Oueen...chocolate. Electrodes are implanted into the brain by his close collaborator, Professor Tipu Z. Aziz, to alleviate pain and movement disorders. Using the brain scans Morten’s

Issue Thirteen

Michaelmas Term 2008

Oueen’s newsletter

A letter from the Provost Page 2 News from the College Pages 3 & 4 Interview Page 5 College Finances Pages 6 & 7 The SCR Betting Book Page 8 New Choir CD Page 9 Old Members’ benefits & feedback Pages 10 &11 A letter from the Old Members’ Officer Page 12

Well, it’s good to be back! Observant readers will be aware that in August I returned to the College as Provost, having been at the University of Edinburgh for three and a half years. Prior to that, I had been one of the College’s tutors in chemistry for a little over twenty years. I should say at the outset that I have only good things to say about Edinburgh, both the city and the University, but the opportunity to come back to this familiar and much-loved place as Provost was too good to resist. We have been welcomed back with all the friendly good will and careful attention to our needs which almost everyone remembers as the particular quality of Queen’s.

Although I say ‘familiar’, quite a lot has changed – change not being a concept normally associated with an Oxford College. Several valued colleagues have retired, so that the age profile of the Governing Body has shifted sharply downwards. Alan Budd has overseen remarkable changes, in opening up the College to its Old Members to an unprecedented degree and in initiating several projects which will result in major changes to the physical infrastructure. He has really unlocked the College’s attitude to the future and there is a shared vision of how to sustain excellence in teaching and scholarship to carry us forward. Maintaining the sense of shared ownership of these developments represents the most obvious challenge for my period as Provost – closely followed by that of living up to the 7th place we achieved in the Norrington Table this year!

Keeping up the momentum with Old Members does not look like much of a hardship. I have already been to several events and have been overwhelmed by the sense of affection for the College and the level of support that these occasions are receiving. Last weekend we had a ‘Ten years later’ lunch, which was attended by more than half the Queen’s men and women who came up in 1998 (quite a number as married couples!) and on 18 October the 50th Anniversary Matriculation Gaudy lunch also filled the Hall. This sort of amazing response is typical of the events I have been attending.

Before I arrived at Queen’s for the first time, I had been working at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment at Malvern. I was recruited on a special initiative and had already been promoted in the first year when I announced that I would be leaving. I was summoned to Whitehall to meet Mr. Barnes, Head of Personnel in the MoD. The interview began with him asking, somewhat sternly, why I was leaving so soon after so much attention had been lavished - and I suspected that this was just the gentle opener! I replied that I had landed a lectureship at Oxford and a Fellowship at Queen’s. ‘Aaah,’ he said, his features softening, and pointed upwards. Above his head was a print of Queen Philippa’s cupola, and the rest of conversation was about his time here studying physics in the early fifties. It was at that point that I began to realise that I wasn’t merely changing jobs.

Contributors:

Paul MaddenOwen Rees

Michael Riordan

Editors: Andrew Timms

& Emily McLeod

Cover photograph: Veronika Vernier

A letter from the Provost Professor Paul Madden FRS FRSE

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Update: Swimming the Straits

“The swim was very difficult. We had to contend with large waves that kept splashing over our faces, stopping our breathing, and aching arms and legs. It took a lot of mental power to keep plodding along.

After the swim, the sense of achievement was great. It was the accumulation of a lot of hard work. When Nick and Harry also finished, I was over the moon. We’d come so far together and to finish together just topped it off.”

Lennard Lee (Medicine, 2005)

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Australian reunionsIn November the College held two reunion dinners in Australia. Old Members gathered in Sydney and Melbourne and were joined by Andrew Timms, the College’s Director of Development. The events were particularly friendly and successful, and hopefully will be the first of many such occasions.

