Launch of the University of Adelaide Alumni Sydney Network

On the evening of Wednesday the 16th November the Sydney Network of the University of Adelaide Alumni Association hosted a launch event at the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney. The Museum was an exceptional venue for the meeting with an interesting collection of archaeological displays that provided fascinating talking points, along with the Socceroos chances that night.

Mr Anthony Roediger from the Sydney Network spoke about the Networks aims and welcomed everyone to participate in future events. Mr Michael Llewelyn-Smith, Chair, Alumni Association presented the Network with a gift and officially launched the Network.

The theme of the evening was South Australian wines with guest speaker Ms Toni Paterson, who graduated with a Master of Oenology from the University of Adelaide and was awarded with the prestigious Madame Lily Bollinger Medal for wine tasting. Toni provided an animated and very entertaining presentation on South Australian wines and local New South Wales wines.

The Sydney Network would like to acknowledge the following for their generous sponsorship of this event: Yalumba, Shaw and Smith, Jim Barry, Beremerton, Coriale, d’Arenberg, Coopers, Vili’s and the South Australian Department of Trade and Economic Development.

All in all a great night and a good start to the Sydney network after several months of organising by the local committee. If you reside in Sydney or will be travelling to Sydney the Network invites you to attend one of their future events.

Aims

To provide social and professional-business opportunities to connect the community of Adelaide University graduates in Sydney

• Allow alumni to maintain a connection with the University and contribute to its development in some way.
• Provide some sort of introduction to Sydney for 'newly arriving' alumni.
• Connect alumni with opportunities in South Australia, both at the University and wider community/business level.
• Provide the University with a network of 'friends' in Sydney that it might communicate with or leverage.

The initial focus will be;

• surveying via email the alumni that are known, to gauge interest in such a network or network
• building the database of alumni in Sydney
• an initial broadly-targeted and social 'launch' event in early November (which may become an annual occurrence)
• leading to a few smaller events next year (2006) - that may be more narrowly focused on topics of interest or industry groups

While the university and the SA government might be able to support particular events, and the university can support the network in terms of standard alumni communications, database-maintenance, and basic website support, essentially the network would need to run off the efforts of volunteers and cost-recovery on any events.

For further information please contact the Convenors of the Network by email:sydney_alumni@adelaide.edu.au