{"id":14071,"date":"2019-06-28T12:08:13","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T12:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/?p=14071"},"modified":"2019-07-18T13:01:38","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T13:01:38","slug":"annual-general-meeting-and-dinner-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/2019\/06\/28\/annual-general-meeting-and-dinner-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Annual General Meeting and Dinner 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday 25th June the Spanish Chamber of Commerce hosted its 132nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) and dinner, one of the most important events of our annual calendar. This year the event took place at the stunning Draper\u2019s Hall, one of the most prominent livery halls situated in the heart of the City of London; the capital\u2019s primary financial district.<\/p>\n

On this occasion we were honoured to welcome Mr. John Glen MP as our Guest of Honour. Mr. Glen is Member of Parliament for the Salisbury constituency and also Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister, for which he has responsibility for banking and financial services policy.<\/p>\n

As it is the case each year the event began with the Annual General Meeting itself, which is held exclusively for members of the Chamber. This year the meeting took place at Chamber member White & Case\u2019s London office, a stone\u2019s throw from the venue where the meeting\u2019s proceedings would soon take place.<\/p>\n

During the meeting the Executive Committee of the Chamber presented the financial statements of 2018, along with a memorandum of the activities and events which the Chamber had organised over the course of the year gone by. The meeting was presided by H.E. the Ambassador of Spain, Mr. Carlos Bastarreche Sag\u00fces, the President of the Chamber, Mr. Eduardo Barrachina and the Secretary General of the Chamber, Mr. Igor Urra.<\/p>\n

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Following directly on from the meeting a cocktail reception was held in the Court Room of Draper\u2019s Hall, in which members who had participated in the Annual General Meeting were joined by the rest of the guests as they arrived. Just across from here in the beautiful Drawing Room, the Spanish Ambassador and other esteemed guests in attendance including various Lords and members of the British government, as well as Patrons of the Chamber, were invited to participate in a more exclusive drinks reception during which they had the opportunity to meet with the Guest of Honour himself. During the reception as a whole, guests were able to enjoy Spanish beverages including Catalan cava Anna de Codorn\u00edu Blanc de Blancs Reserva, kindly provided by Ravent\u00f3s Codorn\u00edu<\/strong> (Patron of the Chamber), wo also provided us with Vi\u00f1a Pomal Reserva red wine which was served accompanying the main course of the dinner. Excellens Verdejo white and Excellens Ros\u00e9 wines were served too courtesy of fellow Patrons Marqu\u00e9s de C\u00e1ceres<\/strong>, as well as 1906 Reserva Especial beer from our member Estrella Galicia<\/strong>. Guests were also able to indulge in freshly cut Ib\u00e9rico ham provided by our Patron Ib\u00e9rica Restaurants<\/strong>, as well as a selection of delicious Spanish cheeses and accompaniments from our member Hispania<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Following the drinks reception and once almost everyone had arrived, including the Guest of Honour, all guests were ushered into the Livery Hall itself. Once everyone had taken their seats, a loyal toast was held to the King and Queen of both Spain and the United Kingdom, before the official anthems of both countries were played. It was then time for the speeches, of which the Chamber\u2019s President was the first to be announced by the Toastmaster. Mr. Eduardo Barrachina talked about the activities carried out by the Chamber over the course of 2018 as well as touching on the current political situation. He highlighted the importance of a Brexit deal being reached which would allow for a crucially important readjustment period for British companies; stating that: \u201cBritain must rise to the challenge and ensure that it\u2019s departure from the EU does not disrupt business\u00bb.<\/p>\n

The Ambassador of Spain then expressed in his speech his sincere gratitude to the institution, in which he also highlighted the common history of both countries: \u201cDespite all the complex challenges we are facing, both British and Spanish societies are amongst the most developed, modern and vibrant democracies of our planet\u00bb.<\/p>\n

Finally, our Guest of Honour, Mr. John Glen MP, started his speech with a brief introduction in Spanish, which led to a great round of applause from the audience, followed by a highly engaging speech. He also affirmed that \u201cSpain is the largest European investor in UK financial services and I have no doubt that we will continue to build on 500 years of shared commerce between our two great nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Once the speeches had concluded, guests enjoyed a delicious three course dinner of smoked salmon followed by beef Wellington, a British classic, before ending with a citrus chiboust. The various courses even incorporated various Spanish gourmet ingredients such as capers from Almer\u00eda, piment\u00f3n of La Vera, lentils from La Armu\u00f1a. Members and their guests were able to meet and become well acquainted with each other, establishing new contacts and exchanging their impressions of the evening.<\/p>\n

We would very much like to thank our members and their guests for joining us on the occasion of our 132nd Annual General Meeting and for sharing with us such a special evening for our institution. We are truly grateful to all of our members who contributed with high-quality Spanish products: Ravent\u00f3s Codorn\u00edu, Marqu\u00e9s de C\u00e1ceres, Estrella Galicia, Ib\u00e9rica Restaurants and Hispania.<\/p>\n

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Please click here<\/u> to access the complete gallery of pictures of the 132nd Annual General Meeting. For a short video on how the evening went, please click<\/u> on the following link.<\/p>\n

For further information about the Chamber\u2019s events in 2019, do not hesitate to visit our NEWS section at www.spanishchamber.co.uk, or subscribe to our newsletter to receive fortnightly updates delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n

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On Tuesday 25th June the Spanish Chamber of Commerce hosted its 132nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) and dinner, one of the most important events of our annual calendar. This year the event took place at the stunning Draper\u2019s Hall, one of the most prominent livery halls situated in the heart of the City of London; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":14072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14071"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishchamber.co.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}