Queen Elizabeth (Kensington) Branch of

King's College, London Alumni Association

Chair:          John Brockhouse (1974-78)

August 2003

Dear Colleague

At last year's highly successful Queen Elizabeth College Association reunion held at Guy's Hospital, the members present overwhelmingly voted to continue the activities of the Association. It therefore seems opportune to provide an update on activities and invite you to the forthcoming Reunion planned for the autumn.

QECA or QE(K)A?

Many of you will remember the organisation as the Queen Elizabeth College Association (QECA). Since the college merger, the Association has become a branch of KCLA (King's College London Alumni Association) and is known as the Queen Elizabeth (Kensington) Branch, shortened to QE(K)A. However, it still covers the same purpose as QECA and largely organises its own specific, events although KCLA will usually be aware of these and may advertise them in their "In Touch" magazine.

Reunion 2003

This year's reunion celebrates the 5Oth anniversary of QEC becoming a separate college of the University in 1953 and will be held in the QEC and Chelsea rooms on the 18th October. These are situated in the Franklin-Wilkins Building, in Stamford Street (near Waterloo Station), which was opened in 2000 and named after Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, whose brilliant experimental work at King's contributed to the unravelling of the structure of DNA, coincidentally also in 1953. We are hoping that as many QEC staff and students as possible can attend and we'll make it a year to remember. If you have not been to the Reunion before, you'll find that there are usually people that you knew by sight, if not by name, from your time at college. The friendly atmosphere is conducive to mixing, even if you come on your own, but if you can convince some of your old colleagues to make up a party so much the better.

There will be a space to display memorabilia, so please bring along anything of interest (e.g. photos, "souvenirs", adverts) or send it to me at the above address - please mark your item so that you get it back at the end of the Reunion and also indicate whether you object to pictures of your items being published in Envoy 2004.

Further details of the day appear on a separate page. Please return your reply to Henry Embling by 30th September so that catering numbers can be established.

NB. There will be a KCLA organised reunion for all 1977-79 graduates on 6th September. Please contact Mick Farrow for details.

Envoy 2003

After a gap of five years, the newsletter has been resurrected (and should be enclosed). Our thanks to Lyn Embling (nee Rigby) (1972-78) for putting it together and to the numerous contributors. Envoy is QEC-specific and is your newsletter. You may also separately receive "In Touch", which is produced by KCLA covering all King's alumni associations.

We plan to continue to produce Envoy annually, so please send in news about yourselves or colleagues ... you'd be surprised how interested people are to hear about what's happened to their old friends and acquaintances. Even if it is only 50 to 100 words, please write to Lyn Ernbling with any reminiscences, anecdotes or general interest articles for inclusion in the Envoy 2004 before you forget them.

Committee

Although the aim is to operate the Association as informally as possible, I am most grateful for the assistance of the people named below who are currently involved with running the organisation. Please feel free to contact any of them to make your points of view known at 'Committee' meetings held up to four times per year.

Website

Thanks to Gary Thomas, we now have a web site www.geca.org.uk dedicated to the organisation. It will grow as time permits, so take a look and let him know what you think or include suggestions for possible improvements (qecwebmaster@gcathomas.f2s.com).
(webmasters note : well, clearly, you already knew that bit!)

You may also be aware that former colleagues from QEC, school and work can be found at www.friendsreunited.com. Why not register there as well.

Contact details

The appearance of Friends Reunited in recent years has generated a general upsurge of interest in contacting old friends and colleagues, and the Association provides one forum for this. However, its continuation and success depends on maximising the number of ex-students and staff on our database ... hence the following appeal.

Almost everyone will know at least one friend or colleague that did not join or has lost contact with the Association. If you could pass on the spare sheet to someone that you know who might be interested in the Association's activities we could increase the number that get to hear of events and Reunions to the benefit of all.

Maintaining up-to-date contact details helps keep our costs down so please spare the time to fill-in and return the separate sheet for changes to personal details and preferences - it doesn't take very long to reply. Many of you will use e-mail so, if you would like to receive future information via this medium, please let us know. This, of course, also avoids wasted paper but don't forget to keep us informed of any changes.

I do hope that you will stay in touch with the organisation and hope to see you at the Reunion in October.

Yours sincerely

John Brockhouse (1974-78)

This page (re-)created 06 September 2004