October's OB of the Month is Alexandra Rose, Curator of Earth Sciences at the Science Museum in London. Alex - who was very nearly a vet - remembers back to great times with friends at the College and her hopes for a cycle-able desert island.
We are delighted to announce that OB Tigger Gray (Br. 1972-75) has won a Sports Emmy Award in recognition of his talents as cameraman, as part of the RF (Radio Frequency) Hand-Held Camera Team for ESPN in the USA.
We are pleased to share the news that OB Arnold Yok Fai Wong (Ab. 2006-08) has won the Hong Kong Institute of Architects Young Architect Award 2019-2020.
We are delighted to share the news that OB David Grigor (Le. 1982-87) has been awarded the ‘Do It’ Award from UnLtd UK.
This year’s Professions Conference kicked off with nine different panel sessions, catering for a broad range of sectors specifically hosted for the Lower Sixth Form. Pupils had the chance to join in with discussions from a diverse range of sectors, such as law, medicine, finance, architecture and the arts.
Sarah Locke (Sc. 2010-12) is a busy woman! She is currently working as Assistant and Challenge Officer for the Born Free Foundation, as well as studying for a Masters in Conservation Biology at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, specialising in human-wildlife conflict and rural development, with a focus of lion conservation in Kenya.
It was great to see Old Brightonians working in the Legal sector come together in London on Thursday 31st October for our annual Legal Professionals networking drinks.
SOAS Development Studies student, Lara, was asked to speak at the Credit Suisse INSPIRE event due to her academic focus on development and development finance, as well as her personal background of being raised in a developing country.
Plant Based Cheese has won the “Consumer Impact Award” at the 14th Plant-Based Protein Summit in Lille.
In early 2018 Calum was charged by the Harlequins Academy with developing a sustainable form of income for charity, following on from his ‘Head shave for Dad’ which raised almost £25,000 for Cancer Research.
Over 50 Old Brightonians and parents came in to the school in March to volunteer at this year’s Professions Conference. Twelve different panel sessions, catering for a broad range of professional sectors, were hosted for the entire Lower Sixth Form.
Alex got in touch with the OB office in February asking for assistance with his summer wok experience, part of his four year degree in Accountancy and Finance at the University of Exeter.
Brad Vanstone (Sc/Ab. 2004-09), Deputy Head of School and Head of Abraham House 2008-2009, recently founded a plant based cheese company based in Amsterdam. Brad uses a variety of nut and tofu bases to create similar flavours and textures to conventional dairy cheese.
Old Brightonian and MotorSport Vision Chief Executive Jonathan Palmer (A. 1969-74) was named 2018 MotorSport Hero at May’s Autocar Awards, recognising his huge contribution to the British motorsport industry over the past 30 years, and then in June Jonathan was inducted as the 2018 Industry Champion at Motor Sport Magazine's 2018 Hall of Fame Awards.
Lauren Libin, 35, lives in Brighton (a stones throw from Brighton College) with her partner Carl and three year old daughter Summer. She runs consumer brand and lifestyle PR agency Switched On with clients such as T2 Tea, VisitBrighton, Sheraton Grand London Park Lane, Duck & Waffle and Tom Kerridge’s Festival Pub in the Park.
In recent years the College has run a series of particularly successful careers events for the Sixth form, where we have been extremely lucky to have a range of Old Brightonians return to their old school to speak to pupils about their careers, what they do and how they got to where they are now.
Shirley left Brighton College in 1978 after which she studied Architecture at the Brighton School of Architecture at Sussex University. She was a founding director of SW Architects in London, and after working as a chartered Architect, she is now a Party Wall Surveyor - and has worked on transformative projects such as Canon Place and the Shard of Glass in London.
William Tidy tells us about his internship with Karma Group over the past few months and how the Old Brightonians helped him get there.
The College is seeking to appoint a Teacher of Pysics with effect from January 2018.
Following the introduction of our Law Conference in 2016, this year's conference took place on Thursday 4th May, which was attended by our current Sixth Form pupils and those from local state schools.
We are lucky to have an incredibly diverse network of Old Brightonians around the world in every professional field. Through our Careers and Networking programme, we aim to bring OBs together to create a supportive network to enable our alumni to progress in their career of choice as well as share their vast knowledge and expertise with our College community.
Our 2017 Medical Conference brought together a fantastic spread of medical professionals, two of whom are currently studying Medicine.
The Entrepreneurship Programme has been running at the College with great success for a number of years. We have been delighted with the support that many alumni have lent to the programme and so we thought it would be interesting to have a look at how many alumni are currently involved in a business venture of their own, or are planning to be in the future. We have therefore put together a quick survey and would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to answer some of our questions.
Would you like to be part of the Entrepreneurship Programme during the coming academic year? The programme consists of a series of lectures and a House competition with a £10,000 prize pot for the three Houses with the best idea and business plan. Your time could be spent: advising a House group on how to develop their ideas and business plan; delivering a lecture or more informal talk, or joining a bank of Entrepreneurs whose expertise could be called on as necessary.
Ian Bateson is an independent correspondent based in Kiev, Ukraine and has written for Reuters, the Daily Beast, the New Statesman, VICE, Al Jazeera and Die Zeit Online. He is a graduate of Columbia University and was a Fulbright grantee at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. He is currently working on a book on Ukrainian identity after the Maidan Revolution. We got in touch with him recently to find out about his time at Brighton College and what he's up to at the moment...