Teaching awards

Lennard Lee and two friends, all Oxford Blues, finished the swim in three hours and 38 minutes on 9 July 2008, setting a new British record. In his own words Lennard tells us what it was like:

news from the college

Old Members may recall that in the last issue we reported that an undergraduate was planning to swim the Straits of Gibraltar unaided in a record-breaking attempt. We are proud to report that Dr

Clare Leaver, Tutor in Economics, and Dr Peter Neumann, Tutor in Mathematics, have received University of Oxford teaching awards. Dr Leaver was commended for her ‘commitment in providing as detailed feedback as possible, for her excellent ability as a lecturer, and for her generosity with her time for advising students’. Dr Neumann was recognised for ‘the work that he has done over his 43 years in the [Mathematics] Department, including: syllabus revisions, the introduction of the M.Math. degree, the History of Mathematics course, and running the weekly Kinder seminar for algebra research students’.



Amazon referral schemeOld Members are reminded that if they make purchases on the amazon website after having been redirected there from the College website then Queen’s will be eligible for referral fees which, to date, have amounted to over £50, mainly thanks to the Old Members’ Officer’s book-buying habit. The link is now displayed more prominently here: http://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/old-members/. Any money raised in this way will be put towards the student hardship fund. Thank you for your support.

Wish you were here! The College has had a new range of postcards printed. There are twelve images including the College Library (pictured) and the cloister (also pictured). Postcards cost fifty pence each including postage. Alternatively any number may be purchased with cash from the Porters’ Lodge.

Signed and Sealed The College Statutes require that notice of the Provost’s election be sent to the Visitor, the Archbishop of York, and that the new Provost swears the oath of office (to be found in the text of the Statutes). A custom has also developed whereby the Provost signs a book and his signature is marked with the College seal. In a sense this is a mark of admission to the College (Old Members may recall that new students also sign a book, albeit a different one).

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The images are as follows:

Boar’s Head Gaudy sketch1. Chapel2. Cloister3. Cartoon of the College motto4. Cupola sketch5. Loggan print of the Medieval 6. College buildingsDrawda 7. Dining Hall8. Lawn with ducks and Library 9. facadeThe Library from the Provost’s 10. GardenNun’s Garden11.

If you are interested in purchasing a postcard then please email the Old Members’ Officer for a sample image.


The Provost signs the book

Dr Morten Kringelbach is the only Junior Research Fellow at Queen’s to have his own web–link next to his listing on the College website (http://www.kringelbach.dk/). A quick visit to his site, which describes the work of his research group Hedonia, and I’m convinced that I’d like to talk to him.

He is author of countless scientific publications that place him at the forefront of his field. He has also written several books which provide an everyday understanding of neuroscience. When I spoke to him he had just returned from the USA and the launch of his latest book, The Pleasure Centre: Trust Your Animal Instincts.

Morten came to Oxford ten years ago to study for his doctorate in Neuroscience and was elected to an Extraordinary Junior Research Fellowship at Queen’s which, after five years, has been extended for a further five (an ‘Extra-Extraordinary Fellowship’). During the past decade he has moved between departments, ‘following the best machines,’ he says. Not only has this crossover (from Psychology to Physiology to Psychiatry) been about having access to the best brain imaging device in the country, it has also reinforced his view that multiple disciplines are involved in answering the important question: what makes us tick?

To answer this question Morten’s research focuses on what gives us pleasure and how we can find ways of helping those whose lives are empty of pleasure. He uses brain imaging techniques to test which parts of the brain are involved in the sensation of pleasure. Creating the sensation is very simple: he gives participants a piece of chocolate. Electrodes are implanted into the brain by his close collaborator, Professor Tipu Z. Aziz, to alleviate pain and movement disorders. Using the brain scans Morten’s immediate work concentrates on understanding how the electrodes work. This ‘cure’ often seems miraculous (see http://www.kringelbach.dk/nrn for examples) but he explains how illusion could be the powerful force behind it. The electrodes can be used to alleviate the lung pain experienced by asbestos patients: patients cease to care about the pain as they feel it is no longer their lung, and not because the physical symptoms have been treated.

