The Alumni Dinner goes “off Campus”

Following on from last year’s very successful “Phil, Adrian, Jürgen and Willy Special”, this year’s Alumni Dinner (aka the Greenough Dining Club) was held on Friday 15th November. Because of the preparations for the bicentenary of the founding of UCL, it was not possible to hold the event in College so, instead, we moved the Dinner to the nearby Ambassadors Bloomsbury Hotel.

The evening, however, still began in the Department, with pre-dinner tea and biscuits and a tour of the Kathleen Lonsdale Building for those alumni who had not yet had a chance to visit us. 

The dinner itself, starting with a reception in the Hotel, was attended by nearly 60 people – the largest attendance for many years. It was especially nice this year to see groups of alumni from 1973 and 1984 as well as those from the 1990s and to welcome Nicola Marlow, Wendy Kirk and Duncan Hawley as special guests.

Quite a few of our current undergraduates from overseas also took the opportunity to come, which had the effect of lowering the average age of the diners considerably. The food this year was excellent, as was the ambiance, especially as we were able to run a continuous slideshow of photographs dating back to the 1960s. As the upcoming bicentenary means that UCL will almost certainly not be able to host this event in either 2025 or 2026, it seems likely that The Ambassadors will be the location for the Alumni Dinner for several years to come.