Dear Alumni,
It’s been a unique year for all of us. Every single person has been asked to put aside certain freedoms and accept major changes in their life – all for a collective effort towards the greater good. Amongst these many changes in our daily lives many of us have refused to accept defeat and cut losses and instead have come up with great innovations. Here at IM Alumni we like to see ourselves as one of those many who have adapted to the situation through improvisation and sheer motivation of our members.
I’d like to highlight the most important achievements of IM Alumni in 2020. Through thorough investigation and the use of a few excel sheets we have managed to get our finances in order. Not only do we have a proper and clear accounting but we were also lucky enough to receive a generous donation from the previous IM Alumni association for which we are very grateful. Furthermore, through countless Zoom meetings with our board we managed to come up with a brand new grassroots focused strategy for IM Alumni as well as a revamped communication concept which is in line with the strategy. Linked to this we have come up with the “IM Way of Life” which will hopefully help shape our beloved study programme and inspire all members to follow our shared ideals and values. All in all we see this as an end of an era and the start of a new dawn. However, before we move on completely, we would be amiss to not appreciate the amazing hard work that has been done until now. Therefore, we will once again take the time to give our wholehearted thanks to Brigitte Sprenger, who has been the living soul of IM Alumni since it’s inception. Thank you B!
Moreover, as our trademark physical events were taken away from us we are very proud that we took this as an opportunity to try new formats. Due to the circumstances we held our board meetings, our Annual General Meeting as well as the Easter Apéro online. While the participation for these events were rather low our new #IMStories webinars were successful experiments. We held two highly fascinating panel discussions on “how to survive as an IM Student” and “how to start an international career”. Once again I’d like to thank all the alumni who volunteered to join the panel as experts. Finally, since our online video formats were such a success, we started creating short educational videos to support the IM students who are currently studying for their exams and are lacking the usual on-site support that they might enjoy during regular years. Hopefully, our provided advice will be useful to them and we wish them success for their exams.
In the name of the IM Alumni board I’d like to thank all of our members for their contributions to combating the pandemic as well as interacting with us at events or through individual support and therefore bringing us the needed motivation to continue through 2020. The next few weeks are a time for relaxation, celebration, and self-care amongst loved ones. We wish all our members a wonderful festive period and look forward to taking on 2021 together!
Warm regards
Theo Whitwill
President IM Alumni
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