Pain, he says, can be related to a mix-up between what

you feel and what your brain expects to feel, like in the case of an amputee’s ‘phantom limb’ ache. The ability to alter the brain’s perception of the body has significant ramifications for a person’s sense of self. A working definition of mind is ‘the interaction of body and brain’; if this interaction is confused or blocked in some way then chronic pain occurs. Morten explains that chronic pain relief is therefore just a first step to recovery. His longer term research aim is to discover how to optimize our ‘baseline level of pleasure’. He talks about how differences in personalities can be traced back to early childhood. For example studies have shown that people whose mothers experienced post-natal depression are often more anxious as adults. To address the condition of post-natal depression Morten is researching the parental instinct and has demonstrated that the childless also display significant brain activity very quickly in the same area as parents when observing the facial features of infants – but not adults. So, if our brains have something that makes us care for infants, it is possible that those prone to post-natal depression will have changed activity in this area and can be helped much earlier than previously. All Morten’s research applications are focused on helping those with little or no pleasure in life.

For example some terminally ill cancer patients can have a small part of their brain removed to eradicate the experience of pain, allowing them to reduce the intake of opiates and interact more easily with others in their last months. An understanding of the interplay between body, brain and identity also provides valuable insights into other illnesses. About 70% of those with Parkinson’s Disease feel depressed before they display any adverse motor symptoms. This can be taken as an example of the close relationship between motion and emotion, ‘emotion’ meaning ‘that which moves me’. Support can then be provided at an earlier stage not only to alleviate the motor problems but to improve quality of life. For treatment purposes Morten has to ask specifically what makes us happy, not just what makes us tick. Happiness is difficult to define or induce – the more you think about it, the less happy you become. He identifies variation as a key pleasure principle. He also looks at what gives us pleasure, namely other people. Two basic pleasures, food and sex, require other people in order to maximize the pleasure involved. Humans are not, he concludes, truly egoistic, we have to deal with others in a social context.

So has Morten found his time in the social context of Queen’s to be pleasurable? ‘I have been extremely happy at Queen’s,’ he says, adding ‘the great thing about Oxford is the inter-disciplinary mix.Everyone has a view on pleasure.’ Involvement and comment from others is very much welcomed, it seems, and Morten’s work to communicate complex science to the non-expert has been far-reaching. ‘For a long time,’ he says, ‘one was not meant to communicate science to the lay population but it is crucial, not least of all because it helps the researcher to find out why what they do is important.’


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A pleasure to meet...

Emily McLeodOld Members’ Officer


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My last letter generated no responses at all, apart from someone who pointed out that I had taken up an entire page justifying the removal of a dingy underground toilet, so I thought I would tackle a more interesting topic this time around. In recent months I have been

asked many times how the College is faring in these difficult times, so I thought I would take this opportunity to outline the College’s current financial position. Those of a nervous disposition should perhaps look away now.

The University financial year runs from August to July. In the 2007-8 financial year the College’s endowment fell from about £147 million to £144 million. Given the turbulence in the markets throughout this period, this is far from a bad result; in fact, an optimist might suggest that the College’s investment strategy is working.

What is that strategy? As recently as 1979, 89% of the College’s endowment was invested in land and property, with the remainder being invested in the UK equity market. Today, about 40% is in land and property, and just over 60% in securities. The equity holdings are now geographically diversified so that we are not so exposed to the fluctuations of the UK markets; we now have significant holdings in Asian and emerging market funds, as well as US and European ones. We also now have an expanding portfolio of unlisted equity investments: a variety of small holdings in various hedge funds, plus a small investment in a number of private equity funds. The property share of our portfolio is shared between agricultural and commercial property that we own, and holdings in two funds that give us exposure to sectors of the commercial market not well represented in our other holdings.

That still represents a significant investment in property, of course, but this can be explained in two ways. The first is that we use property as a long-term hedge against volatility in the equity markets. The most recent financial year has demonstrated the sense of this: big losses on equities were balanced by strong gains in agricultural land, which is the principal reason why the decline in the endowment was so small. Secondly, it is reasonable to expect the College’s land and property holdings to be higher than might otherwise be the case, because there are some holdings that for historical reasons it can be assumed the College would never sell (barring drastic circumstances).

However, to celebrate this good result would be foolish. Whilst the year-end endowment valuations were pleasing, since July there have been precipitous falls in our equity and property investments. The gravity of the situation is such that we are taking action now to protect ourselves.

