London Branch carries the penalty of being at the centre of things. Thus the Annual Ball, the National Dinner, and most national sporting events are held within its boundaries. Arranging branch events so as to avoid any clash is not easy.
‘Redevelopment’ has forced our long established Christmas Lunch at the Cafe Royal to move to the Sheraton Piccadilly, the only West End venue big enough to take our 600.
This year, 2009, will be our first visit. Join us!
Chairman John Griffin enjoys the services Robert Smith as secretary and Wendy Griffin, now into her second decade, as Treasurer. Steve McNicholas is assisting Don Baldry as Welfare Officer, working within the M25
Events
2010
June 17th
Royal Ascot. Thursday is Ladies Day and features The Gold Cup.
June 18th
Royal Ascot. Friday The Coronation Stakes.
Royal Enclosure Loge Seats are £300 (excludes Royal Enclosure admission ticket £88).
Your contact for these spectacular Royal events is
John Griffin 0870 9501 735
December 3rd.
Friday ‘Christmas Lunch @ The Sheraton’ Piccadilly
Contact: John Griffin 0870 950 1735 .
Booking Form & Info Click Here.
Branch News
27/01/10
London’s Christmas Lunch @ The Park Lane Hotel
As many will know, we had to relocate from the Café Royal, our Christmas Lunch venue for getting on for two decades, not through choice but because of re-development. Finding another venue in a central location, one with a proven track record and capable of accommodating 600 in style was not easy. Chairman and Lunch organiser John Griffin settled on the Park Lane Hotel, (which curiously enough is in Piccadilly), the interior of which is probably London’s best example of the ‘Art Deco’ style so popular in the 1920s.
In fact, our numbers this year were around 500, a figure which more or less matched the comfortable capacity of our new dining room.
A new home for our Christmas Lunch as seen from Green Park
The Park lane Hotel was witness to a great party, and the throng which removed to our ‘After Party’ at the Hard Rock Café continued with the festivities until late in the evening.
The entrance hall’s coral lighting and chromium trimmings set the 1920’s tone for arriving members and guests, That theme was at its most exuberant in our dining room where our 500 boisterous guests filled the room.
Our compere this year was Chris Cowdry who did a great job keeping things moving, especially so when conducting the live auction. Getting that last wavering bidder to up the ante is no mean feat. Chris’s auctioneering raised over £20,000, a figure that was in fact an increase over our 2009 results.
Although we were at a new venue the format remained much the same. As usual fund raising got under way with heads and tails, and we kept the tradition of piping in the baron of beef, bringing our piper from the Café Royal.
‘The toast to ‘The Lighthouse Club, its Founders and Eddie Ward’ is, of course, a must
and was conducted with due ceremony
A suitably serious Chairman John Griffin invited us all to raise our glasses.
Throughout the proceedings we had young ladies ‘working the room’ conducting our silent auction of mainly sports memorabilia. For all their efforts they couldn’t match last year’s record result and the net result was a direct reflection of this year’s lower turn out. Nonetheless, they did very well.
We had three formal cheque presentations. Andy Roberts from hydraulic solutions specialists Pirtek took the opportunity of our lunch to make a very generous contribution of £2000 to our Benevolent Fund. Next came Justin Ffrench, who represented London branch in last year’s London Marathon. Justin presented us with fabulous cheque - £20,600. Justin is a truly ‘big’ man who’s plant hire company hires out big plant to some big hearted customers who rewarded a stupendous effort on the part of Justin who had never run before. Many thanks to his generous sponsors.
Finally there was London Branch’s contribution to our Lighthouse Club Benevolent Fund. Our Treasurer Wendy Griffin presented the Fund’s Chairman of Trustees with our cheque for £100,000. The big question is – can we do it again this year? At the moment it looks doubtful but…. Maybe we can. It’s up to you.
But for now, thanks to you all, the Chairman of our Fund Mark Everett was delighted, as he said, our cheque made his trip from Scotland well worth while. The kiss from our Treasurer Wendy Griffin was a bonus.
Our auction, conducted by Chris Cowdry saw some lively action. Above is a winning bidder holding open our 50 page brochure at the auction list. The substantial winning bids at our Christmas Lunches require that we have credit card facilities and it’s a system that worked very well in spite of the fact that we had ten floors of hotel above us.
‘Dynamo’ Steven Frayne was the first of our two young entertainers. He did seemingly impossible things with packs of cards, and involved quite a few of his audience in the fun.
And later we had a manic comic, Jack Whitehall. In August 2009 he was nominated for the Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for his debut solo Fringe show, so not surprisingly for us he went down a storm. Here he is between Kate and John Griffin, the joint architects and arrangers of our fabulous Christmas party.
Kate found herself involved to the very end. Late in the proceedings Kate filled the role of prize giver. Above she is presenting one of our many raffle prizes, a bottle of vintage champagne.
There was an impromptu end to our lunch. Our Club needs new members. Past chairman Don Baldry announced that he would be collecting £20 and business cards from non members. And in spite of his hectoring tone we did recruit new members. There were no ‘Noes’ but there was £20 left over! If you gave £20 and haven’t heard then get in touch.
And at 5p.m. after another memorable Lighthouse Club event, our Christmas Lunch at the Sheraton came to an end. Then came the After Party at the Hard Rock Café.
What is there to say about our ‘After Party’? There’s no stage – no microphones – no speeches – no presentations. Just a great bunch of Lighthouse people, surrounded by rock and rollabilia, continuing with a fun day out! So just a few pictures for the flavour.
