June 2015 | St Peter’s College
Dr Sylvia McLain The Importance of Water Interview with Paul Geddes, CEO of Direct Line Group A look back at St Peter’s on University Challenge
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Cross Keys / June 2015
Contents
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A Word from the Master
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Unlocking the Future, Andrew Thomas
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The Bursar’s Report
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Feature: The Importance of Water, Dr Sylvia McLain
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A Look Back at St Peter’s on University Challenge, Sean Rippington
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Feature: Interview with Paul Geddes (1987)
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JCR Report, Luke Miller
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MCR Report, Zoe Fletcher
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Events 2014 - 2015
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Careers Society, Emma Buchy-Dury
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Feature: Rocking the Ages: A collaboration between Professor Abigail Williams and Sarah Mitchell (2003)
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Feature: Cosmology to Collider Physics via Twistor Theory, Professor Lionel Mason
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Sports Report, Andrew Thomas
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Global Networks / Year Group Representatives / SPC 10
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Staying Connected
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The Development Team
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Event Listing
A WoRD FRoM tHe MASteR Welcome to Cross Keys – a smorgasbord from New Inn Hall Street of life surrounded by books, libraries, lecture theatres and laboratories – but, as this edition makes clear, a great deal else. What comes across is the sheer range of St Peter’s life, as experienced by all its constituent elements – students, Fellows and staff. St Peter’s is home to an abundance of teaching, learning and research, but talented people often seem to have time to do other things as well. One particular manifestation of talent this year has been the St Peter’s University Challenge team. We have been entertained by the College’s finest ever performance – that particular educational aspect of the College is also reflected in what follows. This summer we begin a big building programme and over the next two years we will transform the College’s teaching spaces, its disabled access
and the quality of the grounds – but our programme of events continues, and you will all be very welcome to come back and see what we are up to. Finally, I am always astounded at the achievements of our alumni across so many careers and disciplines and please do let us know your news. One particularly striking moment - the ordination of Libby Lane (1986) as the first female Church of England bishop a groundbreaking accomplishment and the source of huge pride. It was a delight to award her an Honorary Fellowship of the College in June 2015.
Mark Damazer, CBE
professor thomas Adcock
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Cross Keys / June 2015
UNLOCKING THE FUTURE Andrew Thomas, Director of Development and Alumni Relations
This year sees the launch of what we believe is the College’s first ever concerted, multi-year fundraising initiative. Our Keys to Success campaign will run until the end of the decade and the core challenge is straightforward – we want St Peter’s to be financially secure by 2020. A far from simple task, but we hope and anticipate that our special community will provide real energy and assistance in this quest. We have made some real strides over recent years in minimising our cost base and growing our income. However, we remain significantly undercapitalised for what is a £7.5m per annum operation 4
that, with almost 500, has as many students as some of the most prominent colleges across Oxford. We are ambitious but grounded when assessing our future, and as one alumnus commented recently: “The only small thing about St Peter’s is its endowment!” We have a delicately balanced eco-system comprising world-class tutors, students from an array of backgrounds, and facilities to enable a truly dynamic coexistence. The St Peter’s spirit is the glue and it is remarkable what we have achieved to date given our limited means.
However, the Keys to Success campaign sets out to make improvements in all areas and not just one. Our target is to raise £35m in cash and pledges by 2020. During the last couple of years, the preparation phase of the campaign has yielded just over £11m, which leaves us with a further £24m to find from our alumni, parents, friends, foundations and corporate supporters. Please help us if you can and here is a summary of what we are setting out to achieve.
Key Campaign Aims • To ensure that a student at SPC is able to accept their place regardless of personal financial circumstances and that the costs of living at SPC are amongst the best value in Oxford. • The renovation of our key public spaces to enable full disabled access, more usable space, a greater sense of theatre, and modern teaching facilities. (Funding already largely secured.) • To bolster the uniquely valuable but expensive system of tutorial teaching by covering at least 50% of our academic wage bill via philanthropy (currently 20%). • To provide as many students as possible with access to quality college accommodation for as many years as possible so that they are better insulated from Oxford’s competitive and expensive private rental market. We aim to refurbish approx 90 bedrooms on the main campus and be in a financial position to acquire new accommodation when opportunities arise. • To grow our endowment to £30m from £17.5m so that we can close our annual funding gap and enable longerterm planning in a constantly changing HE environment. With a stronger financial platform, we would also relish the future opportunity to expand our footprint – most notably in the direction of the adjacent Boys School. Following public expenditure cutbacks of recent years, we also recognise the acute need for much greater funding for graduate study.
• Rooms for Improvement Although our largest ever gift to the College in 2014 has been directed at improving the visual appearance and utility of our open spaces and key conference spaces, this still leaves us with an enormous amount to do if we are to counter decades of low investment in the maintenance of our buildings and infrastructure. This is just one side effect of operating with a relatively small endowment and we want to end this compromise. We know that money heading directly to students in the form of bursaries and other types of support is of tangible appeal to many donors. Capital projects, such as the renovation of and building of bedrooms can appear more remote. However, we really want to be able to house more of our students in college accommodation for as many of their years as possible. Paying a year’s rent in the private market when you are only in Oxford for seven months is clearly not ideal and the provision of reasonably priced college accommodation in effect acts like a bursary. • Tutorial Teaching Only 20% of our academic wage bill is covered by philanthropy. World-class tutors are our single biggest expense but by far our most substantial asset. The tutorial system is precious but relatively expensive. We aim over the coming years to encourage donors to either support a specific post or to help underpin the subject/research area that most resonates with them.