A short explanation will perhaps help Old Members to understand why we are worried.

The College draws its income mainly from student fees and residence charges. There are also small revenues from our conference business. The largest items of expenditure are those associated with the domestic running costs of the College, and then the academic wage bill. Unfortunately, expenditure substantially exceeds income, resulting in a large operating deficit, which we attempt to plug with income drawn from the College’s endowment. In recent years, even after drawing income from the endowment we have still been left with an overall shortfall. This means that, effectively, the College is being forced to run down its endowment to support its current activities. Recent losses in the financial markets have substantially worsened our position. Endowment income will fall, leaving us with bigger deficits, thereby eating even further into the capital, in turn jeopardising future income—and so on.

This is a terrible predicament, so we are taking swift action to escape it. Later this year a small committee led by the Estates Bursar will review the entirety of the College’s expenditure to find opportunities to improve efficiency and significantly reduce our outgoings. There is a strong possibility that savings will not be confined to domestic expenditure; the academic budget, which principally comprises salaries, will probably need to shrink. We shall also attempt to bolster our income, although we are severely constrained by our inability to set tuition fees at adequate levels. Fund-raising will therefore continue, as will our efforts to build up our conference trade.

To some extent, of course, all of this is very frightening, but we are mindful that many people are going to have a far worse time of it than us. So the answer to the question ‘how bad is it?’ is simply: bad, but we shall get through it, and in some ways the current conjuncture provides us with an opportunity to address some entrenched problems with renewed vigour. The main point is that our goal is to avoid compromising the quality of the education we provide.

Perhaps I can conclude on a rather lighter, but not irrelevant, note. One of our advantages is that we can invest and plan for the long term. This sense of perspective helps us not to panic when confronted with immediate problems. I am reminded of the well-known television adaptation of Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse Blue. There is a nice scene in which the incoming Master talks gloomily of the unfavourable economic climate, to which a crusty don replies that the Fellows never bother too much about current economic circumstances—they find that these circumstances always go away in about 50 years or so. Plus ça change…

A letter from the Director of Development


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Name a roomThe Governing Body has taken the decision to offer Old Members the opportunity to have College rooms named according to your wishes. Naming will be in recognition of donations to the College, and those who are interested should contact the Director of Development for further information.

College CallingFor the first time in its history, the College is running a telethon. For two weeks in early January 12 undergraduate callers (seven of whom are pictured above) will be ringing Old Members to tell you about what life is like in College today, to hear more about your own experiences and memories of Queen’s, and to encourage you to support the College’s fund-raising. Those Old Members who we plan to call have already been notified by the Provost. We hope you will participate, but if you would prefer not to, please contact us and we shall remove you from the telethon.

Telethon 2009


From left to right, top row first

Francesca Kaminski (2006, Classics & English)

Judith Vonberg (2007, English & Modern Languages)

Greg Petros (2006, Medicine)

Eleanor Thackeray (2007, Biological Sciences)

Matthew Watson (2007, History & Politics)

Lucy Johnson (2005, Modern & Medieval

Languages)Aftab Khan

(2007, Physiological Sciences)

On 26 August 1809, Dr Race Godfrey presented to the Common Room a book in which to record all the wagers made there. It continued until 1983 when a second volume was begun. For two hundred years the formula of the bets has hardly changed: X bets Y a certain stake that something will or will not occur. In the nineteenth century the stake was normally half a dozen bottles of wine. In the twentieth century it could be a bottle (or more) of wine, champagne or port, even occasionally lunch at the Ritz or a large scoop of ice cream.

Despite some interest in the Napoleonic Wars, the earliest entries suggest dreary conversation over dessert. The bets almost exclusively concern the likelihood of certain Fellows marrying or accepting a church living. In other words, in a college where all the Fellows dined together every night, they were taking bets on which amongst them would be the next to leave.

In the later part of the century the wagers become more interesting, with politics as the most constant refrain. But there are other, stranger bets, such as whose skin was turned into a drum during the Hussite wars of the fifteenth century. In one, Mr Madan bet two of his colleagues that they couldn’t drink a quarter of a pint of salt and water without ‘suffering in consequence’. It seems, however, that the College’s first known student of chemistry underestimated the strength of the salt and water and had to pay his victors.

