I’m proud to say that the London Iowa Club’s inaugural year was a great success. We had 4 events including an official collaboration with the University where a number of Deans and the new UI President flew into London to meet with alumni.
The year started with our first event in March 2016. We hosted a drinks mixer in Mayfair for London based UI alum to get to know each other. We had alumni come from as far as Manchester to meet fellow hawkeyes and brainstorm on how we could grow the club.
After a quiet summer, we started our fall schedule in earnest. We held our first game watch for the homecoming game. We hosted the event jointly with the London Northwestern Alumni Club. Our hawkeye alum overwhelmed the Northwestern alum by a ratio of 2:1 but unfortunately we weren’t able to win the actual game.
At the end of October, we had our signature event of the year with an entire weekend of UI activity.
- On Friday 28th October, we held a “meet and greet” in the City with UI leaders including Deans from 7 colleges. It was a really nice way for the UI to see how strong the London community is.
- On Saturday 29th October, the University held a private reception at the Royal Academy of Arts as part of the touring exhibition, Jackson Pollock’s Mural: Energy Made Visible. Guests were able to view the exhibition, attend an international edition of our UI WorldCanvass television and radio show, and join UI President Bruce Harreld and other UI leaders including our new Rhodes scholar for a drinks social.
- On Sunday 30th October, the Tippie Business school hosted a lunch with President Harreld and Dean Sarah Gardial for alum to hear about the latest news at Tippie and give feedback on how the business school can grow its international reach.
The London Iowa Club then finished the year (well, technically the event was January 2nd) with a Bowl Watch for the Outback Bowl between the Hawkeyes and the Florida Gators. We joint hosted the event with the Florida alumni club and can claim the spirit title for having the most attendees. Along with alum (local and visiting), there were a large number of students from both the Tippie Winter Study Abroad program and the College of Law London program. Unfortunately, Iowa again were unable to get the W but the event was a success nonetheless. We look forward to continuing our bowl watch tradition with the UI study abroad programs for many years to come.
And that was 2016. We are confident that the London Iowa Club can continue this moment for 2017. Go Hawks!
