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 19th 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 75th 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 11th 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
