Lord Mayor's Dragon Awards

Apply now for a Lord Mayor’s Dragon Award!

http://www.dragonawards.org.uk/index.html is a free to enter awards scheme run by the City of London Corporation that recognises excellence in corporate community involvement benefiting Greater London. Winning a Lord Mayor’s Dragon Award is a business’s opportunity to highlight their community engagement achievements to clients, internal stakeholders and competitors.

Chiswick Park Enjoy-Work won the Enterprise and Employment Award in 2014. On winning the Award, Gemma McNeilis, Head of Brand for the property management company, said, “if we had to sum up winning the Award in one word it would be pride – winning gave us cause to take stock and realise how far we had come and what we had achieved with our work experience programme.”

Making an application to one of our six categories is free of charge and all applicants will receive a complimentary invite to the illustrious Awards dinner at the Mansion House on 30 September 2015. The Awards evaluate achievements relative to an organisation’s size and resources, with two thirds of winners last year being smaller businesses. Previous winners include GL Hearn, Slaughter and May, and K&M McLoughlin Decorating.

Applications close on Monday 18 May at 5pm. To find out more or make an application, visit the Lord Mayor’s Dragon Awards website or contact DragonAwards@cityoflondon.gov.uk.

Cleaner Air Action Days

YOU are the key to cleaner air!

The City of London has an on-going problem with poor air quality and the main cause is emissions from road vehicles. The City of London Corporation is running a campaign in March to encourage drivers to switch off engines when parked. The campaign will show drivers that it is better for health, better for wallets and better for vehicle engines to turn off, and not idle, if stopping for more than 60 seconds.

The campaign will focus on two Cleaner Air Action Days. The first will be a pilot on Tuesday 17th March, with the main event, which will be fully publicised, being held on Tuesday 31st March. We will have a team of Air Quality Wardens out on the streets on these days asking drivers to switch off their engines when parked. We will be publicising the campaign through the public outreach work including City-wide media coverage and social media.

How you can help

We are asking businesses to support the City of London's campaign by encouraging drivers to switch off their engines while stationary. If you're going to be stopped for more than 60 seconds turning the engine off saves money on fuel, reduces wear and tear on your vehicle and improves the air quality of the area, which is better for everyone's health. 

Many businesses and organisations have already pledged their support for cleaner air in the City of London and drivers across the area will be switching  off on the 17th and 31st March. Will you?

For further information please visit www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/air for more information on air quality in the City of London. If you would like to pledge your support please email transportandsustainability@cityoflondon.gov.uk and we will send you leaflets, information and a communications pack for the campaign.

The Launch

City Vision 2050

We are pleased to announce that the City Vision 2050 report is now complete! The report summarises the results of the discussions at the workshops held earlier this year. It also makes some broad recommendations as to how the City's quality of life and prosperity can be maintained over the coming decades.

The report can be accessed via the Transport and Sustainability webpage and will soon be shared on the City of London's social media pages. We will also be sending out electronic copies to all who attended the workshops.

We are eager to hear your thoughts on the document. If you have any comments please use the comments box below or email us at transportandsustainability@cityoflondon.gov.uk

Following the success of this process, the Transport and Sustainability Forum is looking to develop a number of projects that help the City of London Corporation and others in engaging businesses and residents in the delivery of a variety of programmes which meet the challenges identified in the report. Further updates on these programmes will be posted in due course.



Events in the City

The Barbican is currently running the City Visions Film Festival - a series of films, talks and debates, exploring the ways in which cinema has engaged with the phenomenon of the modern city and the experience of urban life. The event links well to the City Vision 2050 report, particularly in terms of culture and the arts, that is soon to be released. Events are running until 8th October. For further information please go to the web link below.

http://bit.ly/1uBet6y

CITY VISION 2050

CITY OF LONDON RESIDENTS MEETING

Simon Barnes, the Chair of the Transport and Sustainability Forum, presented the findings from the City Vision 2050 project at the City of London annual City Resident's Meeting. This took place on Monday 23rd June at the Guildhall. 

Both the lunchtime and evening sessions went well. The majority of the questions during the main presentations were aimed towards the City of London Corporation Officers. We had some new Forum Members sign up at the event which we can welcome at the next meeting in November. 

We had a table with handouts manned by Lucy to answer any questions about the Forum and the City Vision 2050 project. This also had the three YouTube videos being played on a continuous loop and was an opportunity for Residents to sign up and join the Transport and Sustainability Forum.