• Student Support Everything we do has to be geared towards our core customer – students. Even the growing of our non-core income streams, such as conference business, puts us in a better position to minimise cost increases to students for accommodation, meals and other house services. The financial matrix for students is made up of tuition fees and living costs. Beyond their own discretionary consumer choices, minimising exposure to these costs comes from a student’s entitlement to financial aid based on family income, the scale of costs imposed on them by individual colleges, and the availability of scholarships and prizes that either reward achievement or offset some of the costs of field trips and other types of study. We will continue to play our full part in ensuring that Oxford has some of the most generous bursary provisions for students from low-income backgrounds. However, it is the latter two elements where we also want to be class-leading. The accumulated effect of all this investment and long-term planning will be a college with an even greater reputation for a special and rounded education, more direct applicants to St Peter’s, consistently high marks in student satisfaction surveys and a regime that is able to anticipate and absorb the inevitable changes and challenges in our operating environment. Let’s plan for the future with confidence. The keys are in your hands. Please donate if you can. www.spc.ox.ac.uk/giving
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Cross Keys / June 2015
The Bursar’s Report James Graham
The Lodge
This year I’m writing this article in my office at St Peter’s, and spring is here; the bulbs are coming through, and our resident pair of ducks has returned and started to build their nest – they were not distracted by the solar eclipse last Friday. We managed to see some of the eclipse through the cloud cover, which was more than most of the south of England could manage. We first spotted the ducks again a week or so ago. Mr and Mrs Duck were checking out the neighbourhood; they had a look around the College, then flew over Mair Gate and walked down New Inn Hall Street. We look forward to seeing their next brood, and Peter the gardener will keep a close eye on them. Much has happened since last Easter, and over the course of the last two terms of this academic year. We have held some wonderful events and concerts. Highlights for me included Neil MacGregor’s wonderful talk on Germany in the Chapel, which was so popular we had to organise extra space in the Latner building to accommodate everybody. The main talk continued with an inspired discussion over drinks and dinner in the SCR. Andrew Marr returned to the College, and gave a masterful exposition on the state of the nation – nay nations – made topical by the Scottish referendum, which was followed up by the presentation of Honorary Fellowships to Andrew and Dame Theresa Sackler. And, most recently, Dr Roger Allen’s final performance of Bach’s St Matthew 6
Passion, was extraordinarily dramatic and moving. We were also very pleased to present the Perrodo Family with their Honorary Fellowships in November in recognition of their extraordinary generosity. With their support we are able to carry out the next big steps in improving our buildings and open spaces, which will benefit all of our residential academic community – students, Fellows, staff, as well as our guests at conferences, weddings and events. We presented the Perrodo Family with a set of engraved spades, which were immediately put to good use as they symbolically started the building programme by turning the first sods in Linton Quad. The programme had in fact already started earlier in the summer, with the refurbishment and redecoration of the Porters’ Lodge and Fellows’ Writing Room, the transformation of the JCR Passageway, and the restoration and redecoration of the SCR and SCR Dining Room. We have known for some time that we have the most welcoming and helpful porters in Oxford; we now also have the most welcoming and bestdesigned Porters’ Lodge in Oxford. Our Head Porter, Paul Irons, kept a watchful eye on proceedings. The JCR Passageway no longer reminds members and our guests of an inner city subway in which one does not loiter. The SCR and SCR Dining Room have been restored and redecorated. We have made use of the original oak floorboards, rearranged the layout of the furniture and rehung the
curtains – good examples of how small changes can have a big impact. The work was carried out under the leadership of the SCR President, Professor Abigail Williams. Phase One of the Perrodo Programme will start this August after the Summer Schools have departed and should be completed by January 2016. This phase of the work covers a new scheme for the College entrance, with much-improved disabled access. The ground floor of the Latner Building will be remodelled and extended, giving us a much more flexible and useful modular teaching space
JCR Passageway
SCR Dining Room
which can be configured as one larger or two smaller rooms. Linton Quad will be redesigned, replanted and repaved, with secondary stone paving outside the new doors to the Chapel in the north wall giving us better access to the Chapel, and an area to enjoy after weddings and other events. This improved integration of the Chapel with the Quad has also been made possible by the dismantling of the walnut tree, which had become over-grown and blighted the flowerbed and lawn. The wood from this tree has been reserved and stored for seasoning, and will be given to alumnus Robert
Hadaway (1984), who is making a new high table for Hall. The new table is narrower than the current table and will make conversation much easier. The table should be ready for the next academic year. Phase Two of the Perrodo Programme will start the following year, in August 2016. We have just completed the competition to select the architect for this phase of the work. We developed a detailed brief for the architect’s submission before Christmas, which we sent to six practices. We chose four from the six to present to the steering
committee, from which we selected our preferred design and practice: Design Engine, a Winchester-based practice which has done a lot of work in higher education. This decision was ratified by the Governing Body in Week 8. This phase of the work covers the redesign and integration of the Hannington and Chavasse Quads. It includes the remodelling and refurbishment of the ground floor of the Chavasse Building, giving us a much more flexible and useful modular teaching space which can be configured as one larger or two or three smaller rooms. We also plan to erect a new building against the Baptist Church wall, at the south end of the Chavasse Quad. This building will give us six new rooms for Fellows or students, and a ground floor which could be configured as one or two teaching or conference rooms. There will be an attractive terraced area integrating the new building with the Chavasse Quad. The disabled ramp will be reoriented to run along the (old) New Building, thus allowing for the two quads to be integrated by steps from the higher Hannington Quad to the lower Chavasse Quad. As I wrote last year, this will be a challenging project, and I look forward to everyone’s involvement in it, and to seeing how St Peter’s benefits from it. And again, profound thanks to the Perrodo Family for their wonderful generosity and support.
Mr François Perrodo (1996), Mrs Carrie Perrodo, Mrs Nathalie Samani, Mr Bertrand Perrodo (2004) 7
Cross Keys / June 2015
The IMPORTANCE of Water Dr Sylvia McLain Dr Sylvia McLain, Stipendiary Lecturer in Biochemistry at St Peter’s and Research Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry, came to St Peter’s in 2013. She has an undergraduate degree in Zoology, an MSc in Science Education and a PhD in Physical and Inorganic Chemistry. Her wide scientific background has led her to work in field biology, evolutionary biology genetics and inorganic chemistry. She has completed three independent research fellowships at the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the US Department of Energy and at King’s College London. She also writes for The Guardian about science and the philosophy of science. Water is the elixir of life. All biological processes take place in the presence of at least some water, yet there remains a major conceptual gap in understanding the role of hydration in biology. As humans, around 60-70% of our body weight is from water and the solutions in our body aid a variety of biological functions, such as delivery of oxygen, drugs and nutrients to our many types of different cells. Understanding how water and biological molecules interact with each other in solution is
Working with a solution on a high-vacuum line 8
fundamental to understanding how lifegiving processes work in nature. These interactions, which occur on the atomic and molecular scales, are complex – but discovering them is essential in order to gain insight into how nature engineers life from its molecular building blocks. Within my group, we use a variety of experimental and computational techniques to directly address molecular structure and, importantly, structural interactions between water and biomolecules in solution at the atomic level at an unprecedented level of detail. At the moment, one of the main focuses of our research is to understand how drugs cross the blood brain barrier (BBB). The BBB is the mechanism by which the central nervous system minimises its interactions with blood circulation in vessels and has evolved as such to protect the brain from toxins and pathogens. While for the most part this is a good thing, it is also a double-edged sword, as many drugs which could help treat diseases which affect the central nervous system are also excluded. Currently, a large number of potentially beneficially drugs fail at clinical trials due to an inability to cross the BBB.
Left to right: Dr Richard Gillams, Mr Andrew
Interestingly, a fairly broad range of natural compounds can cross the BBB, such as cocaine – often with beneficial effects. Cocaine is easy to dissolve in water but also quite soluble in ‘hydrophobic’ (or water-hating) environments. This combination of properties certainly plays a vital role in how cocaine and other drugs can penetrate this formidable barrier, as these drugs must be soluble enough in water to be delivered through the bloodstream, yet must also be able to cross the biological membranes presented by the BBB, which mostly repel water. Somewhat surprisingly, our research on the hydration and structure of cocaine suggests that how water binds to this drug is the key to understanding how this molecule crosses into the brain. What
Johnston, Ms Nicola Steinke, Dr Sylvia McLain
appears to happen is that water binds strongly to the water-loving (or hydrophilic) bits of the molecule, where waters act like Sellotape to bind the hydrophilic parts of cocaine to each other, rather than to the rest of the water that’s around. This in turn forces the water-hating parts of the cocaine to the outside of the molecule, where they can be presented to the hydrophobic BBB. In this particular role, water is essential for smuggling the highly hydrophilic cocaine molecules past the highly restrictive BBB. We are now conducting further investigations to ascertain if similar phenomena occur for other drugs which cross the BBB. Perhaps this essential role of hydration may be one of the keys to designing more effective central nervous system drugs in the future.
