Annual OA Dinner 2023
13 March 2023
The Annual OA Dinner 2023 was a celebration of diversity, equality and inclusion. The evening began with guests gathering in the Theatre to see a special performance of this year’s Senior School show, ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’. This wonderful production provided the ideal backdrop for the theme of this year’s formal dinner, where we wanted to ensure that everyone felt welcome. A special showcase performance was created for the evening by the Director of Drama, Manny Avdjian (CR2018-Present) and his team. Guests were treated to a selection of scenes from the popular West End musical, which had been specially chosen for Aldenham because it was fun and dramatic in equal measure, it was a story that needed to be told and it was different to anything you would usually see in other schools. The students thoroughly enjoyed revising their show for this audience of OAs and their guests. The talent displayed by everyone involved was quite astonishing. Parents and performers joined OA guests for drinks after the show and to share their experiences which created great excitement in the pre-dinner reception and got the evening off to a real swing.A delicious three course meal was served in the Dining Hall and there was a friendly buzz as over 60 guests gathered to enjoy each other’s company. James James-Crook (M1968-72), President, proposed the toasts and welcomed Alex Hems, Head of the Aldenham Foundation as the Principal Guest Speaker. Alex thanked the OAs for their very warm welcome and spoke of her joy at taking on the responsibility to lead the Aldenham Foundation. She was delighted to report that the Senior School has never been so full and that next year’s new intake will have more girls than ever before. There will no doubt be challenges ahead for all schools in the independent sector and she is determined that the Aldenham Foundation will be one of the organisations that not only survives but uses the challenges ahead to become more agile, reflective, relevant and successful. We now look forward to next year and hope that more OAs will be able to join this important annual event which will be on a Saturday in early March 2024.