The Lord Mayor’s Show

On November 11th 2017 we were honoured to join The Leathersellers’ Company in The Lord Mayor’s Show.

The Leathersellers’ Company generously fund our courses and they wanted to take the Leathersellers story to the The Lord Mayor’s Show, to tell their story through their liverymen, students, leather industry and the charities and young people they support.

Ideas for the parade included a huge and colourful Roebuck, some large scale graphics, two leather upholstered cars and young people who would clearly get across what their charities were about. As passionate supporters of our work, Snow Camp were kindly asked to join the parade.

Snow Camp young people wore full snowsports kit (thank goodness it wasn’t too warm!) and carried ski poles, skis and snowboards. The young people were accompanied by our Founder, Dan Charlish and Programme Director, Gavin Hanmer.

By the morning of Saturday 11th November, Snow Camp had rehearsed their routines and had a delicious breakfast at The Leathersellers’ residence in St Helens Place. At 10.15am the call went out and the procession moved to London Wall. The atmosphere was building, adrenaline pumping, a great sense of one team coming together….and the rain stopped just in time.

None of us could have been prepared for the crowds, or the reception we would receive on the route. This was a real “I was there moment” for our young people. This was a day that would live long in their memory, performing in front of 200,000 spectators and 2 million+ viewers on BBC 1. At 2.30pm we returned to St Helens Place, exhausted but proud and happy to have been a part of such a prestigious event.

What made The Leathersellers’ section of the parade so special was that it was a procession of people, the Leathersellers’ family, a family that extended to around 100 people! We’re so grateful to have been a part of the day, thank you so much to Antony, Ian, Paul, Hilary, Geoff and everyone at The Leathersellers’ Company.