CMS Cameron McKenna – Lord Mayor’s Parade
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A 800 year-old tradition
When leading law firm, CMS Cameron McKenna, celebrated their Senior Partner, Fiona Woolf CBE, becoming only the second female Lord Mayor of the City of London since the time of King John, Equinox Partners were delighted to help with the theme ‘The River of Power’.
CMS Cameron McKenna’s strong Corporate Social Responsibility agenda ensured that employees voluntarily contribute to social programmes and pro bono legal work within the local community and schools. The Lord Mayor’s parade was an ideal opportunity to engage the staff of CMS, the schools they support and provide all with learning opportunities to enhance their experience of the day.
Equinox Partners vision for the parade was an all-inclusive carnival style approach that ensured that representatives from all members of staff had an opportunity to perform.
“The energy, creativity and sheer intelligence of the River of Power has been the talk of the City and it says so much about CMS as a firm and what we all care about! It was huge in raising our profile! Thank you!“
Fiona Woolf CBE, Lord Mayor Of The City Of London
Serpents and Giants
Leading the CMS Parade was the HydroPower Serpent manned by nine members of CMS volunteer staff who were taught how to swirl the Head and Body of the Father Thames flow puppet through the streets of the City.
Two Giant Walking Puppets, controlled by six more members of CMS trainee lawyers, brought up the rear of the parade.
The Swirling Dancers and the Rain Dancers
Children from the Sarah Bonnell Secondary School in Stratford, East London were joined by the trainees from CMS in brightly coloured costumes – all conceived by Clare Newton and her staff at Equinox Partners.
As part of the volunteer programme all the girls were trained in-house by Equinox Partners’ team – a great opportunity to learn how to dance in front of the crowds lining the streets of London.
Visit You Tube to see them in action:
Swirling Dancers https://youtu.be/HpalrHm_N08
RainDancers https://youtu.be/ao3Cvim8yf0
The Swirling Dancers
The CMS trainees in their brightly coloured costumes struggled through the November rain and were still going to the beat back in the firm’s Aldersgate offices, long after the event had finished.
Curiously we never saw the costumes again. The girls took them all home!
Good Golly, Miss Polly
A vibrant, fizzing blonde cross between Michael Macintyre and Bridget Jones, Choreographer and Movement Director, Polly Bennett, managed to stir a dysfunctional group of lawyers and administrators into a finely honed coherent team of walking paraders.
Jump, jump, clap, jump, step, clap, clap, jump!
Leaping and marching to the Beyoncé beat of 116 bpm, we all fell under Polly’s spell of delightfully humorous tutelage, bringing together all the months of effort together one Saturday morning at the Sarah Bonnell School in Stratford, East London.
It was all part of the experience of being in the Lord Mayor’s Parade. Follow Polly on Twitter @po_b
Creative Schools
Creating projects to reach into the heart of the community, CMS supports local inner-City schools and their pupils on a regular basis with educational programmes and engages them in the realities of the modern world.
LEFT – Fiona Woolf, as the Lord Mayor Elect, handed out School Hat Competition certificates to the children of Whitmore Primary School in front of their 250 colleagues.
Through the media of papier-mâché, glue, paint and glitter, the children of inner-city Shoreditch interpreted CMS’s core legal areas and let their imagination run riot! Outstanding results – and just a little bit of fun.
The reward for the final winners of the competition was to walk with the Cameron McKenna parade at The Lord Mayor’s Show on 9th November. What a day it was for them! If somewhat wet and cold at the end of it – the children were left with a smile on their faces and memories that will remain forever.
RIGHT – The News Power Team from the Sarah Bonnell Secondary School in Stratford, East London, is another outlet for CMS Cameron McKenna’s Corporate Social Responsibility team, led by CSR Manager, Robert Powell (right) and supervised by CMS member Amy Bird (left).
The pupils have been tasked with recording, and reporting on, the progress of the River of Power parade preparations.
Their work will be put forward as their entry into the BBC School Report competition, giving the 11-16 year-old students a chance to produce their own news reports for a real audience and develop journalistic skills to prepare them for a very media-savvy world.
BOTTOM RIGHT – Clare Newton, Creative Director, and Carey English, Animatuer, the inspiration behind the ‘River of Power’ and CMS engagement with the schools programme.
