Institute of Couriers president Lord Falkland & Sheriff Fiona Adler were at the ancient guild ceremony of cartmarking for a bumper turnout of Institute fellows and guests. Representatives from transport, education and government, were in attendance to talk shop and discuss the future of the transport & logistics sector at Guild Hall Yard, City of London.
Institute of Couriers chairman Carl Lomas paid five shillings to enter Guildhall yard, enacting the obligation placed on carters, who by statute had to be liverymen Carl chose the classic Honda CX500 courier bike as his cart for the ceremony of Carmen. The courier bike was cart branded with the letter ‘X’ for 2015, the X mark displaying the right to ply for trade hire in the City. City Sprint boss Patrick Galagher is holding the cartmarking parade number licence 002 in the group photo.
The cartmarking event is without doubt the most ceremonial transport event of the year. IOC president Viscount, Lord Falkland and Carl Lomas were there to talk shop about the future of the industry, the e-retail revolution of internet shopping. Home delivery has placed more challenges on the industry than ever before.
As retail shifts from High Street to home delivery, today’s courier has never been so busy. The Institute of Couriers is working towards a host of new qualifications from apprenticeship trailblazers to undergraduate degrees and qualifications with government in the form of the new trailblazer for BIS. LEPs from the Golden Triangle were at the centre of discussions on strategy for the future.
Skills gaps, driver shortages are key, green solutions for the City centre. Universities from London, Derby and Manchester were on hand to talk qualifications alongside training providers and colleges with the BIS and the LEPs. TFL in strength, Helen Smith from Transport for Greater Manchester made the trip south with Prof Tony Hines from Manchester Met University. Compliance discussion & diesel derivatives were on the agenda, LEP representation from the Golden Triangle, D2N2 and LLEP. John Dilks from the Two Way street UCL AELP project was there and discussed East Midlands strategy with Derby Univ Vice chancellor Rod Dubrow Marshal.
As top brass mulled the solutions to strategy it was the classic Honda CX500 courier bike that took centre stage of the ceremony of transport. It was fully loaded with panniers and top box of the eighties & attached to the modern day with a CitySprint cycle courier bag over the shoulders of IOC Chairman Carl Lomas. Justin Moore, a director at CitySprint, comments on the courier bike, ‘The CX was an iconic machine of the eighties working courier, shaft drive reliability with water cooling and frame strength to carry a great deal of pannier luggage.’
Piloting the bike, IOC Chair Carl Lomas commented, ‘the CX500 steered slowly on the sand covered yard, its proven reliability that underpinned our early industry days of same day despatch remained faultless, the Honda never missed a beat.’
The bike was dressed in colours of the eighties iconic courier companies, Delta, GLH, Mercury, Pony Express, Security Despatch.
The 1978 CX500 was restored more than ten years ago with 126 thousand miles on the clock, unveiled to the Institute of Couriers by World Motorcycle Champion Geoff Duke in the City Of London. A typical CX working bike did around two hundred miles a day in the City, five days a week, fifty two weeks a year, a couple of City runs a week to Manchester, Bristol or Leeds would soon put the big miles on, water cooling and shaft drive in the late seventies stamped the reliability, many couriers hired the CX bikes for fifty pounds a week and let the hire companies sort the tyres and break pad changes. This CX has number plates marked from Mikes Bikes hire company in East London.
As retail shifts from High street to home delivery todays courier has never been so busy, The Institute of Couriers is working towards a host of new qualifications from apprenticeship trailblazers to undergraduate degrees and qualifications with government in the form of the new trailblazer. LEPs from the Golden Triangle, D2N2 and LLEP were at the centre of discussions on strategy for the future.
Remember the date.
Oct 27th sees The National Courier awards return to the Institute of directors for 2015.
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