Alumni Reunions – On campus or off campus?

[Jon Cuthbert]

Hi all,

We’re considering holding our Alumni reunions at school. We currently hold ours off campus.
I’m interested to hear what experiences you’ve had? What are the biggest drawbacks in holding your reunion on campus?

Many thanks

Jon Cuthbert
Manager – Marketing Communications and Alumni
St Stephen’s School

[Sue Sagar]

Hi, we are a relatively new school (14 years and have only held five year reunions so far, our first tenth year group is in 2018). We held the first off campus but now hold these at the College. The alumni love coming back and seeing how the College has developed. It is a nice starter to have staff take them on a tour. The only drawback I can see is getting them to leave at the end of the event! You can’t just go and leave them to it!

[Jon Cuthbert]

Thanks Sue,

Yes, that’s what I would have thought. I’m guessing you hold them on the weekend so its great that you have staff willing to participate. Thanks again!

[Clare Underdown]

We have also commenced having the reunions on campus. We booked a bus to take them back into town (we are located just out of Bunbury) so they were encouraged to leave :) We also held it on a weekend as well and had staff and our Alumni committee run and attend the event. The Students loved coming back and seeing the School. We are planning to continue this moving forward.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Clare Underdown.

[Emily Roffe-Silvester]

We do a mixture. Drinks and Nibbles at the School followed by tour. After the tour, they all head off to a local cafe for dinner.

Works well – Alumni like to see the school. But dinner reservations at 7pm prevent them from overstaying and possibly over consuming (for some age groups anyways)!

[Jon Cuthbert]

Thanks Clare and Emily,

Much appreciated!

Kind regards,

Jon

[Di Lacey]

Hey EMiliy, do you run this format on the weekend or a Friday night? I am interested in your timing of the event. We have traditionally held our reunions on campus, but just this year have switched to tour, drinks and nibbles then dinner offsite and we have found the timing tricky. Cheers, Di

[Di Lacey]

Hello again, we are actually looking for a venue for a Chapter reunion in Sydney, any ideas? Afternoon timing to fit in with Principal committments – 3.30 – 6pm on a sunday afternoon? We haven’t done a chapter reunion for a while so are thinking we should cover the costs? interested to hear from those who run chapter reunions and how to make them successful.

Thanks for your help, Di

[Lachlan Liao]

Hi Jon. At Knox Grammar (NSW) we help organise 5 year reunions for all the year groups. The trend amongst the younger years is to have drinks/supper at a local watering hole. It is generally the older years (from about 30 year reunion +) who would like to have dinner on the campus, and which the Headmaster is supportive of.
However, some of the younger year groups do want to visit the campus, so we do the following format:
3pm – Reserved seating at 1st XV rugby game (with afternoon tea)
5pm – Campus tour
6:30pm – optional chartered bus to drinking hole ($5-$10 on boarding)
7pm – party on……
The only drawback of on campus reunions is there are so many other things happening, so there are times when function spaces are at a premium. Also, when the older groups have their reunion dinners they start talking (and a bit of drinking), so it is harder to push them out at the end of the night. Also, as there are often boarders on site, we need to ensure the reunion attendees do not detour around the campus whilst exiting!

[Jon Cuthbert]

Thanks Lachlan, much appreciated. Yes, getting them to leave is one of my concerns but I think having the early tour and then off to another location is a good move.

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