First Digital General Meeting

For the first time, we held our general meeting online this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Participation was far above average. In the beginning, a little contest was held about who was joining the meeting from furthest away.

The winner was definitely a scientist from Mexico, who was happy like many other people to be able to join a general meeting for the first time. Covid-19 and the implications for the alumni association was also the dominating topic of the report of the board presented by our executive director Derk Schönfeld. In spring, the first lockdown led to the cancellation of all planned events, including our popular summer fête. The association responded quickly to the new situation by offering online formats. Its six events proved to be very successful. New international chapters and regional groups in Germany have formed. This was a learning experience as well – this apparently works even better online, at least in the beginning. We are thus planning on further offering digital events in the future, some possibly in a hybrid form. The association is continuously growing and now has about 3,700 members. Yet, we are aiming higher than that: 5,000 is the goal of a campaign we will launch next year for the 50^th anniversary of the University of Bremen. We are planning various events in the anniversary year that are supposed to be held offline again at the latest by summer. If you want to stay up to date, you can now also get information from our new LinkedIn page.