Update on the City Vision 2050 report

We are currently hard at work typing up the results and collating it into a succinct document. Gensler have agreed to help us with the graphics, design and format. This report will contextualise the City of London, identify the challenges and propose the recommendations raised during the workshops. 

Once this is finished we will add it to the Transport and Sustainability Forum webpage and email out to Forum members.

Please do contact us if you would like a copy to read. 

A massive thank you goes to all the workshop hosts and attendees for making this project such a success! 

...is vibrant and culturally rich 
CITY VISION 2050

The '...is vibrant and culturally rich' workshop took place on Tuesday 27th May hosted by the Museum of London. This was attended by around 30 people, representing different sectors such as business, retail, education and culture. The workshop created space and opportunity for discussion to be had around how participants would like to see culture, heritage and the arts to look like in 2050. 

The session started with a couple of small presentations, the first by the Futurologist, Richard Watson, and the second from two of the Content Creators at the Museum of London. The group discussion revolved around the following questions:

Knowing what we know now and looking ahead… 

1. Barriers: What are the barriers for culture and leisure in the City? How do we break them down?

2. Thinking Differently: What do we need to do to free up thinking and do things differently to allow vibrancy and richness to flourish?

3. Relevance & Resilience: How do we meet the challenges of relevance, resilience and sustainability across the cultural offer?

The Content Creators’ presentation attempted to illustrate how culture, heritage and the arts are a depository of past futures and that the future cannot be predicted too precisely. This idea was conveyed with the stories associated with a couple of exhibits - a Roman axe head from 47AD – this dated back to when Iceni Queen Boudicca destroyed the City of London, a brick from Pudding Lane where the Great Fire of London started and a Toshiba laptop from 1995. Each exhibit demonstrated how when they existed the future could not be visioned too clearly, for example, who would have know that the City of London would have been engulfed by the Great Fire of London on 2nd September 1666?

These 'artefacts' were also to remind participants that what people want to see in museums is changing; culture, heritage and the arts are not only about the past, but the present and the future too.

Lots of interesting discussion was had, again, linking to previous workshops. The need for youth involvement and embrace a technological reform - the way in which people 'do' culture is changing, whether it be through the digital medium or paying for 'exclusive' events.

Watch the YouTube clip from the session to see a snippet from the session and hear some of the participants' views.

This was workshop number five of five for the City Vision 2050 project, so we are now going to get cracking with pulling it all together. Simon Barnes, the Chairman of the Transport and Sustainability Forum, will present the conclusions of the workshops at the City Resident's Meeting on Monday 23rd June.

Please post a comment or email if you have any suggestions for the project or anything to add or would like to attend the City Resident's Meeting at the Guildhall in June!

'...is safer and stronger'

Thursday 1st May the Safer City Partnership hosted the ‘…is safer and stronger’ workshop. Several scenarios were explored during the group discussions following a series of short scene setting presentations.

PwC, KPMG and Deloitte all kindly started the morning off by presenting scene setting information around global megatrends, business resilience, infrastructure resilience and changes in threats, security and criminality.

The scenarios were as follows –

1. Security threats and crime trends

- How will new security threats change the way people behave and interact with one another?

- How will these changes be impact on the fabric of the City?

2. Business and community resilience

- How will the change in the way businesses operate impact on the sector resilience?

- How will our communities use data and new technologies to take ownership of their risks?

3. Infrastructure resilience

- How will we cope with new vulnerabilities that arise from a more complex interconnected City?

- How will our infrastructure absorb the shocks from extreme severe weather events?

Interesting conversations were had around the need for a flexible, lean adaptive workforce; to move away from short-term plans/investments and towards the idea of ‘long-termism’; to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of younger and older generations and the need to use them to a company’s benefit; and many other aspects.

The next and final workshop focusing on ‘..is vibrant and culturally rich’ will be hosted by the Museum of London on Tuesday 27^th May. If you would like any further information please send transportandsustainability@cityoflondon.gov.uk an email or comment on the blog and we will get back to you.

Please view the video from the session. 

Undeniably, lots of fascinating and thought provoking discussions took place at this workshop which can link to the other City Together Strategy themes. Not long know until the results will be presented at the City Resident’s Meeting at the end of June. Get in touch if you’d like to attend!