Open Eye: Graduates go global

If I were to put together a list of Open University graduates' study areas and leisure pursuits, I would fill an encyclopedia or two!

In the Association of OU Graduates, we endeavour to provide different events throughout the thirteen regions and each year the list increases as more graduates partake.

In the past 12 months we have had more than 100 events ranging from visits to the new British Library, via a lecture by the Vice-Chancellor, Has the OU Been Faithful to its Founders? to conducted tours to places as far apart as Aberdeen and Portsmouth. So the calendar grows .

This summer a special event, Tea with the Vice Chancellor, saw more than 200 graduates and families visit Walton Hall. For many this was their first visit to their alma mater and, thanks to the OU Communications Group, tours were arranged of various facilities and buildings. The Jenny Lee Library, the Audio Visual Products Centre, Walton Hall, St.Michael's Church, Earth Sciences, the OU Nature Trail, all presented a special interest to the graduates who were seeing, at first hand, their university at work.

The OU is a global educator and, likewise, AOUG has members all over the world. Catering for their needs creates a different challenge but for the past three years we have been to degree ceremonies in Paris, and this year we meet up in Brussels.

Just recently, along with AOUG Chairman David Ogilvie, I attended the OU degree ceremony in Singapore and - along with Revel Barker, Director of Alumni Relations - we were able to meet new OU graduates and to welcome them to the growing OU graduate fraternity.

Patricia Cowling

Dates for your diary

August 14 Visit Hammerwood Park, near East Grinstead.

August 24 Get-together at the Rusty Cutter, Bedhampton.

August 29 Visit Grassic Gibbon Centre - Arbuthnott.

September 4 A visit to the Galleries of Justice, Nottingham.

September 12 Barge Trip from Bridge House Pub, Little Venice, London.

September 17 Tour of Leeds Medical Museum.

For more information, on the AOUG contact: Tiia Downer, at Walton Hall, Milton Keynes. MK7 6AA, or phone 01908 653316 e-mail: AOUG@open.ac.uk.