In the lab we are also interested in how water contributes to protein structures. Proteins, which are encoded from DNA, do all of the work in our bodies. Cells decipher the DNA code, creating long chains of amino acids – the building blocks of proteins. There is however a second step: the proteins must fold from a chain into a globular form in order to function. Proteins reliably fold into the same structures over and over again, yet the process by which this occurs is still unknown. Similar to our research on drugs, investigations within the group have revealed that water may have a more active role to play in protein folding than has been previously suggested. The traditional view is that protein folding occurs when water is expelled from around the protein, so that all of
the water-fearing parts of the protein can fold together – a process called the hydrophobic effect. Our research suggests that water actually facilitates this process by actively associating with certain parts of the protein to pull together different hydrophilic bits of the proteins together, beginning the folding process. Observation of these phenomena, and some other investigations by ourselves and others, indicate that water plays a much more active role in biology than has been previously tested for. Our working theory is that water is responsible for initiating many biological processes and is much more than just a passive elixir with which molecules happen to associate in nature. We are actively testing this theory, but as with all scientific theories, it is still very much a work in progress. 9
Cross Keys / June 2015
A Look Back at St Peter’s on University Challenge Sean Rippington, College Archivist
Congratulations to the St Peter’s team, which made it to the semi-finals of University Challenge. Here, Sean Rippington, College Archivist, looks back at the College’s previous teams. Jeremy Paxman may appear to know everything, but he got one thing wrong last year when he claimed that St Peter’s was making its debut on University Challenge. The College has featured three times before, albeit with less success than the 2014/15 team enjoyed. We made our debut in 1966 with a team comprising Jim Stevenson (1965), Phillip Hodson (1965), Barry Webb (1965) and Martin Woodhead (1966). Jim Stevenson, now Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Southampton, recalls: “The 1966 team did really badly, unlike our 2015 successors. We were knocked
out in the first round, scoring about 100 points as far as I remember.” The phenomenon of contestants catching the eye of members of the viewing public doesn’t seem to be a new one, as he remembers: “Granada TV subsequently forwarded a letter to me from a fan, but as the person signed themselves ‘Bubbles’ I did not treat it too seriously!” Fellow team member Phillip Hodson has fond memories of the show, despite losing the match. “The overnight stay in Manchester was not spent revising pub quiz oddities but chatting up glamorous opponents. I became friends with the daughter of a tabloid colossus. The day of the broadcast went well as far as our hairstyling was concerned but the questions proved what Evelyn Waugh described as ‘inconvenient’ when doing finals.”
The 1979 team – Paul Finn (1977), Martin Ivens (1977), David Eastwood (1977) and Bill Evershed (1977) – also lost its only match, despite impressing in the warm-ups. Team captain, Professor Sir David Eastwood, recalls: “the team was selected by the JCR Secretary. I hadn’t wanted to audition; I told him I didn’t have the right kind of general knowledge or recall. He persuaded me to take the test and I came second to Martin Ivens. The team was duly selected. We had no captain and when the producer met with us he decided I should be captain, I think on the grounds that I talked more than the others. LSE and St Andrews were in the first heat and we were slated to play the winners. The LSE coach was delayed on the M6 so we were moved to the first heat. Just as recording was about to begin the LSE supporters arrived. We were asked if we wanted to stay and play St Andrews or let LSE resume its place. I wanted to stay, the other three wanted to revert to our place in the second heat. Unwisely I allowed democracy to prevail. We would probably have won the first heat. The questions would have fallen nicely for us. I remember the first: ‘Who said, “I have promised no-one that I will be at the altar?”’ The answer, of course, was Jim Callaghan. Neither LSE nor St Andrews got it. I knew then I had made a catastrophic mistake. St Andrews won the first heat comfortably. The team was captained by a 28-year-old New Zealand postgraduate who was hugely impressive and very 1967, courtesy of Phillip Hodson
Jim Stevenson (1965), Barry Webb (1965), Phillip Hodson (1965) and Martin Woodhead (1966) 10
1979, courtesy of Paul Finn
Paul Finn (1977), Martin Ivens (1977), David Eastwood (1977) and Bill Evershed (1977)
quick on the buzzer. I feared the worst. We did badly, and failed to make three figures.” Dr Bill Evershed remembers the day itself: “The day in the studios was fun, discovering what the set actually looked like, meeting Bamber Gascoigne, going through make-up etc. Our supporters wandered off to the Coronation Street set and found the bar of the Rovers – but we were tightly chaperoned throughout. When it was all over we were taken to a hotel for the night, and to wind down with the other teams, before the train home. It was recorded in December, but not broadcast for some months. We all watched in the JCR, and I was dreading getting a lot of mockery, but it was great how much support there was, with cheering when we got points, boos for the opposition, all as if it was being played out live. We left feeling vaguely heroic even though we lost.”
