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Introduction from the Club Chairman: Dr. Geraldine Dooley
Dear Friends
As some of you know, I took over as Chairman of the Dining Club committee at our
last meeting in May. I was very honoured to take over from Andy Rogers.
Firstly, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Andy for his excellent stewardship of
the Dining Club over recent years. His chairmanship covered some of the biggest
upheavals in recent Dining Club history. Just as he had settled into the role, COVID-
19 disrupted the world, and our dining club went into hibernation. The pandemic led
to big changes in people’s habits. People were less willing to dine out and not
surprisingly we saw a significant increase in event location costs. Just as we had
absorbed that, inflation further impacted our cost base. Andy remained a positive
Chairman throughout and helped us navigate our return to planning our events. His
final year oversaw enjoyable dinners with a variety of speakers: Sorcha Richardson,
an international Art Curator in November; Professor Luke O’Neill, a tour de force on
all things scientific in February and Shane Horgan a former Irish international rugby
player and now CEO of Comic Relief soccer aid in May. I hope that as Andy steps
down seven years later we are nearing a return to our pre-pandemic enjoyment of
meeting up and maintaining contact with our alma mater– Trinity College Dublin.
I must apologise for the slow start I’ve made organising our schedule for 2024/2025.
A major change from previous years is the absence of a joint dinner in our first term.
With costs in mind, we have, as a committee, decided to focus on three dinners for
this year. I hope that the variety of speakers who are to join us will provide
something to appeal to all
Our first dinner on Thursday, October 24th will have Nicholas Mackey talking about
his journey from natural science graduate to reporter, photojournalist, diplomatic
attaché and entrepreneur. He is also the author of ‘An Irishman in Northern
Mesopotamia’.
Further dinners are planned for February and May 2025. Our February dinner will
have Aoifinn Devitt, who as CIO of London LGPS CIV Ltd directs management of
London Local Government pension schemes and still manages to develop and host
a podcast focusing on diversity and inclusion in business.
Our speaker in May 2025 will be the current Lord Mayor of London, Professor
Michael Manielli who will by then have stepped down from his year of non-stop
engagements.
Looking forward to meeting you at some or all of these events.
Yours,
Geraldine Dooley
Chairman, Trinity College Dublin Dining Club