In 1938 the subject of war becomes virtually all consuming for seven years (though there are mentions of other pressing topics, such as the Eglesfield Music Society). The war over, politics again becomes the prominent topic, but no longer just national politics; university politics becomes a hot topic too. The 1950s saw the start of wagers on the success (or otherwise) of various students, the erection (or otherwise) of college buildings, and the possibility of one Fellow reproducing the taste of the 1948 Chateau Coutet using just lemonade and treacle.

Recent years has seen a greater flippancy in the wagers – the existence of strange names in the telephone directory, or the facility of one Fellow in growing whiskers. At the time of writing, the latest entry was made in June and concerned the outcome of an international match of Association Football. That result is known (and has been drunk), as has one to a prescient 2004 bet that this year’s Presidential election would be fought by an African-American. Many more wagers will be won and lost, however, before anyone can drink the six bottles of good claret staked on 23 May 1983 on a wager concerning a comparison between the ratio of men to women on Governing Body and that of men to women in the JCR – in 2022.

Place your bets

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Michael RiordanCollege Archivist


Cæli porta: 17th-century sacred music from Lisbon & Granada

The main activity of the new Association will be to arrange regular musical events at which members will be invited to perform together. These will take the form of concerts or services in London and at Queen’s. From time to time the Association will organize a larger-scale concert in London or elsewhere, with an orchestra where appropriate. In addition, a newsletter will be issued annually, and web pages will be created as a distinct element of the choir’s current web pages.

We hope that as many people as possible will join the Association and participate in its events. There will be three categories of membership: for former members of the choir, other Old Members of Queen’s, and other supporting members. Considerable enthusiasm for this initiative has been expressed by those who sang at Queen’s during the tenures of James Dalton and Owen Rees as College Organist.

We are delighted that Sir Alan Budd, former Provost of Queen’s, has agreed to be President of the Association. The Association’s Secretary will be Roya Ziai (currently a Choral Scholar at Queen’s).

The Queen’s College Choir Association

The Lisbon composers represented are Duarte Lobo (chapel-master at the Cathedral), Pedro de Cristo (chapel-master at the Monastery of São Vicente), and Manuel Rodrigues Coelho (organist at the Royal Chapel). Lobo’s beautiful and colourful four-voice Missa de beata Maria virgine is at the centre of the recording. The CD gives a picture of the rich variety of music adorning Vespers in Portugal at this time, including a thrilling two-choir setting of the psalm Dixit Dominus by Pedro de Cristo and Lobo’s dramatic two-choir treatment of the marian antiphon Alma redemptoris mater. The music of Manuel Leitão de Aviles – a Portuguese composer who directed the music at Granada’s royal chapel – remained in obscurity until brought to light by Owen Rees. Here the Choir sings his works for Holy Week, including a fine set of Lamentations, and a celebratory motet for St Nicholas.

This is the fourth disc recorded for Guild by the Choir of the Queen’s College, Oxford, and forms a companion to Paradisi portas: Music from 17th-century Portugal, released in 2005. Owen Rees is at the forefront of research and performance of Iberian polyphony.

Copies of the new recording are available at the Porters’ Lodge (£12 – cash only) or by post (£12 + £1 P+P per order). To order copies please email the Provost’s Secretary, [email protected], or write to the Provost’s Secretary at College. Please make cheques payable to ‘The Queen’s College’.

This recording presents masterpieces of Portuguese polyphony from Lisbon and Granada brought to light by the choir’s director, Owen Rees.

An Association has been established to promote contacts among former choir members, to foster links with the current choir, its activities and plans, and to support the development of the choir.

