Returning to some degree of normality?

19th June 2020

The years longest day is almost upon us! Where is the summer going. Mind you, we have had a glorious spring.

I have decided it’s time to come out of hibernation and restart my blog – and carefully expand my activities. I have restarted golf, and have event been to the shops in Watford and Rickmansworth.

This week was a milestone for the OM Club when we held our AGM online for the first time. This involved quite a lot of detailed planning and organisation, and for that my thanks go to Peter Wakeham our club Chair who drove this through, supported by Julian Pollock (Hon Club Sec), Asif Ahmed (Hon Treasurer) and myself.

I think I can say without contradiction that it was a great success. We had 50 people log into Zoom for the AGM and the papers and voting were handled through a service called MiVoice. We tried to plan for all eventualities, but in the end everything worked very smoothly and the feedback we have received has been universally positive.

This will undoubtedly lead the OMC Management Committee to consider how we can build on this for future AGMs and indeed perhaps other events. We shall undoubtedly return to the “physically present” AGM, but hopefully we can consider and develop a way to supplement and include an online option as well.

 Hopefully, Covid19 is now coming down to a level where it can be managed as an ongoing risk until/if there is a vaccine. This will hopefully allow the economy and hospitality activities to start up again, and then we might even be able to see some OM events planned for late in the year or early 2021.

Meantime, stay safe and I hope you can find a way to resume some kind of normality.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

....and finally

 12/10/2021 ....and finally a few words of reflection and summary about the past couple of years. I am not going to write a report, or indeed a summary of all the events and activities I was involved with (or missed). Rather I shall try to write about my feelings, experiences of being OMC President during these hopefully highly unusual times. When I was approached about taking on the role I was initially reluctant. I couldn't see how this fitted with my personality and indeed what I saw myself doing during this phase of life. However, after much thought, persuasion and discussion with Angela I decided to accept and give it a go. We also thought that it would be quite fun to both be Presidents of our respective clubs/societies at the same time (Angela is President of Corona Worldwide a charity focusing on friendship and community to women both at home and abroad). Having accepted the role I had more than a year, including as VP, before assuming the role. I joined the OMC Committee a
Read more

My Annual Dinner

Image
 1st October 2021 Well this has finally come around - my Presidential Annual Dinner at which I hand over to my successor. The dinner was held at the beautiful and impressive Plaisterers Hall close to the Museum of London. I had been concerned that a combination of Covid caution together with a conflict of dates as a result of so many things being postponed would reduce the numbers attending. Indeed, this has happened to a small degree with several "regulars" not able to attend. However, overall the 140+ attending was a very respectable number, and I can say that I was delighted. I was pleased to see good representation from my era at school, the 1960s, as well as golfers, Oakers, and engineers, all groups with whom I have had the pleasure to associate with over many years. The feedback that I have had has been very positive. Everyone was impressed with the venue and the food was excellent much as we had hoped after our tasting experience. And then of course the speeches....!
Read more

Inaugural virtual reunion for Australian OMs

Image
 26/11/2020 Today we held the first virtual OM reunion for Australia. I was delighted that we were 14 participants including Jane Sanchez (MHS Head), Peter Wakeham (OMC Chair) and myself as President acting as chair for the Zoom meeting. It was wonderful to see quite a number of those whom Angela and I had met during our trip in January, which now seems so long ago (almost another era). After introducing ourselves, Jane gave us an update on how the school is coping with the Covid challenges and examples of the arrangements that have had to be undertaken. Jane also touched on developments at the school and emphasised how much the school and Foundation have grown in the past few years and that demand for places remained strong. I then invited Peter to say a few words about the OM Club. Peter explained about the changes in structure, the life membership developments and some of our plans for the future, especially the careers and alumni websites. Below is a screenshot of those who joined.
Read more