Thank you to everyone who joined the Oxbridge Club of Geneva for our Annual Wine Tasting and Game Dinner! ✨

From the exceptional guided wine tasting at Stéphane and Léo Dupraz’s winery to the exquisite seasonal game dinner at La Fontaine, it was a night filled with camaraderie, fine flavors, and cherished memories.

A special thanks to Alex for his dedication in organizing this unforgettable event. We look forward to seeing you all again at our upcoming gatherings! ✨

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Last Wednesday, we enjoyed a fantastic social drinks event at Olivier du Sacré-Cœur, with about 19 participants. The venue and service were outstanding, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. A big thank you to Philip Selby for organizing such a successful gathering!

The recent sustainability talk led by Dr. Christophe George was a successful event, with 39 attendees engaged in exploring sustainability concepts and challenges. Dr. George, who works in sustainability at EY Switzerland and is affiliated with the Cambridge Centre for Business Research, presented insights from his book, Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility: How to Tackle Environmental Imperatives in Company Law.

The session wrapped up with an engaging Q&A, where participants explored practical applications and challenges in corporate sustainability. Dr. George’s insights prompted attendees to reflect on the practical and long-term commitments essential for genuine sustainability. He has also kindly made his presentation and a summary of his new book available for download below.

Christophe_George_OCCG_10_October_2024 Presentation.pdf

Christophe_George_Book_TOC_Summary_2023.pdf

Our recent joint universities BBQ at UN Beach was an outstanding success, receiving exceptional feedback from the more than 140 participants who attended. Alumni from prestigious institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, IMD, and Bocconi gathered for a memorable day of networking and camaraderie.

The event drew participants from major global cities, highlighting its wide appeal and providing a unique platform for alumni to connect and exchange ideas in the vibrant setting of Geneva. The seamless organization, relaxed atmosphere, and outstanding catering — courtesy of Chef Reon and his team — were all praised by attendees. A special thank you goes to the dedicated organizing team, including Ludo and Christian, for making this event truly unforgettable.

Dear Member,

A big thank you to those of you who attended the April AGM & Boat Race event at the Société Nautique de Genève. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening in an iconic location with an amazing sunset. Thank you, Ian Gordon, for all the organizing as well as the professional boat race commentary.

Since the AGM, we have had the opportunity to analyze the replies to the Sentiment Survey which was launched in March/April.

Members are of the opinion that the Club does a good job of meeting their expectations, scoring 53 on the NPS (Net Promoter Score) question, which is a very strong result. Given the Club’s wide age range, the main survey finding is that we need to continue to recognize the divergent interests of the different member groups. As the rising cost of formal meals is a concern, we will endeavor to host more casual and cheaper events, while at the same time recognizing that members would like more speaker events/dinners. We will attempt to address both wishes by sourcing cheaper (but probably out of Geneva) locations.

The NPS (Net Promoter Score) is an excellent indicator of the health of the Club. Henceforth, we will survey it annually with you, the Members.

Members will have noted a recent uptick in the number of events as the summer approaches, and there will be more. So do keep an eye on the website calendar.

Those of you who are LinkedIn users will, thanks to Matthew Kilgarriff & Tom Waterhouse, shortly see a lot of Club activity as we launch a marketing campaign to attract those many Geneva area alumni who are not yet aware of our existence/activities. The campaign is already bearing fruit with a steady trickle of new members joining.

Finally, a reminder of the 75th birthday event on Thursday, 19th September to be held at the British Residence, Cologny. A rather special location by any measure. As we will need to better gauge the number of attendees, we will be sending out a poll to assess the level of interest prior to formally releasing tickets.

Meanwhile, I look forward to meeting Members at one of the many upcoming events. Do make an effort to attend.

My best wishes for an enjoyable summer.

Donald Birch

Newsletter March 2024

OCCG

First, slightly belated Happy New Year to all Oxford & Cambridge Club of Geneva Members and best wishes for your endeavours during the year ahead.  Hopefully 2024 will make more sense than 2023 managed to do for many.

This said, for OCCG 2023 was probably the busiest on record.  TwentyTwo events, almost 500 attendees and a stable membership of circa 200 alumni.  It is pleasing to see that we have a regular flow of new younger members joining the Club, so it seems that our ‘marketing’ efforts are bearing some fruit.

Of the 200 or so members, about 50% pay annual subscriptions with the balance being Life & Honorary Members.  For those of you who pay annually, please take a moment to update your membership, either by credit card or bank QR code/transfer.  Your subscription helps us to fund the Club infrastructure and to try out new event ideas.

In this regard David Lewis has kindly arranged a hosted attendance at the GEDS premier of Charlie’s Aunt on Tuesday 19^th March.  We will be briefed by John Ward, the GAOS chairman while enjoying apero prior to the performance, followed by a chance to meet the cast afterwards.  See the OCCG website for details.

If you would like to host a Club event or have any ideas for something ‘different’, do please get in touch.

This year sees the 75^th anniversary of the Club, so we will be arranging a suitable event to mark the occasion.  Planning is underway for September, details follow.

