66. 15 years of bursary support at Wadham College, Oxford


On Friday 28 April, Trustees of the Water Conservation Trust and the Master were invited to lunch at Wadham College to celebrate the 15th year of our bursary partnership and to sign an agreement for a further three years.

Wadham was the first of our bursary partners and have been scrupulous in maintaining the relationship: each year we are invited to the college to meet ‘our’ students and keep abreast of developments; the college’s previous Warden, our honorary Freeman Baron Macdonald of River Glaven, hosted a gathering of our bursary students students in London, whilst the current Warden, Robert Hannigan CMG, was our guest speaker at last year’s Michaelmas lunch.

At this lunch, our current bursary student, Victor Hyde, expressed his thanks for the generous support of the Water Conservation Trust (including help with travel costs for him to attend the recent UN Water Conference in New York) and for the mentoring provided by Court Assistant Allan Barton. Development Director Julie Hage stressed that Wadham were deeply appreciative of the relationship with our Company; she highlighted Wadham’s focus on the environment and access (both of great importance to our Company); and indicated that the Oxford Professor of Biodiversity, Natalie Seddon (also a fellow of Wadham) would be happy to be a guest speaker at one of our events in the coming year (subject to everyone’s diary!).

The signing of the agreement by Julie Hage and Thames Warden/WCT Trustee Martin Bigg, was an excellent photo opportunity which Wadham (and we) will use for publicity purposes.

After the formal event, Martin, David Johnstone, Peter Hall and Trevor Harrington remained on to explore possible Company involvement in the international water conference planned for Oxford in September.

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