Our 2025 Annual Dinner

Anita Anand, Canada’s Minister of Transport and Internal Trade, will speak at our 2025 annual dinner.

We are delighted to announce that Anita Anand (Wadham College) will be our guest speaker at our Annual Dinner, on Wednesday 29 January 2025.  She is Canada’s Minister of Transport and Internal Trade.

Anita previously held a variety of cabinet positions, including President of the Treasury Board, Minister of Defence, and Minister of Public Services and Procurement.

Before her career in politics, she worked as a scholar, a researcher, and an academic.  She was a Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, a member of the Governing Board of Massey College, and Director of Policy and Research at the Capital Markets Institute.

She was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1994, and has taught law at Queen’s University, Western University, and Yale University.

Date: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Time: 18h00 for 18h30
Place: Senior NCO Mess, 4 Queen Elizabeth Driveway, Ottawa
Directions: Google Maps; Bing Maps

Cost: $95 for members; $115 for non-members
Payment: Interac, via ous.ottawa@gmail.com
Registration: Online, via Google Forms

Our annual dinner is a lovely opportunity for recent graduates, long-time members, and friends of Oxford to meet, to break bread together, and to celebrate our shared bond through our affection for the University.  Traditionally, most of our attendees have worn black tie, but this is optional.

The cost of the dinner is $95 per person for current OUS Ottawa members, and $115 per person for non-members (including past members who have not renewed).  Payment of the dinner fee and any membership dues may be submitted by Interac online payment, via ous.ottawa@gmail.com.

To reserve dinner places, please complete the online registration form.  Your reservation must reach us no later than 22 January 2025, but please note that the annual dinner is traditionally our most popular event, and all places may be spoken for well before the registration deadline.

We very much hope to see you there.

Croquet and Sunshine

A full house and sunny skies for our annual croquet tournament

A full house of Oxonians and friends of Oxford turned out for our 2024 croquet tournament and garden party, under gloriously sunny skies.

We generally showed more enthusiasm than skill with the mallet, but enjoyed it all the more for that.

We are immensely grateful to Piers Hutchinson and Eva Schacherl for acting as our hosts, and inviting us all to invade their home.

Our Annual Croquet Tournament

Our annual croquet tournament is back!

Our annual croquet tournament and garden party is back! It is a relaxed gathering, with little fuss and less croqueting skill.  Guests and all friends of Oxford are welcome.

Date: Saturday, 21 September 2024 (rain or shine)
Time: 14h00 to 16h30 (croquet begins at 14h45)

We thank Piers Hutchinson and Eva Schacherl for kindly opening their home as the venue for our event.

We will provide sandwiches and light refreshments.

The cost of the event is $15.00 per person.  Cheques should be made payable to “Oxford Society, Ottawa” and brought to the event.  Alternatively, e-transfers can be sent in advance to our Secretary Ali Pasha via ous.ottawa@gmail.com.

Oxford vs Cambridge Alumni Cricket Match in Toronto

The 41st Oxford-Cambridge Alumni Cricket Match

Our colleagues in Toronto will host the forty-first Oxford vs Cambridge Alumni Cricket Match on Sunday 17 September 2023.

Last year, Oxford took home the Mitchener-Bredin Trophy; this year, Cambridge will be hoping to even the tally.  The Match will return to its traditional home on pitches of Lords Grounds at Upper Canada College.

The match will be a traditional red ball game, played in white clothing.  The tea break between innings will include sandwiches, drinks, and cake, for both players and spectators alike.

Date: Sunday, 17 September 2023
Time: From 12h30 EDT
Place: Upper Canada College, 200 Lonsdale Rd, Toronto
RSVP: Martin Sykes, e-mail or telephone before 31 August

The Match welcomes players and spectators of all levels and ages.  The organisers are charging a modest $30 fee per player to help defray event costs, and no fee for spectators.

If you know alumni who would like to be part of the Match, please do share this post with them.

Living a Fear-Free Life

“There is no room for fear: only faith, and light, and dreams of a better tomorrow.”

Our Secretary, Ali Arsalan Pasha, delivered a thoughtful and emotional TEDx Talk, about his journey from Turkey, to the United Kingdom, and now on to Canada.

He describes living through the 2016 attempted coup d’état in Turkey, waiting in fear for the next explosion, as government and insurrectionist forces battled in the streets.

He discusses his decision to give up the life he had built in Turkey, to seek safety in the United Kingdom.

He gives an account of overcoming fear to apply to Oxford, and afterwards, to emigrate to Canada at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

The common thread of his talk is the imperative to live a life without fear.

“There is no room for fear: only faith, and light, and dreams of a better tomorrow.”

TEDx Talks are local events, organised by independent groups, following the model of global TED Talks.  Ali’s talk was hosted by TEDxHECMontreal.

Oxford’s Newest Alumni

OUS Ottawa welcomes the latest generation of Oxford alumni.

The University’s 2023 graduands and graduates gathered at Oxford Town Hall for this year’s Leavers’ Fair, as a springboard into life after studies.