Philip came to Brighton College from a childhood spent in Normandy, after attending the Junior School and the College, Philip went on to study at Cambridge before attending art school. Now settled in California, we caught up with Philip to look back on his time at school and highlights since...
Nick Toksvig (Br. 1973-75) was born a long time ago in something called the 1950s. His father Claus was a Danish journalist who met his mother Julie when they both were at the BBC.
We returned to the Jones Family Project in Shoreditch for our City Networking drinks, one of the many projects run by OB and serial entrepreneur Duncan Watts (Ry. 1979-84).
The first inaugural ‘Medical Conference’ took place in the Rose Lecture Theatre on the evening of Wednesday 6th of May. Over 50 Upper Fifth and Lower Sixth students were in attendance, including some from Cardinal Newman and Hove Park schools.
The year after leaving Brighton College in 2011, during her gap year, Tiffany set up an online platform for eco-conscious products called TIFF (Trendsetting, Innovative, Fair, Fashion) tiff.uk.com. They launched with 11 brands and nearly 2 years on work with 60. Tiffany runs TIFF alongside studying Fashion Business at Istituto Marangoni (where half of Dolce & Gabbana went).
Ignacio Willats (Le. 1995-11) Receives funding for university feedback and collaboration platform.
Ignacio, a recent Econ and finance graduate from Southampton has received grant funding to take Unitu, a university feedback platform, to market. Ignacio and his co-founding team from LSE and Kings College, are taking Unitu to the next stages of development with support from Jisc.
We were very fortunate to have three successful Old Brightonians return to the College to share their knowledge and experience with current 6th form pupils last Thursday at a Media and Marketing careers evening. Jamie Thomson (Ha. 1972-75), writer, publisher and Dark Lord extraordinaire, spoke about writing as a career and the routes into getting published.
The stage was set, the 'dragons' were seated and the cameras were rolling. The seven finalists waited nervously for the chance to present their ideas to the judges and to the assembled L5th, U5th and L6th pupils.
The 6th Form Careers Evening at the College on Thursday 25th April had a small but enthusiastic turn out, and the assembled pupils, parents and staff enjoyed a fascinating and informative evening on careers in investment banking and banking. Our speakers engagingly explained the various different roles in their industries and routes into them, and also on key aspects to be aware of in the financial sector when choosing different career paths. After the talk and an insightful Q&A session the group retired to the PAC for an opportunity to have an informal chat with our speakers.
Many congratulations to Lucy Beauvallet (Head's House, L6) who came second in BBC1's Young Apprentice competition - an outstanding achievement.
Monday 3rd December: the stage was set, the 'dragons' were seated and the cameras were rolling. The six finalists waited nervously for the chance to present their ideas to the judges and to the assembled L5, U5 and L6. Having battled through stiff competition the previous week in the heats, they knew that it was not going to be easy to reach the final three and claim the investment money.
The support that OBs give the College is always appreciated, and this term the 4th form were treated to talks by composer Nina Humphreys (F. 1989-91), opera singer Phoebe Haines (W. 2004-06), TV presenter and journalist Vanessa Cuddeford (W. 1996-98) & Romina Richardson (W. 2003-06), architect Shirley Waldron (F. 1976-78) and chartered surveyor Marcus Dorfman (R. 1997-2002).
Inspirational, driven, passionate – all words that spring to mind to describe the speakers, judges and advisors involved in the L6 Entrepreneurship Day. Firstly, we met the judges, successful Old Brightonians, Aidan Bowen (L. 1983-87), Robin St Clair Jones (D. 1973-77) and Rob Little (A. 1980-87).
Fourteen current and recently graduated Oxbridge Old Brightonians came back to the College on Thursday evening to talk to our current Oxbridge hopefuls.
On Tuesday 26th June we were fortunate enough to welcome back a wonderful team of medics and our profound thanks go to Adam Harper (H. 1984-89) Consultant Physician in Elderly Care and General Internal Medicine, Matthew Staniforth (R. 1988-93) Consultant in Emergency Medicine Worthing Hospital, Dr Alison Taylor (F. 1982-84) GP, and Lisa Barrott (F. 1985-87) Acute Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist.
What a joy and privilege it is to preside over the College’s annual House Entrepreneurship Competition. This was the second time that the same panel of Robin St Clair Jones (D. 1973-77), Alex Bremer (R. 1979-83), Emma Wimhurst (F. 1982-84) and Rob Little (A. 1982-87) had adjudicated the competition, and again we witnessed an extraordinary display of creativity and (occassionaly rudimentary) business acumen.
On Friday 18th November the 4th form and the L5 had the opportunity to hear various professionals talking about their career fields.
This year's Young Enterprise company, Monster Publishing, won the coveted prize for Best Product at last week's area finals for their hugely popular children's book ‘The Monster Guide to Brighton: A Sweet Surprise'.
Over a year ago, the College invited current parents to assist in mentoring the tailor-made Entrepreneurship Programme for the Sixth Form. OBs and parents have been involved in judging the programme (which is run in by house), and we will be featuring a regular update on their work on the website and in newsletters. Thank you to all those who have helped the programme so far and to all those that could offer help and expertise to our budding entrepreneurs, please contact Sally Woodmansey on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The College's innovative Entrepreneurship Programme was attended by a panel of OB judges today as part of the ongoing process to choose 3 business propositions that will receive the funding required to realise and commercialise.
Brighton College
Eastern Road
Brighton, BN2 0AL
ob@oldbrightonians.com
+44 (0) 1273 704 250
Registered Charity Number: 307061