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Owen ReesOrganist & Tutor in Music


A new Gaudy for Old Members

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Spouses and partners welcome!The College has amended the existing Bylaw relating to Old Members’ dining rights. The full entitlement is now as follows:

‘Provided that four years have passed since taking a degree or diploma conferred by the University, any Old Member whose name is on the books of the College shall be entitled to dine at the Common Table (High Table) at his own expense, provided that he shall not so dine more than 9 times in each year and not on Gaudies or Fridays. On such occasions as he dines on a Monday during Term, he shall be entitled at his own expense to bring his spouse, civil partner or partner as a guest, provided that he shall not do so more than 3 times in each year.’

The cost of Wednesday guest night dinner is around £30 and Old Members will be invoiced directly by the Bursary. Bookings can be made by contacting the Porters’ Lodge (01865 279120) up until 11.00 am on the day you wish to dine. Please note that two Fellows of the College must also be on the list to dine in order for High Table to go ahead.

Old Members, accompanied by their spouse/partner/civil partner, are now also invited, at their own expense, to eat ‘student’ lunch on Saturdays in term, provided that attendance is booked in advance and by no later than 11.00 am on the Friday before the Saturday on which they intend to lunch in College. For more details, please get in contact with the Old Members’ Officer. We shall look forward to welcoming you and your guest to dine.

Responses to the Boar’s Head Gaudy rota published in the Trinity Term Newsletter served to reinforce the College’s view that one Gaudy for Old Members is now insufficient (over 50% of any one year typically attends). For Old Members who have already been invited back two or even three times for the Boar’s Head Gaudy, there is a long wait for the next invitation while those who have not yet been invited at all are given their turn. In order to restore the balance, the College has agreed to allocate the Needle and Thread Gaudy to Old Members. The first of these Gaudies will be held in January 2010 (the Needle and Thread Gaudy is traditionally a New Year celebration). Details of the invitation rota will be published next year.

Old Members’ benefits & feedback


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62% of respondents said they were ‘very interested’ or ‘quite interested’ in the College issuing a revised printed directory of Old Members, and 82% expressed an interest in purchasing a book of the College’s history. Interestingly only 25% would like to see a more online activity with 44% answering emphatically ‘no’ to the question of introducing a bespoke online community. Of those who did want to use an online facility, there was a general agreement that it would be most useful, in equal measure, for keeping in touch with contemporaries, finding out about contemporaries, and reading College news.

We also asked what Old Members enjoyed most about Queen’s and were pleased to have responses such as: ‘the intellectual challenge’; ‘the sense of permanence’; ‘everything, but particularly its links with the North’; ‘the mix of people and sports’, and ‘the pleasure of working in the Library on a winter evening with lamps on and creaking floorboards’.

When asked what Old Members would like from the Old Members’ Office, responses varied from ‘what we

get at present’ and ‘continue to be a clearly defined point of contact’ to ‘information about contemporaries’, ‘news about College developments’, ‘more email bulletins’, ‘the opportunity to drop in for lunch’ and ‘information about staying in College with spouses/partners’.

Many Old Members rightly thought that Queen’s main priority for the future is a combination of providing a ‘balanced and first rate education’; ‘safeguarding the tutorial system’; ‘achieving independent financial sustainability’ and providing a hotbed for ‘quality research’. Some saw fund-raising as a big priority in achieving these goals whereas others viewed fund-raising as an end in itself: ‘[the priority] seems to be to maximise donations from Old Members’. A few Old Members were unsure about what our priorities might be: ‘I don’t really know’.

This is all very helpful to know when it comes to planning how to communicate the College’s aims in our publications, particularly when taken in the context of answers to our final question: what do Old Members think should be Queen’s main priority for the future? Issues that are important to the Old Membership play a part in shaping the way in which we do things and, with more Old Member input than ever on College committees and other advisory boards, this is not a hollow statement. Happily, many of these answers matched the previous question, indicating a lot of Old Member support for what had already been rightly identified as our priorities.

Other interesting answers included: the priority should be ‘[the] robust defence of Oxford University’; ‘responding to the realisation that Old Members can be used as a source of advice, contacts and experience, not just as a source of fund-raising’; ‘improving the sensitivity or subtlety of maximising donations’; ‘the preservation of the College buildings’, and ‘to enhance and expand the global reach and prestige of the College’.