The 1984 team – Simon Walker (1983), Robert Calcraft (1983), Paul Burke (1981) and Alan Wills (1982), also lost its opening match – though one of the team members did win a bet to include a friend’s name in one of his answers. Team captain Paul Burke recalls: “Team selection was pretty slapdash. Those interested were asked to come along to the JCR one evening. Using a set of questions provided by University Challenge we had to write down our answers. There was a suggestion – a whiff of suspicion if you like – that a degree of collusion prevailed, with people trading answers! Unlike now, there were no screen tests and we were simply told that in due course we would head up to Manchester. On the day itself we travelled by train and arrived in Manchester around midday. Along with the other teams,
we watched a recording of a previous heat (involving Magdalen – who were waiting to play the third match). I remember we seemed to know pretty much every answer. We had lunch in the Granada canteen with Bamber Gascoigne and the producer making a point of sitting well away from the contestants. We had a rehearsal in which we beat the opposition (Fitzwilliam) convincingly – the photo was taken post that hence the 175 score as opposed to what we achieved in the actual match. Like good St Peter’s men we went for a drink before the show – just a swift one to calm the nerves. In the match itself we stormed into an early lead only to fall away in the second half of the show. Looking back now I still beat myself up over forgetting the name for a monstrance (my old deputy head said subsequently that my error had cost the RE department their jobs). Post the show, we repaired to the Granada bar – sadly devoid of any celebrities – for a few drinks. Notwithstanding our late return to Oxford – and somewhat the worse for wear from sampling one of our supporter’s efforts at home brew – I still managed to make an 11am tutorial the next morning.” The episode was broadcast shortly after the famous University Challenge episode of The Young Ones featuring teams from ‘Footlights College’ and ‘Scumbag College’. Robert Calcraft suggests that, “I think in spirit we were more akin to Scumbag College.” 1984, courtesy of Paul Burke
Simon Walker (1983), Robert Calcraft (1983), Paul Burke (1981) and Alan Wills (1982) 11
Cross Keys / June 2015
Interview with Paul Geddes (1987), CEO of Direct Line Group Paul Geddes (1987-1990) read PPE at St Peter’s during what he refers to as “golden years” at the College. Tom McKeown and Natasha Denness met up with the CEO of Direct Line Group to talk about life in College and how it set him up for the business world. Why did you choose St Peter’s? I came to Oxford a bit late because I was minded to go and do Economics at Cambridge, but I thought that was a bit narrow when I dug into it. So I came to Oxford and I phoned around all the colleges – the secretary at St Peter’s was particularly nice and said I should come and see Dr Kenyon, who was the philosophy tutor. I fixed it up to come and see him, and I didn’t think to even consider any other college because he and I got on very well. He was magnetic – a very energetic, interesting, thoughtful man – so I was set on the College, on Oxford and on PPE having met him. You’re a keen violinist. Why did you choose not to go down the music route? I went to the Junior Royal College of Music every Saturday, and by then you know you’re not going to be a performer unless at 14 you decide to do it full-time. It’s a tough profession and I think I was probably good enough to go, but not necessarily good enough to thrive. At 14 or 15 I’d have had to double down on my bets, and also for me academic music wasn’t as much fun as playing. As a subject I found PPE really interesting. I was still able to do some fantastic playing with various college and university orchestras throughout my three years at St Peter’s. 12
What stands out among your memories of your time at SPC? St Peter’s gave me the chance to be quite entrepreneurial. I founded and set up an orchestra and they allowed me to use the chapel. I started to do quite popular programming, so we did stuff like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I marketed it quite well, and I remember there was a disco at the JCR that night and there was a long queue down New Inn Hall Street and it turned out it was for my concert! We actually outgrew the chapel and started to use the university church. That’s the moment I became a marketeer, really. They were also really flexible when I ran the Oxbridge Careers Handbook. They let me use the computer room and I did just one topic that term so I could free up a few days a week selling advertising space to big companies. I think if I had that entrepreneurial spirit, it was really fostered then. We sold over £60,000 of advertising so it was quite a professional sales operation. It felt like a start-up and was a really exciting time – I have very happy memories of listening to the dawn chorus as I returned to Winchester Road from College after very late nights/early mornings. Are you still an active musician? Yes, absolutely. I did a recital on the violin in October and I’m taking lessons at the Royal College now, just to keep up. Apart from your musical and marketing endeavours, did you enjoy any other extra-curricular pursuits? It’s perhaps not particularly exciting, but I did play croquet at the College. That was my only sport! I was quite good but the College didn’t have the best pitch – it was the one with the tree in by the
social sciences faculty library, so that was pretty bad. We had to go and play the likes of Keble at Cuppers, and we were a bit embarrassed when we had to bring them home to ours! Tell us a bit about your current role at Direct Line Group. I’ve been with them for six years and we’ve been on the stock market as our own company for three years now. I’ve always been a bit of a generalist – PPE is quite a generalist thing – I’ve always liked the science and the arts sides, the creative and the business sides. Being a CEO is a real jack-of-all-trades job; you have to cover a lot of things, which really suits me. There’s a massive amount of variety. For someone who’s creative I’m quite numerate, and vice-versa – there are people better than me at both things, but it suits a CEO because it’s a broad job which is a good fit for my skills. Every day is completely different. What aspects of studying at Oxford and St Peter’s do you think still help you now in your career? The tutorial system was very helpful in terms of being able to marshal an argument and defend it. You use that all the time in business, you have to really unpick the facts and opinions. In the tutorial system your argument has to stand up to scrutiny. There’s the extra-curricular stuff which I got a chance to do, probably more at St Peter’s than most colleges would have allowed me to do. That gave me a great head start in the world of business. You don’t realise how much opportunity you get, particularly when I was there. 1987-90 were probably golden years, when lots of businesses and companies were interested in working with Oxford students, so it was a very good time to develop some basic business skills. When you manage to get some spare time, what do you do? I’ve got 15 and 16-year-old daughters so that takes up a fair amount of time. As a family, we really enjoy travel and do a lot with them. We’ve been to Vietnam, Malaysia, Africa, South America – we’ve done lots of places and that’s my real indulgence, my luxury. We also love to get onto the Wiltshire Downs at the weekend for long walks with our dog and to blow away the cobwebs before getting to a nice pub for lunch. What do you make of SPC in 2015? I’m very proud of the College and what it’s done – it’s higher up the
Norrington Table than it was in my day (which benefits all the alumni!) but still seems to be a place where people have fun and the freedom to pursue their passions. The Master is doing a fantastic job of making it a relevant college in a changing world. The links with the media and business worlds are brilliant opportunities for undergraduates. What advice would you give new and current students? For me, breadth is really important. In academia you can get narrowed down, but in business you need to be as broad as possible. If you don’t get that in your subject you can get it from an extra-curricular point of view, so I’d encourage people to take as many opportunities as possible; particularly ones which you might take advantage of at St Peter’s but are actually pretty uncommon. I think it will make you stand out from other graduates. The world of work is changing so quickly. The skills which matter whatever you do are getting on with other people, showing you can lead, and showing you can communicate well. I’d also encourage people to stay as numerate as they can for as long as possible, because in today’s commercial world that’s a common currency. While people should have as much fun as possible, you should make the most of the opportunities you have at university because they will differentiate you. The term “unique selling point” is a well-used phrase in business. What do you think St Peter’s is? You’ve got the best of Oxford – you’re right in the centre of it and you have access to all the University’s resources, but at St Peter’s you get it without the stuffiness and with an outward and future perspective!