OUS Ottawa was delighted to contribute a video to the event, on the benefits of remaining connected to the University community through the alumni group network.

OUS Ottawa is part of a global network of more than one hundred fifty Oxford Societies, spread across most of the countries of the world. Together, we enable Oxonians to sustain the friendships from our University days, across time and geography.

We are always eager to welcome Oxonians who live in or visit Canada’s National Capital Region, but we are especially keen to include the University’s newest alumni.

Forty Years of Alumni Cricket

The Oxford-Cambridge Alumni Cricket Match’s 40th Anniversary

“Lordy, lordy!  Look who’s forty!”

We congratulate our colleagues in Toronto on the fortieth anniversary of the Oxford vs Cambridge Alumni Cricket Match.  They will hold the anniversary Match on Sunday 18 September 2022.

The very first Match was played in 1982, on the pitches of Lords Grounds at Upper Canada College.  It feels apt that the Match will return to its spiritual birthplace for this anniversary.

The celebrations will include the launch of a new “Michener-Bredin Trophy”, named to honour Terence Bredin and Roland Michener, two of the Match’s founders and most cherished characters.  The trophy has been generously funded by Match alumni and by the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Toronto.

Date: Sunday, 18 September 2022
Time: From 12h00 EDT
Place: Upper Canada College, 200 Lonsdale Rd, Toronto
RSVP: Martin Sykes, e-mail or telephone before 31 August

The Match welcomes spectators and players of all levels and ages.  There will be twenty-five overs per side, and players should wear cricket whites.  A traditional tea break will separate the innings, with food and refreshments provided.  The organisers are charging a modest $25 fee per person, to help defray event costs.

As part of the day’s festivities, Martin Sykes is compiling stories and photos from previous years’ Matches.  If you have any memories or material you would like to share with him, he would receive it enthusiastically.

If you know Oxford or Cambridge alumni who might like to be part of the Match, either as spectators or players, please do share this post with them.

Russia’s online disinformation campaign over Ukraine and how Canada is countering it

With Philippe-André Rodriguez, Deputy Director of the Centre for International Digital Policy

We were delighted to welcome Philippe-André Rodriguez (Exeter College), the Deputy Director of the Centre for International Digital Policy at Global Affairs Canada, at our April webinar.

He discussed his work trying to thwart the misuse of social media to spread disinformation and to undermine democracies, particularly in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Dr Rodriguez drew a capacity crowd, with five-hundred attendees from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America gathering to hear his views and put questions to him.

His conversation with Oxonians addressed one of the most pressing global challenges of our time, and did so in a lively and engaging way.

Oxonian Leadership in North America

Ottawa, Mexico City, and Washington DC’s contribution to Oxford’s Meeting Minds Global 2021

Oxford University’s Meeting Minds Global 2021 hosted the fourth instalment of the Three Capitals series, an ongoing collaboration by the Oxford University Societies in Ottawa, Mexico City, and Washington DC.

Oxonians from every region of the globe joined us for a conversation with a distinguished panel of North American alumni, who spoke to the question, “What did your time at Oxford mean to your personal development as a leader, and how did it enable you to exercise leadership in North America?”

Our speakers were: Canada’s Astrid Guttmann, Chief Science Officer for the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences; Mexico’s Alejandro Ramírez, CEO of Cinépolis; and the United States’ Ebonique Boyd, Executive Director of NEXXXT.

Our moderators were: Ottawa’s Akaash Maharaj; Mexico City’s Karine Yuki; and Washington DC’s Sean Denniston.

The discussion was lively, insightful, and occasionally irreverent.

We are immensely grateful to our speakers, and to the Oxford University North American Office for inviting us to be part of Oxford’s premier global event.

Meeting Minds Global 2021

From Oxford to the Three Capitals: Oxonian Leadership in North America

The Three Capitals series between the Oxford University Societies in Ottawa, Mexico City, and Washington DC is coming to Meeting Minds Global 2021.

Meeting Minds Global is a week-long series of online sessions, created by the University’s alumni offices in Hong Kong, New York, Oxford, and Tokyo.  It enables Oxonians and friends of Oxford from across the world to come together, share ideas, and celebrate our shared bond.

The Three Capitals’ contribution will be to bring together three exceptional North American leaders, from three entirely different walks of life, to address the question, “What did your time at Oxford mean to your personal development as a leader, and how did it enable you to exercise leadership in North America?”

Date: Monday, 12 April 2021
Time: 17h30 Ottawa (16h30 Mexico City, 17h30 Washington DC)
Registration: At Meeting Minds Global

Our three speakers will be: from Canada, Astrid Guttmann, Chief Science Officer for the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences; from Mexico, Alejandro Ramírez, CEO of Cinépolis; and from the United States, Ebonique Boyd, Executive Director of NEXXXT.

The University is charging a modest £10 registration fee to participate in the full week of Meeting Mind Global activities, to help defray the costs of the event.