Alumni

Host a reunion

Over the past few years many successful DMU/Leicester Poly reunions have taken place and are becoming more and more popular.

Have you ever wondered what happened to your fellow students? Where they are now and what they’re doing? Have they aged as well as you? Well, if so, why not bring them all together for a reunion and find out?

The good news is that the Alumni Association is happy to help where possible, and although we won’t actually organise your reunion for you – we can certainly point you in the right direction! Just check our four simple steps:

Step 1. Getting started|
Step 2. Ask us for help|
Step 3. After the event|
Step 4. Keeping in touch|

If you want to discuss how we can help please contact us alumni@dmu.ac.uk|.

Step 1. Getting started

Who?

First decision is who you want to invite to your reunion. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to reunions. Often they are organised by year group (maybe it is an anniversary of your graduation year?) but equally could be by subject, school faculty, or even a geographical location (i.e. all alumni living in London). Anything goes but it may be worth considering the Alumni Association is less likely to hold some information (i.e. members of sports clubs, halls of residence)

Where?

Although reunions can be held anywhere, we think the best ones are when you return to campus for an injection of nostalgia and to visit your old haunts!

If you would like to hold your reunion on the University campus, we are highly recommend doing so during term-time, when staff are around and departments and eateries are open (out of term-time, campus normally functions on shortened hours). You may like to tour the building where you studied and end the evening at our Level 1 in the DSU Campus Centre.

Term dates can be found here|.

If you would like to hold the reunion elsewhere, the options are endless but we are happy to help or advise you of venues that we have used in the past.

What?

Decision time: what sort of event do you want? It may be a relaxed lunch, a black tie dinner, or just a chat in the DSU bar.

Do you want to include partners and/or families? Often reunions allow a guest, to encourage those who may not feel comfortable attending alone. We have also had a previous reunion where alumni enjoyed a picnic at Trinity Chapel with their families. The choice is yours, and will often depend on the type of reunion you choose to have.

You also need to decide how you will finance the event. In our experience, people are more than happy to cover the costs of an event by paying for a ticket. Ensure you cover everything in your budget (we are happy to offer advice on this) and we recommend that you build in a contingency fund, just in case!

When?

What time of year would you like to hold it? It's often easier to hold your reunion during term time. There may also be other events being held at the University that would be of interest to you.

Also take school holidays, bank holidays and major sporting events into consideration.

Step 2. Ask us for help

Getting in touch with invitees

If you're already in touch with University friends, ask them to tell their network of friends about the event.

You are more than welcome to ask us for help with marketing your reunion and getting back in touch with DMU contemporaries.

Due to the Data Protection Act, we are unable to send a list of contact details directly to you. However, you can register for our on-line community| and search for names of your contemporaries.

Once we know the group who you want to contact we can search our database to get names and addresses/emails. Once we have liaised with your in terms of the numbers found and the format of the invite, we can contact the group on your behalf.

Promoting your event

Here are some ways we can help you raise awareness of your event:

Via the Alumni Association website
Through our Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn news feeds
We can forward your invitation via letter and/or email to each person on your behalf
Include the reunion on our monthly events update email and e-newsletter
If timing allows, we can feature it in The Gateway magazine

Also, get your friends to promote the reunion through their social network links.

Step 3. After the event

Let us know how it went. We love to see photos and are happy to include them in our event photo gallery| for you to share with those who attended, and the alumni community at large.

We will also feature your reunion for our alumni magazine.

Step 4. Keeping in Touch

We would appreciate it if you and everyone who attends your reunion updates their contact information with the University. This is essential if you want to be kept updated with the alumni magazine, e-newsletter and event invitations.

It is quick and easy to update your details by registering online.

In addition, if you find out any interesting stories, such as careers successes or personal achievements, it would be great if you could let us know.

If you wanted to send a thank you email to those who attended, this is something else we could help with.