Wycombe Abbey Seniors

Wycombe Abbey Seniors

The Seniors' Association has, until now, been a completely separate organisation to the School and has been ably administered outside Wycombe Abbey by a succession of General Secretaries and Treasurers, supported by the members of the Association's committees. The School has become aware that nowadays Seniors expect different things from a former pupils' association and this, added to recent developments in charity law, necessitated a restructuring. Therefore, after a great deal of discussion with the Seniors' Association over several years, the administration of the Seniors has moved into School with the intention to offer Wycombe Abbey Seniors a similar service to that offered by other leading public schools.

A new Seniors' Co-ordinator, Stephanie Trott, is working from School under the direction of Barbara Armitage, Director of Development and Alumnae Relations; Barbara and Stephanie will meet regularly with a Seniors' Consultative Committee which initially will be mostly composed of the current members of the WASS Executive and Advisory Committees.

The School is delighted that Seniors will now have a direct connection to School with the prospect of much improved communication. We also aim to provide the following to all Seniors:

· Career networking: the ability to communicate with other Seniors who can give advice and professional opportunities. Mrs Armitage and her team are planning to hold various events targeted at specific professional fields and to also provide a facility enabling any Senior wishing to obtain information regarding careers or higher education to contact other participating Seniors.

· An interactive Seniors' website: the planned new Seniors' website which is integral to the School's Seniors' database will be interactive and easy to use. Seniors can post messages, search for lost friends and search for others who work in a particular industry and are willing to give career advice and help. They will also be able to register for events online and keep up to date with Seniors' and School news. The site will be password protected and moderated and administered by the School.

· More events: until now our resources have limited us to Seniors' Day and the Seniors' Carol Service (both of which will continue and, undoubtedly, increase in size as they have been doing over the last few years). Other events will be added to the calendar including regional lunches and suppers, career networking events, individual visits to School, reunions and university dinners.

· Co-ordinated communications: previously, Seniors received the Seniors' Supplement and the Seniors' address book from the Association and the Dove was sent by the School to Seniors on our database. These will continue, and we shall also be looking at enewsletters in addition to updating other publications. We have already put WA Seniors on Facebook and our increased resources will enable us to enhance this.

· Overseas groups: we hope to activate local groups of overseas Seniors. Overseas Seniors can provide a great deal of information and a friendly face to other Seniors transferring for their business, on a gap year or just on holiday.

· More regional activity: several regional groups exist but our aim is to facilitate more. Senior Sue Cameron has kindly offered to take on this task and is very keen to receive Seniors' suggestions on this topic. If you have any queries or suggestions, please email Sue.

Overall, we hope Seniors will feel more engaged with the School and a much valued part of our community. Seniors are tremendously important to Wycombe Abbey and the School looks forward to this next phase in the long history of the Seniors and the School.

If you have not yet filled in a database form to receive information from School regarding news and events that may be of interest to Seniors, please follow this link to submit your details online.