50 year celebration for the St Martin’s College class of 1975
On Thursday 28 August the St Martin’s College class of 1975 reunited back in Lancaster to celebrate 50 years since they graduated.
The group enjoyed a browse through archive materials and old photos over a light lunch and cup of tea in the library. A campus tour followed with Joanne Lusher, Alumni Relations Officer showing the group how the campus has changed since they were students.
The event idea came from Gill McKinnon, Gill says:
“Our reunion idea came when myself and hubby visited two “Smarties” friends while on holiday last year.
We were reminiscing about our 3 years at St Martin’s and how our group of friends had managed to keep in touch for nearly 50 years!
On returning home I ‘googled’ St Martin's and found a link to contact Joanne at the University of Cumbria. Her well organised reunion procedure then swung into action and without her we would never have managed to organise such a successful event!
On reunion day, arriving back at St Martin’s campus and meeting our fellow students was exciting – we realised we probably weren’t going to recognise faces but hopefully we would recall names!
Joanne’s tour of the campus was both very interesting (bringing back memories and stories from 50 years ago) but also tinged with sadness – our halls of residence were either gone or going whilst other familiar buildings had already disappeared. However we did all accept that some things do have to change and we now have another ‘Smarties’ memory to add to our collection!”
25 guests attended, which was a 100% turn out and feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Guest Angela Rogers said, “Thank you so much for organising our 50th anniversary reunion last Thursday. I thoroughly enjoyed it and so did everyone I spoke to. I realise a lot of time and effort goes into organising these events.”
Guest Brain Beresford said, Just to say - thank you for your on-going hard work and organisation in hosting today's event. I'm sure that, like me, many former students very much appreciate all you do for them.”
Are you and your classmates interested in a campus tour? Get in touch, email alumni@cumbria.ac.uk