Dear Alumni,

As I indicated at the last general meeting, I no longer have the time necessary to devote to the job and after six years I feel it is an appropriate moment to hand over the reigns. Because they are looking to renew their members the Central Committee has wisely decided on an interim solution until the next Annual General Meeting.  The Association will be in the joint care of the two vice-presidents Francis Wright and Karin Raton Fayolle until then.

Looking back at the last six years I have been impressed by the number of alumni events that are organised all over the world. Over the years the Alumni Association has played its part in encouraging these events. Undoubtedly the web has played a key role here. There have been a few ‘official’ alumni sites since I have been President, one that was started by my predecessor, another created exclusively for the 2004 World Reunion.  This latest version which has just been updated and now boasts more than 4300 members, includes an online database and is invaluable for tracing lost classmates, and soon will feature a searchable collection of pdf files of all the Year Books that we have managed to save over the years.

Of course the web being what it is there are also a multitude of informal groups that have formed on Facebook, LinkedIn, and the various social networking sites that exist today. They are invaluable ways for people to organise events themselves.  If you already run one of these groups get in touch with us, we would love to hear from you. I believe that one of the big challenges for the Alumni Association and the Development Office is to try and knit contacts with these informal groups, not to interfere in their organisation but to be able to put them in touch with each other and occasionally tap in to their resources when organising a project or an event like the next World reunion in 2014.

Sam Jarrell  (President Alumni Association August 2003 – February 2010)