From the Secretary’s Desk
Dinner Co-ordination (James Thornton); (3) OA Lodge (Nick Robinson); (4) Medical/Dental networking (Niloy Karia); (5) Links with the Isle of Sheppey Academy (Bernard Battley). Perhaps the most significant achievements of the year concerned the Annual Dinner. Largely as a result of the enthusiasm and determination of James Thornton, he and a small group of friends contacted swathes of their 1970s contemporaries and managed to persuade them to come to the dinner. At the same time, caught up in the groundswell of James’s initiative, other groups (e.g. OABC, OA Lodge, OAFC, the class of 2000 and honorary staff members, among others) booked tables with the result that, for the first time in many years, attendance topped 200. More significantly, the average age of attendees dropped from 66 to 59, a fact that fails to reveal the spread of ages from 90 down to 18, with the oldest attendee, Denis Knight (33-39), having left the College just before the outbreak of WWII, and several of the youngest having been born since the fall of the Berlin Wall. We occupied 21 tables at the Annual Dinner last November but, as the Great Hall can accommodate 24 tables, there is the potential for 240 of us to sit down and dine together. Responses to the feedback questionnaire completed by attendees in November indicated high levels of satisfaction with the dinner, its format and timing. Additionally, several people indicated their willingness to organise tables this year. How marvellous it would be were a Shakespearean tide to affect the affairs of the dinner this year and being ‘taken at the flood’ led on to a capacity attendance on Friday 1 November. There is a challenge for us all! Future Plans and the Dulwich Diaspora In this, his Presidential year, Brigadier Johnny Walker will be travelling to North America to attend OA functions with the Master keeping strong the links between London SE21 and those parts of the extended Dulwich family. However, plans are being hatched for a broadening of the outreach to the great Dulwich Diaspora over the next two years as Colin Niven (52-60) and, then, Ivor Warburton (57-65) prepare for their years in office. A quick scan through the Alleyn Club database suggests that there is an OA presence in around 95 countries worldwide. Admittedly, 44 of those places boast just one or two OAs,
End-of-term Report With my pencil poised to begin drafting this report, I found myself thinking along schoolmasterly lines:
The Alleyn Club committee has made good progress over the past year. It has also begun to prepare for further advances towards its stated aims of making the Club ever more relevant to its members and supporting the College in its work of equipping present and future generations of Alleynians for life in the outside world. That said, there remains much to be done . Effort B+; Achievement B+. What has been achieved so far? This time last year I flagged up the work being put into setting up professional networking groups. The first-fruit of that work was a most agreeable inaugural meeting in October of OAs in the Law, held at the Chancery Lane offices of solicitors, Lewis Silkin LLP, who generously funded the event. The firm possesses excellent Dulwich credentials having been founded by Lewis Silkin, sometime MP for Peckham, who sent his three sons, Arthur, Sam and John, to the College. It also boasts another OA, Roger Alexander (52-60), as a recent managing partner who spoke eloquently of the many links between the firm and the College, of Lewis Silkin’s outstanding social conscience and egalitarian beliefs which resulted in him and two of his sons, Sam and John, serving as cabinet minsters. The success of the event owed much to the planning of lawyers Aston Benjamin-Taylor (90-00) – also with Lewis Silkin – and Tom Amlot (85-90), supported by Guy Lawrenson and Joanne Whaley in the Alleyn Club & Development Office. The team is now working on plans for a follow-up event. Plans are also being made for the launch of other networking groups in the near future. Spurred on by Bruce Smith in his presidential year, the committee has begun to streamline its modus operandi. As a result, in addition to there being members of the committee representing the interests of affiliated OA sporting clubs, other members have taken on watching briefs for various areas of OA and College activities: (1) Networking Group Co-ordination (Marcus Graham); (2) Annual
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