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In May 2022, a number of resolutions were passed to help the Old Alleynian Association increasingly engage with and support its large and demographically diverse membership over the next few years. To help pay for what we think are some exciting and innovative ideas, and with the help of our Treasurer, Michael Wade (67-72), we have restructured the way the Association makes its assets available to directly support our activities and to help meet our strategic goals. At the very heart of what we are looking to achieve is Strategy 30, a project which is designed to support young OAs under the age of 30 across a wide range of social, sporting and professional activities. Every OA sports club or society has to have a policy of supporting their youngest members, whether that is subsidising subscriptions or providing fixtures specifically for that age group. Examples of how Strategy 30 is being put into practice by our Clubs and Societies include: The Sailing Society, which for many years has looked to provide opportunities for its younger members to learn the skills and art of sailing from more experienced sailors, whether that is during the Boys Sail Training Week or at the Arrow Trophy. The Old Alleynian Golfing Society ensures that at least one committee member is under the age of 30 and in recent years has prided itself in ensuring that they field a significant number of players under the age of 30 in the Halford Hewitt, their most prestigious tournament. Indeed, this year, out of a team of 10, seven were in under 30. In recent years we have reintroduced university visits at Durham, Edinburgh, Leeds and this year, Exeter. The university years have often been regarded as a bit of a wilderness by many alumni organisations. We believe it is important to stay in touch and the message we hear time and time again is how much our alumni appreciate the visits when no other alumni association is reaching out in this way. Informal mentoring and careers advice has long been a positive and welcome part of what our clubs and societies have offered their members, but we very much hope that more formal programmes will develop as a result of the Association’s wider support. The OAAFC have put such a programme in place and a number of players have already started internships directly as a result of being introduced by older players. A significant amount of work has been done over the last year to make better use of LinkedIn as a way of connecting OAs. All OAs are encouraged to join the OA group on the platform and subsequently ask to join the professional group that they most align with. It is hoped that over the next two or three years we can support young OAs at the start of their careers and with that in mind we have already had an event hosted by Shams Rahman (84-91) at his law firm, Edwin Coe. After Christmas we have a finance event hosted by Myles Deniran (09-14) in the City and then in the summer, former Director of Drama at the College, Peter Jolly (72-80) will support us in hosting an event in central London for those involved in the dramatic arts.
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