2018: the year ahead for the alumni team
In a nutshell
2018 is set to be an exciting year for the Chevening Alumni team. We’ve recently launched our Chevening Connect education campaign which aims to familiarise our alumni with the extensive features on the Chevening Connect platform; we’re hosting our first ever exclusive alumni event in London in the spring; and in the summer we are excited to welcome our 50,000th Chevening Alumnus or Alumna to the community, which incidentally coincides with Chevening’s 35th anniversary!
In more detail…
The Chevening Connect education campaign
We’ve had Chevening Connect, our online networking platform, since September 2015, and it has been a pleasure to connect with our alumni in a closed network and create the space for them to build mentoring, professional and personal relationships with one another.
We are aiming to increase the use of Chevening Connect amongst alumni as well as raise awareness of all of the functions available on the platform. The Chevening Connect education campaign aims to boost engagement with the platform throughout 2018. This January the campaign focused on Chevening Connections, a project which involved listening to alumni about the heart-warming, interesting, and useful relationships and opportunities they had gained through Chevening Connect.
We had some delightful responses, including one from a Brazilian alumnus who is about to move to Canada. He preceded his journey by contacting Chevening Alumni in Canada, who will welcome him to the country and provide him with support, company, and opportunities whilst he is there.
Soon we aim to roll out our Chevening Champions campaign where we will choose a few of the most active Chevening Connect users to become the platform’s ambassadors.
The March 2018 alumni event
As we move into spring, we will hold an exclusive alumni event in March to reconnect UK-based scholars with each other. This event, held in the City of London, will be an evening of networking, collaboration and enjoyment.
We hope that future ideas for collaborative projects and engagement campaigns will emerge from this event as alumni become better acquainted with our team and with each other.
Whilst the majority of our alumni engagement is achieved via technology due to the global scale of our alumni base, face-to-face interaction, like this event, will enable richer relationships to emerge, strengthening our connection with alumni.
Our 50,000th alumni
Summer 2018 is going to be an exciting moment for the alumni team as our network grows to over 50,000. Our 50,000th alumnus or alumna is going to arrive in the network with a burst of celebration. We hope to celebrate the diverse and impressive network that we have become. As our team welcomes the 50,000th member of the network, all of Chevening celebrates our 35th anniversary. These two events are going to be fantastic opportunities for alumni engagement – celebrating how Chevening has evolved over the years and how the amazing people who are involved in Chevening have contributed to its success.