held at Mansion House, is the major annual opportunity for all London’s diplomats to listen to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. Other Cabinet members and international business figures also value these opportunities.

The Lord Mayor also presides over meetings of the Court of Common Council and Court of Aldermen, and attends Livery events and charitable projects. He receives visiting overseas ministers and senior businessmen and keeps in close contact with City institutions and firms as well as travelling to other UK financial centres to keep in touch with regional economic activity. In his year of office he will make some 600 speeches on a wide variety of subjects from City financial matters to charity and patronage.

City of London Corporation

The ancient City of London Corporation has a 21st-century role supporting the business city as the world’s leading international financial and business centre. The City of London Corporation provides local government services for the City of London Square Mile at the heart of London but its responsibilities also extend far beyond the City boundaries and include paying for and running the Barbican Centre, Epping Forest, Hampstead Heath, and three wholesale food markets, as well as acting as the London Port Health Authority.

Chinese acrobats will perform alongside military marching bands in a blend of tradition and modernity as more than 6,000 people come together to perform in the Lord Mayor’s Show on Saturday 8th November 2008.

The three-mile long procession winds through 1.7 miles of streets in the Square Mile to introduce the 681st Lord Mayor of the City of London. It is a celebration of diversity, bringing together groups from Hong Kong and Poland alongside City bankers, charities, livery companies, inner-London community projects and many more.

Their months of painstaking preparation create a walking history of the City – from 1189 when Henry Fitzailwyn first held office as Mayor to today – reflecting the Square Mile’s reputation as the world’s leading financial and business centre.

One of the key aims of the Show is to develop social and practical skills of young people in London and beyond by encouraging and supporting their participation. As part of the City of London Corporation’s commitment to education and inclusion, it sponsors four floats from inner London community groups, to the tune of £15,000 each:

• UINCAP International School of Capoeira – works with children aged from four years in Lambeth to promote the Brazilian martial art of capoeira. Incorporating dance, fight, acrobatics and music, capoeira is used as a means of promoting physical fitness and musicianship, self-confidence and team skills. Workshops with international masters are arranged after-school and in holidays. This will be a colourful entry, with Carnival costumes, painted panels showing the history of capoeira and traditional Brazilian music.

• In Toto Theatre – Combines puppetry, live music, storytelling and dance to create a “total” theatre experience for children, families and young people in Lambeth and Southwark. The group’s Show entry takes the theme of “Art in the Air”, looking at the migration of birds as a metaphor for the patterns of newcomers to London. Musicians will march along-side dancers and puppeteers.

• East London Food Access – ELFA promotes healthy eating and operates fresh fruit and veg stalls throughout disadvantaged areas of Hackney with produce bought from the City’s New Spitalfields Market. ELFA also delivers fresh produce to nurseries, schools and workplaces as part of a drive to improve residents’ well-being and healthy weight. Oranges and Lemons will be the theme of ELFA’s entry. Pre-show workshops will be organised for all age groups creating a mobile market stall which will travel the route of the Show on the day, accompanied with children performing the traditional nursery rhyme.

• City of London Family and Young People Services – Works with children and young people within the City, providing after schools clubs, youth clubs and holiday schemes. Their entry will feature City residents of all ages and will take the theme of “the City on holiday”, incorporating a South American drumming group alongside a traditional London Routemaster bus. Costumes and musical instruments for the day will all be made from recycled materials.

ENDS

Notes to editors:
This year marks the 793rd Lord Mayor’s Show. The procession will begin at 11am at the Mansion House following a military flypast. It will travel from Mansion House, down Cheapside to St Paul’s Cathedral, where the Lord Mayor will arrive at 12.10pm to be blessed before proceeding to the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. There he swears allegiance to the Sovereign. The procession then makes its way back to the City, finishing at c2pm.

At 5pm the Lord Mayor will light the touch paper to the spectacular Lord Mayor’s Fireworks display on the river Thames, between Blackfriars Bridge and Waterloo Bridge.

The Lord Mayor will be elected on Friday 29th September 2008 but does not take office until the day before the Show, at a Silent Ceremony held at the City’s historic Guildhall. A new Lord Mayor is elected every year.

For Press enquiries or pictures from last year’s Show, call Lesley Mair at the City of London on 020 7332 1754 or email lesley.mair@cityoflondon.gov.uk.