I attended a good meeting at Rewley House in the Lecture Theatre this evening.  It was organised by Jonathan Brown, the chair of the association.  I was pleased to see such a well organised association and such a well-attended meeting.  There must have been about 30 there.  Cllr. Alan Armitage was there as he is a County Councillor for the area and local Police Community Support Officers also attended.

I was disappointed to hear that the  problems with the bins behind the Ashmolean Museum have not bee resolved despite the efforts of committee members Margaret Booth (Treasurer) and John Temple (Secretary).  We’ll see what we can do about that.

One St. John Street resident Jonathan Michie, Director of the Department for Continuing Education and Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange at Oxford University gave a couple of interesting talks: ‘CONTINUING EDUCATION AT OXFORD’ followed by ‘THE CREDIT CRUNCH AND ITS AFTERMATH’.  Jonathan is also a former Director of the Birmingham Business School.  I think doing this sort of thing is an excellent way to increase attendance at such meetings.

The evening was nicely rounded off by drinks and nibbles in the Mawby Pavilion, also at Rewley House, where I had fascinating conversations with several extremely interesting people including Prof. Clive Booth, a past vice-chancellor of Oxford Polytechnic and Oxford Brookes University.

It was good to see one student resident of St. John Street at the meeting but would have been better to see even more.  It can be difficult getting people to feel enough part of a community to go to such events when they will probably only resident for a year but I think it’s still important.  If you’re a student reading this I encourage you to engage with your local community and take part in such events. I bet you’ll be surprised at the welcome you receive!