From our Alumni Relations Officer: Karen Sage
A little about me
Hi. My name is Karen Sage, and I began working three days a week in June 2009, based at the School. I started my working life as a trainee journalist on engineering trade journals, having gained an electrical engineering degree from Imperial College, London. Having reached the dizzy heights of Editor at the age of 26, family commitments and a move from SE England to Aberdeen saw me change direction and move into communications and public relations, a career which I continue to pursue, now back in London. I have worked in the communications field in a chamber of commerce, a PR agency, an oil drilling company and now a school!
My email address is aro@jcc.org.uk and you can phone me on 020 7489 4766.
Latest post: 14 July
All is quiet in the School now that the teachers and pupils have disappeared on their summer holidays, and every day is a 'dress down' day, which is a boon for someone like me who cycles in to work.
Thanks go to those Old Cits who've agreed to participate in our video project. I now have six of you whose reminiscences about old school days and events from your lives, will be recorded for posterity over the coming weeks. I have also had some response to my email to leavers from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, asking for contact details of 'lost' Old Cits - please keep them coming in. I shall be repeating this exercise with 1970s/80s leavers in due course.
Our Web Connect facility on this website is due to go live next week, allowing Old Cits to update their details online. Bear with me while I issue usernames and passwords to all of you who are contactable over the next week or so.
Our newest blogger, Jake Pittman, a recent sixth form leaver, introduces himself on the travel blog page, so please take a look, and Gary Griffin's last blog of this school year is also well worth a read.
We're planning three year-group reunions next school term, starting with the 1990 leavers' 20th anniversary dinner in October - details will follow on the events page. And don't forget to mark 24 March 2011 in your diaries when the Annual Dinner returns to the Old School.
14 June
Last Thursday's (10 June) CLS Bursary Trust Fund Gala Dinner is over for another two years and having been heavily involved in the event's organisation, I can breathe a sigh of relief that all seemed to go well and judging by the feedback so far, everyone enjoyed themselves.
The Dinner raised a fantastic six-figure sum - almost three times that of the 2008 Dinner, so I'm told - which will pay for a number of Bursary boys to go through the school. Many thanks to everyone who supported, donated, attended and otherwise assisted at the dinner, including teachers, pupils, Old Cits, parents, past and present, and of course guests. A special thanks to Sam and Michael Akinfala and Bernard Silverman, all former pupils and bursary boys, who kindly agreed to speak at the Dinner.
Tonight's reunion of 2000-2003 CLS leavers is the last event of its type this school year and we are anticipating more than 60 Old Cits to attend. Watch out for the photos in the gatherings section of this website, over the next week or so.
The School summer holidays are approaching, which is when I have time to take stock and plan next school year's events, continue updating the database and hopefully visit some of you to record your memoirs on video for the archives. Any Old Cits who would like a visit for this purpose, please give me a call or send an email.
20 May
I just wanted to say a big thank you and welcome back to the 50-60+ Old Citizens who have contacted me recently with their email addresses and other details, following my Friends Reunited message I sent out yesterday. I am delighted with the response and hopefully will receive more emails over the coming days.
Apologies if some of you thought you'd missed a reunion - the only way I could get round the extremely time-consuming exercise of sending 2,886 of you individual messages on Friends Reunited was to use the reunion messaging system - and it seems to have worked!
12 May
Last weekend I attended the annual conference of AROPS, the Association of Representatives of Old Pupils' Societies, hosted by Dean Close School in Cheltenham. I was one of about 100 AROs at the conference, which proved a great opportunity to exchange ideas and do some informal benchmarking. I'm pleased to report that we are probably among the more enlightened alumni associations, in terms of the quality and breadth of communications channels we use, although there is always room for improvement.
This week I sat down with Terry Heard, the School's archivist, to go through some basic training on how to use our second Donor Strategy database, for capturing data about deceased Old Citizens. Terry entered data relating to the first few of an estimated 20,000 individuals, so he has his work cut out for him!
It looks like we may soon have a gathering of Old Cits in New York, as David Dwek is trying to organise a get-together of our estimated 15+ OCs in the Big Apple.