Whew!!
A really splendid Xmas Lunch @ The Park Lane Hotel was rounded off
by a Great Days Night at the Hard Rock Café.
1/11/09 Stars & Hard Rock
for London Lunch
The Lighthouse Club London Branch confirms the Hard Rock Cafe for their Christmas Lunch 'After Party'.
Standing on Old Park Lane since June 14th 1971, this is the one that started it all. The brainchild of Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton, the cafe attracted customers from day one with first-rate, but moderately priced, casual American fare (available no-where else in London or the UK at the time), warm service and ubiquitous Rock 'n' Roll music and sensibility - Hard Rock Cafe London became an instant classic.
Still housing the first ever piece of memorabilia donated to the Hard Rock Cafe, Eric Clapton's Lead II Fender, originally donated to reserve a space at the busy bar, the London Cafe is as charming and authentic now as it was 38 years ago. You'll find many of the original serving staff still work the floor here today too! The Cafe is also as famous as ever around town for attracting the best rock stars down for a burger and the occasional "jamming session".
Come see time fly and lose yourself in the extensive memorabilia collection - one of the most expensive in the world - enjoy some great music in the Basement bar or just pull up a stool at the bar and enjoy the atmosphere.
Hard Rock Cafe London truly ROCKS, come join us on the 4th December 2009!
Jack Whitehall the award winning young comic and presenter has confirmed his appearance at our Xmas Lunch.
In 2009 Jack made his debut in the guest presenter's chair on Never Mind the Buzzcocks - as well as co-hosting C4's TNT with Holly Walsh. His confident, energetic and topical comedy inspires favourable comparisons to Russell Brand and The Mighty Boosh.
Within a year of starting stand-up at the age of 18, Jack was winning prestigious new comedy awards. Both Time Out and The Telgraph marked him out as 'a rising star,' with the Standard describing him as 'a shoe-in for stardom.' He was also nominated for the Best Newcomer prize at Edinburgh.
Jack's television break came as a one-off presenter on Celebrity Big Brother's Big Mouth. He made such an impression that he was quickly invited back to host Celebrity Big Brother itself. Since then he has appeared on 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Jason Manford's Tonightly and The Sunday Night Project.
For our other entertainer David Blaine gave him the name of Dynamo, saying "This kid's a Dynamo". Dynamo, aka Steven Frayne grew up in Bradford with a love of American urban culture, graffiti and break-dancing. He was particularly inspired by the street hustlers and card sharks, and after learning some basic magic from his grandfather he honed his technical skills, injected hip-hop attitude and created something special.
Within a few years he was performing in New York and Las Vegas. He progressed from the tough estates of Bradford to hanging out with some of the world's biggest stars, putting on shows for celebrities like Will Smith and appearing in music videos with Kanye West and The Raconteurs.
Comedy, Hip Hop Magic, and the Hard Rock Café! Nobody’s going home early from our Christmas lunch at the Sheraton. You can still be there. johngriffin@lighthouseclublondon.org
7/10/09 Christmas Lunch at the Sheraton
Even though we can no longer count on the fame of the lost forever Café Royal, our many loyal participants are happy to move a mile westward to the Art Deco Sheraton in Park Lane. Bookings look very healthy and our generous sponsors are maintaining their support.
We confidently expect another memorable event.
News Flash Christmas Lunch 2009 at the Sheraton Park Lane
The Club are pleased to announce that Parker Merchanting, W Long & Co, Pirtek and the Hawk Group are the sponsors of Lighthouse Club Christmas Lunch 2009 at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel. The event is being held on Friday 4th December 2009, tickets cost from £120 each. For further information contact John Griffin on 0870 950 1735 or email johngriffin@lighthouseclublondon.org
Parker Merchanting Is a leading UK distributor of construction consumables to the construction industry, with a product range covering the three key areas of personal protective equipment, roadworks and site supplies. Building upon 100 years experience of providing B2B supply solutions, Parker Merchanting has secured an unrivalled reputation for supplying high quality products and providing a reliable service to all its customers. Parker Merchanting branches are strategically located across the UK ensuring every site has a local contact point. We are proud to be the Platinum Sponsor for the second consecutive year.
www.parkermerchanting.co.uk
W Long & Co supplies the construction industry with a professional service providing civil engineering, groundwork and reinforced concrete structures. The company has a wealth of experience in every aspect of earthmoving and general civil engineering groundworks. Works undertaken include new housing and industrial developments, new construction and upgrade of existing. We are pleased to be the Gold Sponsor for the third year running. www.wlongco.co.uk
Pirtek are Europe's Number 1 provider of on-site hydraulic hose repairs. Pirtek's mission is to provide the fastest and most convenient service available, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It offers a comprehensive range of fluid transfer solutions, products and services to the Construction and Plant Hire Industry.We are proud to be the Silver Sponsor of the Lighthouse Club Christmas Lunch. www.pirtek.co.uk
The Hawk Group are one of the largest construction and agricultural machinery hire companies in the UK. The range of services we are able to provide our customers include machinery hire, contract earthmoving, site accommodation hire, sale of used equipment, building contracting, safety consultancy and through our Ford dealership the hire and sales of cars and vans. We are pleased to be the Bronze sponsor, continuing our long standing support of the Lighthouse Club Christmas Luncheon. www.hawk-group.co.uk
