All for a great cause

Charity has always been central to the work of the Worshipful Company of Actuaries. Despite lacking a historic endowment, the Company’s Charitable Trust raises £140,000 per annum for good causes. Projects include funding a Royal Society Fellowship to research the way mathematics is taught in our schools. 

Many grants are made to smaller charities where, to use the Trust’s unofficial motto, it is hoped they will ‘make a difference’. Following a strategic review, the trustees plan to make bigger awards to fewer charities and to favour those involving a Liveryman, who can provide feedback on the impact of the support.

One such charity is Swindon ReStore. Following his retirement from pensions work, Liveryman Mike Thomas became a trustee of ReStore’s parent charity, Swindon Christian Community Projects, which also runs the Swindon Foodbank. ReStore has established a community centre in a deprived area of Swindon. It seeks to ‘restore’ people, including long-term unemployed individuals, ex-offenders and young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs), by offering unpaid work experience.

These volunteers repair furniture and household goods in a workshop that was equipped by the Livery Company and run a shop, where the furniture is sold.

The Livery Company is keen to involve the wider actuarial community. In 2009, Past Master Adrian Waddingham got over 100 actuaries to cycle in the Stroke Association’s Thames Bridges Bike Ride, raising some £50,000. Senior Warden Charles Cowling also hopes that more actuaries who are not Liverymen will participate in fundraising events.

For more information about the Company,
visit www.actuariescompany.co.uk/

See www.swindonfoodbank.co.uk for details of ReStore and the Foodbank.

Actuaries hungry for golfing victory

22 members of the Worshipful Company of Actuaries Golfing Society and their spouses visited Sandwich, the prestigious golfing mecca on the east Kent coast, for two days of testing links golf, and were fortunately blessed with mostly dry and clement weather.

On Monday 30 April, an 18-hole team event was played on Prince’s Golf Club, an Open qualifying course. The event was won by the team of Graham Clay, Rosemary Derby, Debbie Felton and Fraser Low, with runners-up Alan Botterill, Pamela Hudson, Margaret Ross and Gordon Sharp.

May Day was celebrated by tackling last year’s Open course of Royal St George’s and the team prize went to Jane Bennett, Graham Clay and Peter Felton, with runners-up Rosemary Derby, Tom Ross and Gordon Sharp.

Why walk when you can run, row, cycle or hike?

Simon Barker took part in 32 sporting events during 2011, including 3 Ironman competitions, 2 marathons, 4 half-marathons, and the Henley Royal Regatta Thames Challenge Cup. Most notably, he completed the Trip to Remember, cycling from Dublin to Arklow then rowing from Ireland to Wales, before hiking up Snowdon – all within 33 hours. Simon also rowed in a six-man gig from Broadstairs in Kent to Richmond Lock, covering 89 nautical miles in 19 hours.

Fellowship Club’s last supper, by John Harsant

The final dinner of the Fellowship Club was held on 28 May at the Innholder’s Hall, its home for many years. The president of the club, Steve Wood, presided and the guest of honour was Tim Birse. The hall was filled with members and their guests, who shared an outstanding evening that will be long remembered.

In his address, Birse referred to the changing circumstances of the profession, which had greatly diminished the need for dining clubs and resulted in such low attendances at the normal dinners as to make them unsustainable. One consequence was the merger of the Phiatus club with the Fellowship Club and now the merger of the Fellowship Club with the Gallio Club. Despite this, attendance at the evening’s event showed that there is still a need, albeit a different one, which will hopefully be met in the future.

All members of the Fellowship Club, which includes those transferred from the Phiatus Club, automatically become members of the Gallio Club.

On a personal note, my role as secretary will now cease. I greatly enjoyed this post and would like to thank all concerned.

Births

Jean-Paul Shipley (Munich Re) and wife Carol are pleased to announce the birth of their third child, Benedict David (pictured left), on 18 May. Benedict was a slightly late 30th birthday present, born eight days after Carol’s birthday.

Last month’s actuary of the future, Gareth Evison (JLT), and fiancée Issy are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Scarlett Amelia (pictured right), on 13 May, weighing 6lb 8oz. Scarlett is the couple’s second child and is a little sister to Sophia.

Obituary

Michael Alan Pickford
Died 4 June 2012, aged 74.
 
Michael Pickford had a long and distinguished career in the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD). He began his career training as an actuary in 1958 and in May 1970 qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (FIA).

During his tenure at GAD, he progressed from actuary to chief actuary and was promoted to directing actuary in early 1989.

Pickford’s work was principally in the field of insurance industry regulation. He was appointed deputy government actuary – insurance supervision in April 1989, having responsibility for GAD’s advice to insurance supervisors in the UK and internationally up to his retirement in 1995.

He was active in the Institute of Actuaries, being a member of the Council from 1990 until 1995. Other committees included the European joint committee and the life assurance joint committee, and he was chair of the General Insurance Board in the 1994-1995 session. He was part of the team that led the first actuarial convention in Birmingham in 1985 and contributed to a number of papers and presentations on actuarial matters in the field of insurance.

Pickford was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 1994. He became a Freeman of the City of London in May 1995.

Born in Headington, Oxford, on 22 August 1937, Pickford attended the City of Oxford School for Boys. He then joined the RAF from 1956 until 1958.

Pickford has always been interested in travel, and in retirement this became a major part of his life, with trips to the Caribbean, Middle East and Far East.

In August 2011, Pickford was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. He died at Bishops Wood, Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood.

His colleagues remember him as a dedicated professional with a sense of humour, helpful and very caring.
He is survived by Eric Herman, his partner of 47 years.

Other Deaths

Peter Duncan ESSLEMONT died on 4 May 2012, aged 77. He became a Fellow of the Institute in 1961.

Ian Gordon MCLACHLAN died on 18 February 2012. He became a Fellow of the Faculty in 1970.