Some final food for thought came in response to the other comments section and included: ‘Old Members need to be more aware of the overall financial situation and strategy of the College to enable them to engage more with the gaps in order to provide more funding’. Old Members also used this opportunity to let us know that they have provided for Queen’s in their wills, for which we are very grateful.

Please feel free to send further comments and suggestions by post or email at any point. If sending word by email then it would be appreciated if you could put ‘feedback’ in the subject line.

‘Two minute survey’ results

In the last issue we invited you to fill out a ‘Two Minute Survey’ and were overwhelmed by the response from one hundred and seventy Old Members.

Emily McLeodOld Members’ Officer


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Dear Old Member,

Thank you very much to those of you who have been in touch with feedback and suggestions since the last Newsletter. As you will have seen in previous pages, our short survey has been a useful exercise. Studying the results has helped me see more clearly the shape of Queen’s Old Membership. I have also been taking a closer look at

what we already knew about our Old Members and I thought I would share some of my findings. For example, we are aware of 188 Old Members who met their spouse at Queen’s. (Our 94 ‘College couples’ are invited to share their anniversary dates with College.) Old Members of Queen’s are spread across 97 different countries in the world, including Azerbaijan, the Bahamas, Iran and Peru. Old Members contact us by telephone, email or fax every day and roughly 50% of any one year group returns to College for its reunion. In an annual period nearly 12% of Old Members (over 600 people) attend a Queen’s event, up on the collegiate average of 10%.

Over the summer we began a visitors’ book for Old Members who popped in to see us and I’m pleased to report that we have already filled a page with entries from Old Members who visited us from Seattle, Poland, Paris, Germany, Switzerland and, of course, from all over the UK.

This year I have been working to increase the opportunities for you to come back to Queen’s. This has been a gratifying task and I have appreciated your support both with attendance on the day and constructive comments afterwards. Not everyone can or wants to come back, however, and there’s a lot more to be done to keep in touch outside of our events programme. Our communications play an important role in keeping you involved in the life of the College and I hope that you will have enjoyed reading this Newsletter. At present we also have a music e-Newsletter which goes out in PDF form via email once every quarter; please contact me if you wish to receive it.

Of course these are just some plain facts and figures but, as I’m coming up to the first anniversary of being in post, I do feel as though I know you a little better.

A letter from the Old Members’ Officer

Diary of eventsSaturday 31 January 2009 Chemists’ and Biochemists’ Reunion Lunch Invitations have been sent out to all those who read Chemistry and/or Biochemistry.

Saturday 21 February 2009 Taberdars’ Society Lunch Invitations have been sent out to all those who have indicated to us that they plan to include the College in their wills.

Saturday 4 April 2009 North of England Event, Kendal Invitations will be sent in early 2009 to all Old Members living in the North of England.

Saturday 18 April 2009 PPEists’, E&Ms’, Philosophers’ and Theologians’ Reunion Dinner Invitations will be sent to all Old Members who read PPE, Philosophy and Theology or E&M.

Tuesday 26 May 2009 – tbc City of London Reception Invitations will be sent out to all those living in the London area.

Saturday 20 June 2009 Benefactors’ Dinner Invitations will be sent in February.

Saturday 27 June 2009 Old Members’ Garden Party & Reception to celebrate 30 years of women at Queen’s Information will be circulated with the spring Newsletter.

Saturday 26 September 2009 Old Members’ Dinner Invitations will be circulated with the spring Newsletter.

Saturday 17 October 2009 50th Anniversary Matriculation Gaudy Lunch Invitations will be sent out in the summer to all those who matriculated in 1959.

Saturday 14 November 2009 ‘Ten Years Later’ Lunch Invitations will be sent out in the summer to all those who matriculated in 1999.

Saturday 19 December 2009 Boar’s Head Gaudy (1984 & 1985) Invitations will be sent out in the summer to all those who matriculated in 1984 or 1985.

Saturday 9 January 2010 Needle and Thread Gaudy The rota will be published in 2009.


Oueen...chocolate. Electrodes are implanted into the brain by his close collaborator, Professor Tipu Z. Aziz, to alleviate pain and movement disorders. Using the brain scans Morten’s

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