The School's Bursary Trust Dinner at Tate Modern looms large, so I have been putting my (basic) design skills to good use producing 'scrolls', personalised menu cards and table plans for this event, which looks set to raise a signifcant sum to fund a number of bursary boys through the School.
26 April 2010
Very many thanks to all those Old Cits who responded to my request for work experience/placement opportunities for our sixth formers this summer. I received 12 responses, all of which have been passed on to our Head of Careers, who has notified all of our sixth formers.
The latter are very much in our thoughts at the moment in the build up to the 'A' level examinations. It was interesting sitting in on an advice session given to sixth formers by three undergraduate and one postgradaute Oxbridge Old Cits last week. Simon Hodge, Tom Morley, Rob Leadbetter and Alex Reut-Hobbs all came in to School to offer the benefit of their experience studying History, Medicine, English and Classics respectively at Oxford and Cambridge.
Questions ranged from 'Do you enjoy university?' and 'What's the most difficult part of the application process?' to 'Is studying at university like a beefed-up version of 'A levels or very different?' and 'How much are they looking for you the person as opposed to you the scholar?', among others. Many thanks to Simon, Tom, Rob and Alex for their time and words of wisdom.
Once the exams are over, in July, eight upper and lower sixth form pupils, accompanied by two teachers, are cycling the 420 miles from London to Edinburgh for the School's Malaika Kids charity appeal, which aims to help orphans in Tanzania. Please support our boys by donating via www.bmycharity.com/CLScycle. The boys will wear corporate sponsors' logos on their jerseys.
I also attended the 1972/3/4 leavers' reunion last week, organised by Nigel Primmer and Koolesh Shah, at Hotel Indigo, Paddington (see photos in gatherings). We only managed to attract about 20 Old Cits across the three year groups, partly due to the absence of contact details for many former pupils from that era. On that note, I am having some success contacting 'missing' Old Cits via Friends Reunited. It is a laborious process as I have to send a message to each person individually, which is very 'clunky' using this site, and I am regularly blocked temporarily for sending too many messages! It is worth it, however, and I have received lots of nice messages from Old Cits saying how pleased they are for someone to have got in touch with them again.
13 April 2010
Refreshed from a week's holiday in glorious Pembrokeshire I am pleased to say I am back in harness at ARO headquarters in sunny London. Easing my way back into the working week was my full email inbox, which I spent most of the morning going through and responding to various requests. Communications were as varied as usual, including one from a Canadian Old Cit coming over in May with the Canadian National Rugby 7s, who would like to get in touch with any of his former classmates who left CLS in 1972. Another was from a second year undergraduate Old Cit seeking a summer placement in the oil, gas or utilities sectors.
My treat for the afternoon was having a chance to visit what remains of the old City of London School, along the river just the other side of Blackfriars Bridge. The grand entrance and lobby with his sweeping staircase remain, along with the magnificent Great Hall upstairs and the library, headmaster's office and various other smaller rooms downstairs. We are hoping to obtain permission from the current occupiers, JP Morgan, to hold some events there in the future.
This week all Old Cits on email should receive a slightly revamped version of our regular alumni communication, the graphic elements of which will look very familiar as our database has resolutely refused to accept all my attempts to redesign the template, throwing out an unformatted mess of text. All comments on the more e-newsletter like content are most welcome.
30 March 2010
A 'very good event and definitely worth repeating every year!' is how one Old Citizen described last week's social evening at Mahiki nightclub, attended by well over 100 OCs and guests. Well done to Isaac Livne, Sam Spring and Tim Levene, who organised the event, which attracted largely positive feedback. It was the first JCC event ever attended by some OCs, so the choice of venue clearly worked in drawing in those who have previously not engaged with the JCC.
I was scheduled to attend the Senior Prefects Dinner at school that same night but in the interests of social responsibility I stayed away to avoid infecting everyone with my cold virus. I did ask Nigel Baglin, the School's Head of Careers, to take some photos for me, however, some of which you can see here:
These are among the first of many photos I hope to post on the CLS Class of 2010 Facebook fan page, which I'm pleased to say now has a following of over 90 upper sixth formers, as well as an administrator from the upper sixth.
