Methody Collegians
Methody Collegians was founded in 2003 as a result of the merger of the Methodist College Belfast Old Girls and Old Boys Associations. We aim to help keep you in touch with each other and to support the College and its past and present pupils.
TO MY FELLOW COLLEGIANS – President’s Welcome
President’s Welcome – August 2022
As President for the incoming year, I would like to welcome all visitors to the Methody Collegians website. In particular, I would like to welcome anyone new to the website who is thinking of joining us for the first time, whether at one of our quarterly Friday lunches at Deramore, the Christmas lunch at the Reform Club, our Annual Dinner, hopefully at the College next March, or indeed, at any other of our events. I can assure you any newcomer will be made very welcome and if you would like to bring someone else along, guests too are very welcome and there is no requirement for guests to have any connection with the College.
Our activities, as with everything over the last two years or so, have been heavily affected by the pandemic. Last year we seemed to be getting back to some kind of normality but there were still endless problems as last minute cancellations caused a fair amount of chaos. Last year’s President, Alan White, deserves great credit for ensuring all events went ahead more or less as planned. Let us hope we have seen the worst of the pandemic and this year’s events can take place without the same degree of disruption.
Our first event of the year will be the lunch at Deramore on Friday 9 September when the speaker will be Tracey McIlwaine from the Air Ambulance Northern Ireland. The Air Ambulance has now been in operation in Northern Ireland for over 5 years and it should be most interesting to hear from Tracey what has been learnt over that time.
The Ladies Golf outing is on Monday 19 September with this year’s venue Malone Golf Club.
On Friday 11 November we will have our second Deramore lunch when we are delighted to say we will hear from the new Principal of the College, Jenny Lendrum, about her plans for the school and how her first couple of months in post are going.
The Christmas lunch will be held in the Reform Club on Monday 5 December. This is always one of the most popular events in our calendar and with good reason, given the unique atmosphere of the Club, the good food, the chance to hear outstanding music from College pupils and the opportunity to sing the School Song!
We will give notice later of the Deramore lunches after Christmas, provisionally set for February and May but we do have an UPDATED DATE of Friday 31 March set for our Annual Dinner when we are very fortunate to have Alex Kane, the well-known political writer, columnist and commentator, as our guest speaker. We are very much hoping the venue will be the College’s Whitla Hall, though this was also the intention for the last two years, only for Covid and other problems to intervene. Let us hope it will be third time lucky and we can have our first Annual Dinner back in the College in the Whitla or McArthur Hall, a most appropriate venue for Methody Collegians. The Hall would also be an ideal venue for a class or year reunion, with speaker, food and drink all arranged, so if anyone is thinking of organising a reunion, 31 March 2023 could be the date to go for.
And we must not forget our annual Pub Quiz and Supper night on Thursday 23 February, always a most enjoyable evening and a good test of general knowledge with nothing taken too seriously.
Finally, I must mention our sister organisation Methody London and their annual London Reunion Dinner which is held in the splendid surroundings of the RAF Club in Piccadilly. No date has been set as yet but the Dinner is normally held in May. All years, spouses, partners and plus ones will be extremely welcome.
Details of all these events will be on this website, under News, but If anyone has any queries, please do not hesitate to give me or any of the Collegians Council a call.
Michael Megarry
