2014 Reunion 1963-1965 - 50 Years On

50 Years On - 1963-65 Reunion, 7-9 March 2014. 

A unique assembly of intellect, career achievements and contributions to New Zealand came together at Lincoln University over the weekend of 7-9 March in the form of the ‘50 Years On’ alumni reunion.

A year of planning for three days of enjoyment: it may sound an unequal ratio but the arithmetic doesn’t matter as Lincoln University’s ‘50 Years On’ alumni reunion generated a matchless level of camaraderie, conviviality, friendship and goodwill; it stirred a million memories and produced a thousand stories.

Almost 120 alumni and partners attended from all over New Zealand, plus several from Australia,with the weekend starting with registration in front of Ivey Hall on Friday 7 March.

From there followed a programme of socialising, lots of eating (including a formal dinner at Christchurch’s Chateau on the Park), farm visits and other bus tours (including a Student Haunts jaunt around old pubs), formal photographs, speeches, Sunday brunches and a barbecue.

Members of the organising committee who put the event together were Errol Costello, Bob Engelbrecht, Maurice Kennedy, Ralph Lattimore (chair), Rory O’Malley, Warwick Scott, and Limbo Thompson. Alumni and Development Officer Anisha Thomas led the University team assisting the committee.

The reunion was for all diploma and degree students who attended Lincoln University between, broadly, 1963 and 1965. Two themes of the period stood out in the after-dinner addresses - Rory O’Malley referred to the “social turmoil of the 1960s” and Clive Geddes (Master of Ceremonies) spoke of the “sense of freedom” he experienced the day he stepped onto the campus. Rapid social change and an expansion of personal liberty were indeed features of the period the first of the ‘babyboomer’ generation arrived at university age.

After a career in economics, Rory switched to the study of history and Clive Geddes was, until recently, three-term Mayor of Queenstown and Lakes District. Other speakers at the formal dinner were Jon Newson (representing the 1964-66 diploma students) and John Tavendale (representing the 1963 degree students). Source: AlumniLinc (April 2014). (A full story about the ’50 Years On’ reunion will be carried in the 2015 edition of Lincoln University’s Landforms magazine)