Following my appeal to sixth formers via 'The Citizen' newsletter, to come and see me if they were looking for work experience or gap year placements, a number of pupils have paid me a visit and I hope to find something suitable for them with a little help from our Old Citizens.
18 March 2010
The School was buzzing with activity yesterday as the annual CCF parade and inspection day swung into action. As well as the parade itself, there were demonstrations on the concourse and in the courtyard of various CCF-related activities such as map-reading, camouflage, life-saving techniques, among many others.
In the afternoon I went to see the matinee performance of 'The Winslow Boy' which was, as always, very professionally produced with some great acting and tasty themed interval refreshments of cucumber and salmon sandwiches and cakes.
Following a successful Annual Dinner at the House of Lords last week, I have been looking into a change of venue for next year's event. The venue we have booked is Armoury House, a splendid, historic building in the City, with an oak-panelled Long Room looking out on to its own grounds.
Our social event at bar and nightclub, Mahiki, takes place next week and I have been busy compiling the list of almost 100 Old Cits (and still counting) who are coming along. The organisation of this event has been left to our younger JCC committee members and I am quite relieved that my presence will not be required (I can't remember the last time I was in a nightclub!). As it is, I shall be going to the senior sixth form prefects black-tie dinner at the School that evening.
3 March 2010
I've had a mixed bag of alumni requests over the past few weeks including one from an recent Old Cit's father looking for a JCC contact in India where his son is teaching cello at a music school near Calcutta, and assistance with a 1973 leavers' gathering being organised by another Old Cit.
The fledgling JCC entrepreneurs club, instigated by Simon Cummin, now has more than 70 potential members and the first 'under-40s' Old Cits social gathering is scheduled to take place later this month. I've received lots of positive feedback from last week's creative industries gathering, despite not as many undergraduate OCs turning up as hoped. Thrill of the week for me was meeting and having a quick chat with Michael Apted, Old Cit and well-known movie director.
On the sporting front I had my first taste of fencing as a spectator and photographer at a match between Old Cits and current boys, which will be featured in the next issue of The Gazette.
5 February 2010
Yesterday's gathering of Old Citizens in the finance profession saw OC undergraduates from as far afield as Durham coming together for the evening to network with former pupils already established in the finance sector. More than 50 OCs attended the event and, judging by the feedback, the evening was a success.
All of the undergraduates I spoke to were really pleased to have been given the opportunity to make contacts from within the School's alumni who could one day make the difference in helping them secure gainful employment in their chosen sector. The established OCs found the evening worthwhile as it gave them an opportunity to see the school and teachers again or, in some cases, for the first time, as well as enabling them to give the benefit of their experience to our younger OCs.
Our next professional gathering is for OCs in the creative industries on 25 February, which I imagine may have a slightly different feel to it but which, hopefully, will be equally successful.
12 January 2010
A new decade has dawned and I am looking forward to a busy 12 months when hopefully the development of alumni relations at CLS will continue to move onwards and upwards. I was greeted by hundreds of emails on my return to work, most of which were positive, relating to forthcoming events, new contact details, or enquiries about getting in touch with former class mates.
Some of the new ideas I touched on in my 7 December blog have already come to fruition, with the introduction of a blog by the School's Second Master, Gary Griffin, which will give Old Cits a flavour of what is happening in the School. Next on my list is setting up groups for at least some of our main OC professional groupings on the LinkedIn networking site.
As promised, I did set up an experimental YouTube channel to give OCs an idea of what CLS OC 'talking head' videos might look like, the idea being simply to use the YouTube video footage on our own JCC site, as it allows us to stream the video straight from the website. A few OCs have already said they would be happy to either be videod or provide video footage taken by family or friends of them talking about their school days or other incidents which might be of interest to other OCs.
If anyone would like to be recorded on film for posterity and the JCC archives, please email me at aro@jcc.org.uk, giving me an idea of what you'd like to talk about. I plan to do most of these over the quieter summer months.
Continue to the ARO's 2009 Blog