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Cross Keys / June 2015
JCR Report Luke Miller, JCR President One thing that you are guaranteed as a student at St Peter’s is that you will always be busy. Every year the JCR’s role is to fill up undergraduates’ timetables with events and opportunities that people will see as a welcome alternative to the merry-goround of essays we are all trying to get through. This year has been no different and it has been really exciting to be President of the JCR throughout. Sport remains a huge part of College life and this year we have tried to get as many members of the JCR involved as possible. The rowing teams have once again impressed, with the women’s boat doing particularly well in Hilary Term’s Torpids Regatta. A picture quickly went viral in the Oxford area of the men’s boat suffering from a particularly heavy bump, but the team have been quick to assure people that it was simply because they were going too fast rather than too slow. Both the men’s and women’s football teams had another successful year, while
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the men’s rugby team had a huge victory to take them into the University’s First Division. We are not just about the traditional British sports at St Peter’s. The mixed ice hockey team has blossomed this year, reaching the quarterfinals of the University cup. For those who fancy a bit more brain over brawn, a College bridge society was formed this year, with several members of the JCR making it onto the Varsity team. Our Charities Rep, Oli Dinwoodie, has been incredibly successful in raising money for this year’s two chosen organisations – ActionAid and Oxfordshire Mind – with another infamous naked calendar and charity jumpers that are so popular they make it look like the College has its own uniform. Hanna Paasivirta, the JCR’s International Rep, organised a delicious dumpling-making workshop for the Chinese New Year, bringing a bit of culture to a JCR kitchen that rarely has anything other than pasta and pesto on
the go. I wish I had the space to mention all the members of the 2014/15 JCR Committee who have all contributed to events such as fortnightly bops and a JCR ‘beach party’, volunteered for the College’s impressive outreach projects or been a part of the vital welfare team, so important to a range of students. Next, we begin the handover process to the 2015/16 committee; their first task will be welcoming a fresh batch of students in October. One regular piece of feedback the JCR committees get from Freshers’ Week is that it was great, but overwhelming. Unfortunately, being overwhelmed is a state of mind that is unavoidable in a place like Oxford. If we all tried to attend every seminar, dinner, drinks, speech and party advertised, we would quickly forget that we had a degree to complete on top of it all. Part of the challenge of this university is being able to juggle everything it has to offer – ultimately, this is an impossible task, but that is exactly what makes the experience here so amazing.
MCR Report Zoe Fletcher, MCR President In recent years, the MCR has continued to grow in size and enthusiasm to form what is now an exciting and bustling community. Made up of students from all four corners of the globe, studying everything from public policy to quantum physics, the MCR forms the backbone of both academic and social graduate life in College. This year is no different, and October saw the arrival of almost a hundred new graduate students who have since immersed themselves in College life. Beginning with a two-week welcome period consisting of enough pizza to feed several armies, movie nights, tours of the town, cocktails aplenty and ending with the infamous St Peter’s bop, new students were quickly initiated into life as a Graduate Peterite. Things didn’t slow down after that either, and each week brings with it exciting new Exchange Dinners, Casual Wednesdays, Welfare Walks around Port Meadow and fundraising events aimed at the two charities that the MCR has chosen to support this year: Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and Ash-Sham CARE. We also continue to host one Guest Night per term in which members can bring family or friends to see for themselves just how great St Peter’s MCR really is. They are wined and dined before attending our MCR bop – a night of letting loose and crazy uncoordinated dancing, the perfect way to de-stress! The Common Room itself is undergoing a makeover, with new furniture, photographs and artwork, making it an increasingly homely and relaxing space for members to enjoy. The number of graduate students using the MCR this year has increased, and every day the common room is filled with members reading newspapers, typing furiously or enjoying a Super Mario Kart battle on the Wii, fuelled by round-the-clock free tea and coffee. As well as providing a space to socialise, relax with a cup of tea and enjoy some well-earned downtime, the MCR also exists to provide a supportive academic community. There are currently two Graduate Seminars per term organised by the MCR, in which members are invited to give short talks about their research, followed by a short question and answer session. These events prove
an excellent opportunity for researchers to present their findings in a supportive environment, thereby gaining confidence and constructive feedback from their peers. For those who attend, the Graduate Seminars are the perfect chance to broaden academic horizons – whilst enjoying free nibbles and wine. In the hope of fostering an academic community, participants and audience members are encouraged to attend Formal Hall together after the Seminars. This is the perfect opportunity to carry on conversations and discuss the multitude of different fields of study. Trinity Term is just around the corner, and with it will come a whole
host of summer events, and the next generation of the MCR Committee. Put simply, St Peter’s MCR is an active group of postgraduates, fourth years and visiting students, filled to the brim with eclectic and interesting people with a whole variety of different interests and experiences to share. Being a part of this community has been one of the most memorable and important aspects of my time here, and I think that having such a thriving and active MCR puts St Peter’s a cut above the rest when it comes to graduate study at Oxford. I’m very excited to see how this community continues to grow and thrive over the coming years.
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Cross Keys / June 2015
EVENTS
Gaudy 2000 - 2004
During 2014 the Development Office organised 45 events for alumni. Events ranged from Gaudies to subject dinners, and from large talks in the Chapel to small seminars in the Dorfman Centre. We have enjoyed talks from Neil MacGregor, Andrew Marr and Stephanie Flanders to name a few, and welcomed the classes of 2000-2004 and 1970-1974 to their Gaudies. In addition to this the Howard Society Lunch enjoyed the company of our student telethon callers and we hope they will join us for the lunch again this year. Away from New Inn Hall Street, we have met alumni at events in London, York, Cambridge, Liverpool, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Toronto, Washington DC, New York, San Francisco and Cape Town. All of these events were made possible through the help of our alumni volunteers. We hope there has been something to interest everyone and we are looking forward to welcoming many of you to events over the coming year. If you have any event ideas or would like to help run an alumni gathering in your area please contact Natasha Denness (natasha. denness@spc.ox.ac.uk). Up-to-date event information can be found on our website: www.spc.ox.ac.uk
Oxmas Drinks in London
The Master and Sarah Jones, General Counsel, BBC
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Stephanie Flanders, Former BBC Economic Editor
Libby Lane (1986), Bishop of Stockport
Andrew Marr, Broadcaster and Journalist
General Election Forum with Martin Ivens (1977), Editor of The Sunday Times; Ben Wright (1996), BBC Political Editor; The Master; Helen Lewis (2001), Deputy Editor of New Statesman
Neil MacGregor, Director of The British Museum
Fran Lambrick (2008), Documentary Maker
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Cross Keys / June 2015
Gaudy 1970 - 1974
Telethon callers at the Howard Society Lunch 18
St peteR’S CoLLeGe CAReeRS SoCIety emma Buchy-Dury, Careers Society president
The Careers Society, formerly known as the Business Club, is still taking shape at St Peter’s. The inaugural committee reached out to an incredible variety of alumni last year, with a few coming back to give talks, host CV clinics and offer their services as mentors. It was truly heart-warming to see so many alumni offering to lend a helping hand to current Peterites, and this has even lead to internship positions being filled in Berlin and Geneva. A huge thank you to those who have volunteered their time, including Harjeev Kandhari (1993), whose firm Zenesis has sponsored the society to date, and, alongside EY, really allowed us to lift off the ground. As the new Co-Presidents, Will Durbin and I are excited to take the society in a unique direction for the next year. We
hosted some really successful dinners in College with alumni from JP Morgan and EY, and now we are looking to expand this format. Our aim for the society is to continue forming a bridge between current students and alumni through our mentoring scheme. Therefore, we would like to invite alumni to come and have dinner at St Peter’s with current students. We have previously found that this has been a perfect way for students to get to know about career options in an informal and relaxed atmosphere. What sets ours apart from the usual recruitment dinners is that we don’t just want to hold firm dinners (though this is also very welcome) – we want to invite alumni from all walks of life and host them at themed dinners; themes might include journalism, international
