If you’re a member of Trinity Hall then the chances are you’ve come into contact with Liz Pentlow who organises a range of reunion events, anniversaries and the MA ceremony at College each year.
This month (July) Liz has her own milestone to celebrate – her 20th anniversary at Trinity Hall. Liz started work at the College as a Development Assistant back in 2001 and her role quickly evolved to that of her current position: Alumni Officer.
After so many years of service, Trinity Hall is clearly a place dear to Liz’s heart: “It’s such a beautiful, peaceful and friendly place to be. All the alumni and staff are wonderful. Whenever I’m asked if I would move jobs I always reply, ‘Why would I move? I love my role and I love my place of work.’ ” Relationship building is pivotal to Liz’s role and she is, unsurprisingly, very much a ‘people person’.
Interacting with alumni is a favourite part of her work: “I’m always struck by what our alumni have achieved, and continue to achieve, and how incredibly down-to-earth they all are. It’s so rewarding to reconnect with our alumni, to organise events that make them so happy and to help create new memories for them at Trinity Hall. It’s not uncommon to have two or three generations of alums within a family returning to College for our events. It’s also fun to see them reverting back to their former student selves, sometimes quite mischievously, when reunited with their old College friends.”
“I feel incredibly lucky,” continues Liz, “to have built such good relationships over the years. We have some amazing alumni.” When asked about highlights and stand-out moments of the past 20 years, Liz replies: “As a HUGE ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ fan I was star-struck when I met Simon Jones (who played Arthur Dent in the series). I also had the opportunity to meet Rachel Weisz when she came to her reunion and she was absolutely lovely. All-in-all it’s the alumni and the sense of community among our staff, Fellows and students at Trinity Hall that are the highlights of my job – I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else.”
The past year has clearly brought challenges with Liz’s role, “We’ve had to roll back all of our events due to the pandemic,” she explains. “We’re trying to make sure that no-one misses out as we know how popular our anniversary and reunion events are. More than ever before, we all need something to look forward to, and we’ve all missed out on face-to-face interaction over the past year or so.” The department has hosted a range of virtual events which have been very successful. “I’ve enjoyed working with the Alumni and Development Team to add online events to our portfolio. It’s a great way to connect with people all over the world and I’m excited to see where we can take virtual events.”
Development Director, Dr Rachelle Stretch, said: “Liz will have organised a reunion dinner for thousands of our alumni and I am thankful for her loyal support and hard work. I know a dinner organised by Liz will run like clockwork and receive lots of positive feedback. In the office, we are very grateful to Liz for her depth of knowledge and experience, and it is wonderful to see her at events talking to alumni she has got to know so well over the past two decades. The team all adapted brilliantly to this new digital world over the past year and we look forward to bringing alumni a programme of in-person and online events going forwards.”