The OCCG What’sapp group is now over 100 strong and is a useful source of information for Alumni events and activities over and above the published schedule.  For example, members were recently invited to attend a very successful Oxbridge MeetUp at the World Economic Forum held in Davos.  Contact Christian Mannoni if you would like to join the Whatsapp group (you need to be a current OCCG member to qualify).

After 9 months of operation, our new Wild Apricot Club administration system has settled down and is providing an additional dimension to the services that we can offer members.  For the Committee, keeping track of events and membership is much easier and hopefully you will have learned how to use your personal Profile to best effect.

With the core platform in place there continues to be more we can do to leverage its features, particularly being more visible in social media.  Once again let me know if there are things that you would like to see.

The AGM 2024 is scheduled for Thursday 11^th April 18h at the SNG where we share the AGM proceedings with a viewing of the boat races (ably commentated by Ian Gordon) and what is usually an excellent dinner and of course good company.  We are grateful to a number of members who have offered themselves as new  Committee members and we look forward to introducing them to you in April.

A reminder that Covid is still with us, so please be mindful of the more vulnerable members of our club.  If you feel unwell, please do not attend an event.

Thank you to those of you who have made the past year an enjoyable opportunity to meet and socialise and I look forward to meeting you (again) soon.

Don Birch

President

Our thanks once again to Isobel Shaw for leading the annual snow walk in the Jura.  Amazingly, after a season of almost no snow, the snow gods delivered and the walk was held in perfect conditions.  Be sure to make a note to join us next year.

Our grateful thanks to Professor Martin Millett for making a special effort to visit Geneva and deliver a very clear and informative dinner presentation detailing recent advances in archeology.  

Much enjoyed by all

Thank you also to Club Nautique Versoix for providing a great evening meal and ambiance.

Autumn Newsletter

With summer (almost) behind us, we turn to events for the remainder of the year.  The new club management system is proving to be invaluable in managing the large number of events we now have scheduled over the course of the year

The new system is much more dynamic in updating the schedule of events, so I recommend that you occasionally browser www.oxbridgegeneva.org to keep yourself informed of changes.  This is of course in addition to the regular email reminders.

If you have a moment, be sure to sign-in and complete your profile in the new Club system and update your details including positively agreeing to the Club’s GDPR policy which can be found here.  This system makes it so much easier to register, pay and cancel for events and makes life enormously simpler for event organisers.

Friday 1^st September 2023 saw something of a milestone with over 60 members and their guests attending the End of Summer beach party at the UN beach, Geneva.  This is certainly the largest turnout for a Club event that we have had for some time and reinforces the popularity of causal drinks events.

With the change in weather, casual drinks will now move indoors with a social drinks scheduled for Thursday 9th November and the regular Tea4Two 1st October and 3^rd December.  The October event will be cocoa based in honour of World Cocoa day.

A speaker dinner, the annual Chase dinner and the popular Christmas meal are all also in the works, with details circulated as soon as finalised.

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS

Committee members

Interview practise for local Oxbridge applicants

Mentors

Recommendations for Speakers

Our busy schedule of events is currently organised by just a handful of hardworking members, so more help would be much appreciated.

Angus Mcdonald has kindly agreed to hold an Oxbridge ‘interview’ course by Zoom on 6th November, designed to enable Members help aspiring local student with their entrance interview technique

A number of younger members have asked whether they could engage a mentor from among our community.  Please contact me if you believe you can help.  A typical mentor programme lasts 6 months with a monthly conversation in person/zoom and is enormously beneficial for both parties.

As we enter the flu and possibly a Covid season, please be aware of those around you and do not attend events if you feel unwell.  This advice will be updated as events unfold

As ever ideas and suggestions are most welcome, especially offers of local speakers.

Dear Philip, It gives me great pleasure to introduce myself as the University of Cambridge’s new Vice-Chancellor. I’m excited to be starting in this new role at a critical time.   I’m a psychologist with an interest in social norms. I have spent most of my academic career at Princeton, including the last few years as Provost, with responsibility for all academic, planning and budgetary matters. There is some more information about me in my bio.   I am very grateful for the warm Cambridge welcome I have received. After only a few weeks here, I already feel at home. Above all, I have enjoyed meeting alumni and supporters both in the UK and as far afield as New York and Hong Kong. You are some of the people that make Cambridge so special.   In the months ahead, I look forward to meeting many more alumni, and to working together to make sure that Cambridge continues to be a global leader in education and research.   With best wishes,   Debbie   Professor Deborah Prentice Vice-Chancellor   It gives me great pleasure to introduce myself as the University of Cambridge’s new Vice-Chancellor. I’m excited to be starting in this new role at a critical time.   I’m a psychologist with an interest in social norms. I have spent most of my academic career at Princeton, including the last few years as Provost, with responsibility for all academic, planning and budgetary matters. There is some more information about me in my bio.   I am very grateful for the warm Cambridge welcome I have received. After only a few weeks here, I already feel at home. Above all, I have enjoyed meeting alumni and supporters both in the UK and as far afield as New York and Hong Kong. You are some of the people that make Cambridge so special.   In the months ahead, I look forward to meeting many more alumni, and to working together to make sure that Cambridge continues to be a global leader in education and research.   With best wishes,   Debbie   Professor Deborah Prentice Vice-Chancellor