development, financial services or law. Furthermore, we want to keep things as intimate as possible. This means inviting maybe five or six alumni and no more than 20 students at a time, so that both alumni and students can benefit. At present we are thinking of holding these dinners during Formal Hall, so that alumni have the fun of reliving their student days in Hall. If you would like to contribute to building the bridge with us we would love to hear from you. Contact Emma at emma.buchy-dury@spc.ox.ac.uk and/ or Will at william.durbin@spc.ox.ac.uk In the meantime, do check out our website at www.spc.ox.ac.uk/collegelife/careers-society to see the recent event reports detailing what has already occurred in just one year! 19
Cross Keys / June 2015
RoCKInG tHe AGeS A CoLLABoRAtIon BetWeen pRoFeSSoR ABIGAIL WILLIAMS AnD SARAH MItCHeLL (2003), GLoBAL CRM MAnAGeR oF Jo MALone LonDon 20
Sarah Mitchell (2003) Global Customer Relations Manager, Jo Malone London Every March Jo Malone London launches a collection of limited-life fragrances that celebrates the British heritage of the brand. In the past the inspiration has come from English garden flowers, British desserts and even the scent of rain at different times of day. For our collection of fragrances for March 2015 we wanted to delve into some of the defining eras of British history as our starting point. It can take around 18 months to bring a new launch to market, from the concept and development of the fragrance to the creative visualisation and the marketing support assets. Whilst our product development team had undertaken a lot of research into the five selected periods of British history as part of the fragrance creation process, it was in March 2014, when we started to plan the marketing support for the launch, that our international team realised they would benefit from a crash course in British history. After an initial team visit to the Georgian exhibition at the British Library, we discussed who we could ask to provide some more colour and context to the periods we were looking at, and that’s when I suggested reaching out to Abby. Since graduating in 2006 we had kept in touch through the occasional St Peter’s event and dinner, and I knew from my undergraduate degree that Abby would be an amazing source of just the kind of anecdotal historical context that we were looking for. Thankfully she was up for the challenge, and we set up a history lesson for our global marketing team. Abby was an instant hit, and we had so much wonderful feedback from my colleagues about how inspiring and interesting it had all been. The meeting was also a great introduction for Abby to the wider team and as a result the PR department were quick to recruit her for the global press launch, and the UK marketing team for one of their customer launch events. It was quite a surreal experience, combining my professional world with the tutorial atmosphere of my university experience from nearly ten years ago, and it is one I will not forget. This has been one of my favourite fragrance launches to work on, as it has been such a fun experience combining my academic passion with the imaginative and pioneering vision of the brand that I love being part of.
Professor Abigail Williams, Lord White Fellow and Tutor in English; Professor of English Literature When Sarah first asked me to talk to her colleagues about the five historical eras of the fragrances, I immediately stuttered, ‘but it’s not my period…’, a line that every academic retreats to when faced with a world outside their own expertise. But once I started making my PowerPoint slides, I realised that my job wasn’t to instil a detailed knowledge of the politics of the Wars of the Roses or the industrial revolution, but to tie the components of the fragrances into ideas and images. So I talked about the way the spicy notes in the Tudor Rose & Amber fragrance linked in with the early modern luxury trade in new world goods, and the role of the pomander. Then, zooming through to Georgian Britain (nearly my period) I linked the fresh green notes of the ivy in Lily of the Valley & Ivy with the embrace of the natural landscape and Capability Brown. In the 19th and 20th century I enthused over Mrs Beaton and Victorian fruit puddings, hothouses and Kew Gardens (Pomegranate Noir) and in the Edwardian Age, the rise of the herbaceous border and the make-up compact (Geranium & Verbena). As I pieced together the images and key points of my mini history of Britain, I became much more aware of the cyclical aesthetic patterns within our history, of movements towards the exotic and the opulent in the Tudor and Victorian periods, and the embrace of airy lightness in Georgian and Edwardian homes and fashions.
What really struck me, both presenting to the Jo Malone London team, and in my interviews and conversations with beauty journalists, was how powerful storytelling can be as a way of conveying a whole bundle of complex ideas and associations. I am sure I covered more ground more effectively in some of those ten minute interviews than I have done in hourlong lectures. I was amazed at how interested people are in hearing about other worlds – both the journalists I met and the consumers had a real appetite for knowledge. Occasionally this was a challenge to my slightly sketchy periodisation – I definitely fudged the question of what Victorian housewives did with their rented pineapples, or whether Elizabeth I actually had pearls sewn into her hair. My foray into fragrance, branding and the history of smells with Jo Malone London was one of the most interesting and extraordinary things I have done as an academic. I learnt quite a lot about the business of fragrance – about blotters (the paper sticks you spray perfume on), the rise of oud, layering and combining, regional fragrance trends and the Iberian passion for citrus. But I also learnt skills that will help me in my world, about how to turn dry historical facts into stories, and to create narratives that can convey the past whilst evoking some of its colour, complexity and quirkiness. 21
Cross Keys / June 2015
Cosmology to Collider Physics via Twistor Theory Professor Lionel Mason
Lionel Mason is a Tutorial Fellow and Professor in Mathematics. His research interests lie in mathematical physics, focusing mostly on general relativity and quantum theory. Even the most inquisitive child is unlikely to ask, “Where do space and time come from?” or “What are space and time made of?” Indeed, until the 19th century, mathematicians believed that Euclidean geometry was not a physical model of the universe we see, but was rather forced upon us by the axioms of mathematics. But then, through his theory of special relativity, Einstein showed that space and time cannot be considered separately. With general relativity, he demonstrated that gravity has a special status amongst
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the physical forces: the geometry of space-time is dynamic, and gravity arises as it interacts with matter. We now understand the geometry of space and time to be a potentially turbulent phenomenon. This holds true particularly inside the black holes that sit at the heart of every galaxy, and near the `big bang’ at the beginning of the universe. In such situations, the laws of quantum mechanics are thought to become dominant, and the geometry of space-time becomes subject to quantum fluctuations and uncertainty, ie, fuzzy. Such fuzziness can make sense for ordinary particles on a fixed background geometry, but, should that background itself become fuzzy and chaotic, it is difficult to
even conceive of how to model it. This difficulty would be resolved if spacetime were to be emergent, ie, if it were to arise from some more fundamental geometry. Roger Penrose introduced twistor theory in 1967 as a candidate for such a more primitive underlying geometry that has the absolute fixed nature of Euclidean geometry and from which physical space-time could be understood as emerging, even with the uncertainty and fluctuations required in quantum processes in black holes and the early universe. A twistor is an abstraction of a light ray that incorporates its spin (see opposite figure). The space of twistors has a mathematical structure that is more primitive than that of space-time. There is no measure of distance, but the degrees of freedom are given by three complex numbers. Such numbers include combinations involving the square root of -1 and are just the kind of numbers that are used to describe physical states in quantum mechanics. The complex numbers also encode the space-time geometry. An event can be expressed in terms of light rays as the sphere of such rays that can be seen at that event, ie, the celestial sphere of the night sky when one views light from the stars. These spheres are precisely characterised as those in twistor space as those that can be represented algebraically in terms of the complex numbers and that wrap around twistor space just once. Most developments since 1967 have focused on formulating standard space-time physics on twistor space. There were some early successes for particle wave function descriptions, even incorporating certain ‘righthanded’ interactions in a beautiful geometric way by deforming the complex numbers in the underlying definition of a twistor space. Obtaining the remaining interactions was an obstacle for a quarter of a century and became known as “the googly problem.” A googly is a cricketing term for a ball
