Next month the PROPS celebrates its 25th lunch. Set up to help buy powered wheelchairs for sick, disabled and disadvantaged children and young people in the UK, it has raised £9m over the years, funding more than 2,000 wheelchairs and providing £250,000 for the children’s intensive care unit at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, SW17. Emma Sinclair looks back on her ringside view of the growth of the PROPS
In 1991 my father, Neil Sinclair, was chief barker of Variety, the children’s charity that raises money to help disabled and disadvantaged children.
He was keen to find an idea to inspire and harness the goodwill of the property community to raise funds during his presidential year and so, together with his golfing partner Ronnie Nathan, the first PROPS event was conceived.
Some of the UK’s top chefs each created a course for a Halloween ball: a gastronomic evening of food and live music from the likes of Edwin Starr.
In 1992, the infamous PROPS award statue (now in the form of Y-front clad muscle ripped man – no-one knows why he represents the property industry!) was first handed out. The original, first and best (in my book) real estate awards.
Richard Seifert, architect of iconic buildings such as Centre Point and the NatWest Tower, won the first Lifetime Achievement award. He was in his 80s when he walked on stage to accept it, not tall by any means – but a giant of a man.
Some of the awards were more lighthearted. Who could be a more deserving winner of the first Survivor of the Year award than the NatWest Tower’s window cleaner, precariously wiping glass 600ft up with no safety net?
The Queen was awarded the second Survivor of the Year gong in 1993, after her annus horribilis. No one could have predicted what would happen when we hired a lookalike to collect it. Exiting her car on Park Lane, a group of Japanese tourists went crazy: cameras, yelling, wild excitement that they had actually seen our head of state nipping in for a spot of lunch.
It got even funnier when our mock queen entered the ballroom. Everyone rose to their feet, standing in silent reverence as the national anthem played.
It never crossed the minds of the guests that the Queen had better things to do. I love that the attendees had such high regard for the PROPS that they thought
Liz might want to pop in!
Over the years the great and the good have collected awards and always in person. The audience has heard priceless anecdotes from stalwarts such as Pidgley, Ronson, McCabe, Hunter, Iacobsecu, Palumbo, Erdman, McAlpine, Kerzner and Henderson. Household names so well known that, like Madonna, Prince and Cher, I don’t need to mention their first names.
There have been so many moments we could never have predicted that brought the house down and caught the guests (and the committee) by surprise. On collecting his award, no one expected the great Sir Donald Gordon, founder of Capital & Counties (now Intu) to announce “I’m no good at speaking but I can sing…” and then proceed to belt out a song with host Tom O’Connor.
Or when the colourful Andrew Perloff, founder of Panther Securities, was carried offstage by our 6’10” host and rugby legend Martin Bayfield when his acceptance speech for Entrepreneur of the Year looked like it might never end.
In 2016, 25 lunches later, my mother Pamela is chief barker, I am on the committee and the event has long-standing supporters, sponsors and committee members.
The PROPS has to date raised more than £9m, bought 2,000 wheelchairs and provided a donation of £250,000 towards the children’s intensive care unit at St George’s Hospital in south London.
We talk about tech a great deal these days but property was the original gold rush. I grew up in the offices of Sinclair Goldsmith, had brushes with the world of real estate during my days in M&A at Rothschild and latterly had a parking company (or two, to be accurate). In that time I have witnessed a profoundly entrepreneurial industry dedicated to supporting their own – coming in their droves to the PROPS to help raise vital funds for children who desperately need wheelchairs and mobility.
And most of all, they are an ingenious bunch, creating something from nothing. A vision and an idea. And building it into a solid and recognised reality. A building. A town. A lunch. We now fill a ballroom with 950 people every May for lunch and 350 people every November for breakfast. Incredible. Everyone – founders, guests, winners and committee members – should be proud.
The PROPS may have been started by two men but there are thousands of people who are part of its very fabric and fibre – and so many children leading active lives because the property industry cares about them. It takes an army to create a movement and you, the property industry, are one of the best armies I know.
The 25th PROPS lunch takes place on 10 May at the Hilton on Park Lane. To book tables, sponsor or provide auction prizes visit www.variety.org.uk/events/the-props-lunch-2016 or tweet Sinclair at @ES_entreprenuer
