Univ Record 2018

The College’s student calling programme helped to garner more than £265,000 in new
commitments this year over the course of its two calling campaigns in January and April.
The spectre of GDPR’s implementation in May cast an unusual shadow over this year’s
student callers, but they deftly moved from detailed explanations of “opt-in consents” to
meaningful reflections on the College and respectful requests for contributions. I thank
our callers for their gracious and animated representations of the “authentic” College.
The Golden Anniversary fundraising drive continues its march through the decade
of the 1960s. The Class of 1967 held their 50th reunion and the Class of 1968 spent
countless hours preparing for their gathering in September 2018. The 50th reunion for
the Class of 1967 was diligently led by Richard Webb (1967, History) and his planning
committee. Their reunion weekend was an enjoyable one and emphasised connection and
involvement. It was a pleasant affair and its fundraising results also caused the College to
smile. The reunion generated an additional £30,000 to help support Univ’s Opportunity
Programme. I want to express my appreciation to those in the Class of 1967 who donated
this past year. When their gifts are added to the existing funds raised since the advent
of the Golden Anniversary Programme nearly 15 years ago, the overall funds raised
total in excess of £1.1 million. I thank the 1967 Golden Reunion Committee members,
Desmond Bowen, CB, CMG (1967, Modern Languages), Philip Hayes (1967, Maths),
Stephen Powles, QC (1967, Engineering), David Squire (1967, Physics), David Woolley
(1967, History), and Richard Webb, for their efforts.
I wish to thank our international volunteers whose efforts make it easier for our distant
Old Members to donate to the College. Stuart McCulloch (1982, Law) in Australia,
Kit Jing “Gigi” Woo (1992, Law) in Hong Kong, and Honorary Fellow Paul Chellgren
(1966, Economics) in the US deserve our continued praise for their work to allow Old
Members abroad to make gifts that have impact and can be tax efficient. We are truly
grateful for their service.
Events
American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein once quipped, “To achieve great
things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” The College may not
have produced “great things” from its 2017-18 Old Members events programme, but we
certainly seemed to channel the Maestro in terms of our efforts to plan while not having
quite enough time to do all that we may have wanted. The College did arrange more than
40 official events for its Old Members, which means that there is just not enough space
in my report to recount every one. Still, I hope that I can give you a flavour of the variety
and creativity of this year’s gatherings of Old Members around the world. To summarise
please let me associate our offerings into three simple categories. The first category can
be understood as traditional and regular fixtures. These are events that are well-known
and anticipated occasions in the diary. The second category I would entitle novel, special
one-off celebrations and the final category would be events which form part of a new
series that are theme driven and are becoming alumni favourites.
Traditional proceedings often dominate the College’s events calendar. The 2017-
18 diary was filled with reunions, intellectual forums, sporting events, and musical
adventures. The reunions included the annual Alumni Day which featured a talk on the
history of the University of Oxford by Alastair Lack (1964, History) and a discussion
on how to get teachers to perform better by Dr Clare Leaver, Supernumerary Fellow in
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