bowled by a right-handed bowler who has surreptitiously given a left-handed spin to the ball. Such left-handed interactions were finally understood in twistor space in 2003 by Ed Witten, the famous mathematical physicist and one of the pioneers of string theory. Twistor theory had been presented as an alternative to string theory, but in 2003, Witten showed that one could naturally think of the spheres in twistor space that correspond to events in space-time as the trajectories of strings in twistor space (as opposed to space-time where they usually reside). If one then seeks to think of these string trajectories as being subject to the laws of quantum mechanics, one must consider all such trajectories, not just those corresponding to space-time events (or points). There are many such spheres, including those that wrap around twistor space more than once. By including the other trajectories, Witten was able to obtain the full interactions, both left-handed and right-handed. His theory contained many of the ingredients of standard physics, including both gravity and elementary particle forces. It was the first clear evidence that standard fully interacting physical theories could be reformulated elegantly on twistor space. However, after the original excitement, there was a certain schadenfreude in the (non-twistor) physics community because this twistor-string led to an unworkable theory because it produced unwanted ‘ghosts’ particles of negative probability. Nevertheless, since 2004, much research has followed on from these developments. An important consequence was the discovery of many unexpected mathematical structures in scattering amplitudes. Scattering amplitudes are what one must compute in quantum field theory to find the probabilities of particle collisions in colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Historically, this research has been the preserve of those with large computers to calculate the huge numbers of Feynman diagrams that contribute; it does not take long before there are more diagrams than there are neurons in a physicist’s brain. However, many of the twistor-inspired methods display such complicated sums as simple formulae on twistor space that can often be written on one line. In the last ten years, these developments have resulted in a number of distinct twistor-related formulations of amplitudes. In the last decade, much of my work has focused on the twistor geometry of
scattering amplitudes in collaboration with David Skinner (now at Cambridge) and a number of former and current research students. Our work has been boosted particularly by interaction with groups in the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, led by Nima ArkaniHamed, and at the Perimeter Institute of Canada, led by Freddy Cachazo. The research has had many facets that are quite distinct from Witten’s original twistor-string idea. One breakthrough came in 2010, with the extension and proof of conjectures from conventional string theory that had not been accessible on spacetime. David Skinner and I showed that certain amplitudes could be calculated as invariants of polygonal knots defined over complex numbers in twistor space. Another quite distinct advance was an integral formula for all amplitudes defined over a Grassmannian, a favourite space of algebraic geometers. A third remarkable idea, formulated by my Oxford colleague Andrew Hodges, was the observation that amplitudes can be expressed as volumes of certain polyhedra in twistor spaces. This has been picked up by a group in the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton and extended as the ‘Amplituhedron’ that lives in an extended twistor space and whose geometry encodes the scattering of all particles.
Most recently the twistor-string vision of Ed Witten has been revived in a new more general form that now leads to physically viable models that no longer include ghosts. During the last two years, the scope of the original twistor-string theories has been vastly extended, at the level of formulae by Freddy Cachazo’s group at Perimeter, and by the groups around myself and David Skinner at the levels of the underlying physical theories and their twistor geometry. In this last term’s sabbatical, we succeeded in constructing models that contain both Einstein’s theory of gravity and the gauge theories that underlie modern particle physics in many dimensions (including our own), amongst other theories. For most of my career working with twistors, I have felt as if we have been slowly trying to carve wheels out of hard stone whilst colleagues less wedded to twistor ideas have been scooting around on noisy mopeds. It is now beginning to seem possible that one day we might have a smooth limousine in which to glide past. I find it difficult now to believe that such beautiful mathematical structures could be arising in such detailed studies of these amplitudes without there being some very deep contact between twistors and the underlying physics of the universe. 23
Cross Keys / June 2015
Sports Report Andrew Thomas, Director of Development and Alumni Relations
The rugby team win the 2015 University Bowl
There is a notion that you can’t enjoy academic excellence and sporting prowess in tandem. During my time in Oxford, I have certainly come across several individuals who dispel that, including the likes of Jamie Dalrymple (cricket) and Karl Hudspith (rowing). So, as St Peter’s makes steady progress in the Norrington table – well above relegation but not quite yet challenging for a European place – it would be terrific if we could also enjoy widespread and sustained sporting success on a collective basis. To have our cake and eat it too, perhaps, if that isn’t the wrong phrase to use in connection with desired athleticism! We have enjoyed some terrific outcomes in team sports. After many years of not managing to string back-toback victories of any sort, the men’s 1st XI football team won promotion to the 2nd Division and their impressive run of results culminated in a 1-0 win over Somerville in March 2015. And congratulations to the rugby team who won the University Bowl, our first silverware since 2006, beating Pembroke 78-10 in the final. The timing of Cross Keys magazine in 2014 meant that we just missed the ability to cover what has been described as the College’s best ever week on the river. Summer Eights 2014 saw the men’s 1st boat win blades, as did the women’s 24
2nd boat and the women’s 1st crew only just missed theirs. For the men, this was the first time they had use of their new boat, named after Francis King (1966). Thank you to all the alumni who donated towards this – your impact was immediate! Before moving away from rowing, it is important to mention two people who have been involved in University-level rowing. Firstly, Sooraj Mahesh (2013 Medicine) who, despite being a novice rower on arrival in Oxford, won a place in the Men’s Lightweight crew that narrowly lost to Cambridge in April 2015.
Lightweight rowers are required to fund their own costs, which can be as much as £2,000 per annum. I am delighted to report that the College was able to make a substantial grant to Sooraj so that he could continue his rowing odyssey – again only possible because of the generosity of alumni. April 2015 also saw the first ever Women’s Boat Race over the same course and on the same day as the Men’s race. This historic moment involved a St Peter’s alumna. Judith Packer (1983 Engineering) was selected as the Assistant Umpire and we hope that in future years her dedication and expertise will be rewarded with a role as Umpire for either the women’s or men’s races. In more water-borne news, our admiration must go to Millie Marsden (2012 Biological Sciences) who overcame jellyfish stings and sea-sickness as she swam in the 2014 Varsity Cross-Channel Relay team that drew with Cambridge. Both teams reached the French coast within two minutes of each other and according to the rules anything less than five minutes is declared a draw! SPC alumni with key roles in sports administration now include Chris Guyver (History 1981). Earlier this year he was elected to the Main Committee of the MCC, largely on the basis of the innercity, grassroots perspective that he has brought to the running of the game of cricket. We wish him well in his new role. Chris was a founder member of our alumni cricket team in the 1980s that played under the inspired name of Petrified CC. Reputedly there is/was an official tie and the Honorary President was none other than Professor Henry Mayr-Harting. It has been enjoyable to
Alfredo Jollon (1992) left with the New York Cosmos team wearing his St Peter’s shirt
connect Chris with the current captain of our alumni cricket team. I sense there is more we could do as a co-ordinated force across all the other sports where we have Old Boys teams or annual fixtures – football, golf, rugby and rowing. We would love to find the right format and structure – perhaps an umbrella ‘SPC Sports Club’ – so that alumni can better access playing, touring and social opportunities. We also need to find ways that our growing number of female sporting alumni can connect and create a similar sense of community. Do get in touch if you have any thoughts, ideas or memories. It would also be terrific if we can enable alumni to help fund or embellish the current sports programme for students. One idea we have had is to make our current Nike football shirt available to alumni so that they can continue to demonstrate their loyalty on the five-a-side pitches, tennis courts and running routes of the world. In return for a minimum £50 donation to sport at St Peter’s, we will be delighted to send you one. Simply get in touch with the Development Office and let us know your size. Kudos to Alfredo Jollon (1992) who managed to get in a photo with the New York Cosmos team wearing his St Peter’s shirt!
Millie Marsden (2012) swimming the English Channel
And finally to my sporting moment of the year. It definitely wasn’t the Master’s victory over Karl Hudspith at High Table Tennis – this now annual feature at the end of our Sports Formal Hall enabled him to save some face after his trouncing at the hands of Jamie Dalrymple in 2014. Instead, it must go jointly to the
St Peter’s team that won the 2015 InterCollegiate Golf Tournament for the first time in our history in April 2015 and Zandy Macdonald (2013) whose try and all-round performance in the 2014 Varsity Rugby Match was something for all of us to be proud of and to use as inspiration for forthcoming endeavours.
The men’s 1st XI football team win promotion to the 2nd division 25
Cross Keys / June 2015
Keeping in Touch
Staying Connected Hear our news Keep us up-to-date with all your contact details and receive: • Termly e-newsletters • Cross Keys • The College Record Attend an event Meet St Peter’s alumni in Oxford and around the world via our regional networks. Please visit the St Peter’s website for event information. You can also subscribe to the event feed. Connect through social networks The social media sites are not only used to share news, events and photographs, they are also a great way for alumni to link up. As the audiences grow we hope we can develop a place where members can connect with others from their cohort, in their region or field of employment, and so on. You will find us on: • Facebook • Twitter
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Global Networks
Year Group Representatives
St Peter’s has networks all over the world through which alumni meet and share stories about their time in Oxford. Alumni gatherings have fostered business networking, new friendships and general help and support. They are a valuable way to continue to benefit from your membership of St Peter’s. Our committed and engaged body of alumni volunteers help us to keep alumni in their area connected. During 2014/15 they have assisted in the organisation of events in London, York, Cambridge, Liverpool, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Toronto, Washington DC, New York, San Francisco and Cape Town. We are very grateful for the work they do. If you would like to put your part of the world on the St Peter’s map and become a Regional Representative for your area, please contact Natasha Denness for further details.
To promote strong ties within cohorts we are currently recruiting Year Group Representatives. This will enable us to organise special year group activities in addition to the regular Gaudies. If you are interested in joining this body of volunteers please contact Natasha Denness.
• LinkedIn • YouTube • Flickr • Instagram Don’t forget to visit the St Peter’s College website and blog: www.spc.ox.ac.uk
SPC 10 SPC 10 is our alumni event programme for those who matriculated within the last 10 years. We aim to hold one event per calendar year and invitations are sent by email, so please keep us up-todate with your contact details.
SHARE your stories If you have any news, from changing jobs to having children, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.
The Development Team Andrew Thomas, Director of Development and Alumni Relations andrew.thomas@spc.ox.ac.uk Andrew heads up the fundraising and alumni relations for the College, working with the Master on a range of projects to ensure that St Peter’s is in good financial health and that alumni feel a real sense of connection. He arrived in the role in 2012 having spent four years spearheading fundraising for sport at the University of Oxford. Andrew’s career has been mainly in the sports sector, including The Lawn Tennis Association, and so he is very keen to see the green and gold army succeed wherever possible!
Olga Batty, Donor Relations Officer olga.batty@spc.ox.ac.uk Olga is responsible for donor relations activities such as gift administration and implementation, recognition and reporting. She also manages donor related events. Originally from the south of Russia, Olga joined St Peter’s in October 2013 having previously worked in financial administration for AXA Insurance. Olga has a degree in Modern Languages and Translation. She has a passion for Latin American music and her ambition is to run a marathon before 2017.
Tammi Salcedo, Development and Alumni Relations Coordinator Tammi.salcedo@spc.ox.ac.uk Tammi joined St Peter’s in January from Said Business School, where she held a similar role in its Development Office. Here at St Peter’s she provides administrative support to the office, assisting with fundraising and events, and controlling the office finances. Tammi has always loved interior design and is pursuing a postgraduate diploma at the British Academy of Interior Design in London. Originally from the Philippines, she lived in China and Denmark before coming to the UK.
Natasha Denness, Alumni Relations Manager natasha.denness@spc.ox.ac.uk Natasha oversees all alumni communications including the e-newsletter, Cross Keys and the social media sites. She also manages the event programme (which consisted of 45 events during 2014), the Howard Society, and our alumni networks and volunteers. Before joining St Peter’s in 2008, Natasha worked for 15 years in senior management at Modern Art Oxford, Selfridges and Agnes b. She has an honours degree in Fine Art and History of Art, and in her spare time writes a lifestyle and photography blog. Louise Strano-Cashin, Development Officer louise.strano-cashin@spc.ox.ac.uk Louise joined the team in June 2013 and is responsible for the Regular Giving programme, managing the usage of our database and the administration of all philanthropic donations. In addition, Louise works closely with the student societies and alumni who wish to provide mentoring to students. Prior to working in Development, Louise spent seven years working in the social services sector before moving to the UK from the US in 2012. When she is not at St Peter’s she takes part in a range of sports, including yoga.
Clockwise from back left: Andrew Thomas, Natasha Denness, Olga Batty, Tammi Salcedo and Louise Strano-Cashin
Further information:
development.office@spc.ox.ac.uk 01865 614985 27
Cross Keys / June 2015
Event Listing 2015 Friday 18 – Sunday 20 September University of Oxford Alumni Weekend 2015 Thursday 17 September, 6.00pm 50th Anniversary for the Class of 1965 Saturday 19 September, 6.00pm Gaudy 1985-1989 Sunday 20 September, 11.30am Howard Society Lunch Wednesday 21 October, 6.00pm Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England Thursday 10 December Varsity Match 2016 Saturday 19 March Gaudy 2005-2009 Friday 8 – Saturday 9 April Alumni Weekend in North America Friday 16 - Sunday 18 September University of Oxford Alumni Weekend 2016 Saturday 17 September, 6.00pm Gaudy 1975-1979 Sunday 18 September, 11.30am Howard Society Lunch Please contact the Development Office if you would like to attend any of the events. For further details of all our events please visit the website: www.spc.ox.ac.uk
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