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Welcome to the Alumni Newsletter
December 2012
This Christmas we celebrate the first anniversary of our Alumni Newsletter, so it is a double celebration. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your input and valuable contributions about your careers and lives post-programme over the past year, and hope that you continue to send us regular updates.
In this issue, we have a special seasonal message from Dr. Paul Beresford-Hill, some volunteer opportunities for the winter/festive period, as well as the usual sections such as Jobs and Alum of the Month. There is also a special tribute to Mark Yavelow written by Michael Billett. Mark was a former tutor on the New York programme who sadly passed away August this year.
As always, please get in touch over any issues/subjects you would like to see covered in future newsletters, and in the meantime, we would like to wish you a very happy festive season wherever you happen to be.
Message from Director General
Season's greetings from the New York Office.
As we anticipate 2013, we come to the end of another exciting and challenging year for the programme. Suffice it to say that increasing numbers of young interns from the UK, the USA and many other countries continue to find amazing opportunities through the Programme and the chance to spend a year working in London or New York.
The global economy remains stressed by many forces and the job market across the world is not easy to penetrate, particularly for the young and the recently graduated. The Mountbatten year has given many of you a head start, and I hope that when you are in a position to recruit into your own companies, you are open to young people like yourselves, who left their comfort zone and sought difficult challenges. Give a chance to a recent Mountbatten graduate. When your time came, you did not disappoint.... and neither will they!!
From our head office in New York, I send holiday greetings to all of you and hope for a prosperous and healthy New Year.
Dr. Paul Beresford-Hill, MBE
Director General
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Events
6th December 2012
The Economist Gala
For the third time in the past three years, our New York Programme MBAs attended The Economist gala. Along with Director General Dr. Paul Beresford-Hill and Academic Director Dr. Dennis Garritan, they enjoyed the programme of "The World in 2013" festival.
Alum of the Month
Audrianna Sibiski
March 2011 - London
"The US suspended sanctions on Burma during my study in Thailand which created a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the country in it's beginning stages for widespread development."
Read full story.
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Charitable Alumni
Alex Smith (September 2007 - New York) sent us a very positive update on his charity North London Cares, which has raised £100K since August and will enable Alex to hire at least one member of staff to help him on all his projects. This is what they are currently doing over the winter/Christmas period. If any alums would like to get involved, please contact Alex at alex.smith@northlondoncares.org.uk.
This winter, North London Cares volunteers are out in force in Islington, helping to keep people warm and to build the social connections that can be so vital for older people to remain active and healthy during these bitterly cold months. The volunteers are attending Christmas parties, lunches, tea dances, social clubs and other events hosted by North London Cares and our partners, providing that little extra companionship at an otherwise isolating time. We're also taking school choirs to day centres, and knocking on 1,000 doors to ensure people who can't get out are staying warm and wrapped up!
Mark Yavelow – A Belated Heralding
I have just learned that Mark Yavelow died at the end of August of a heart attack. He had been suffering from diabetes for a long time.
Mark was a widower, with no children – and he spent his final 2 years in a hospice in Tarrytown. When I last visited him there he was almost blind, one of many ailments secondary to his diabetes. Some of you may remember he was a ferocious consumer of the written word, in print and on-line, so not being able to read was devastating. He lasted longer than predicted in that forlorn condition, about 2 years, but as the more recent of his former Mountbatten students will know, his medical complications and his suffering started long before that. In short, his last 5 years were perfectly miserable.
His mind was still intact - but at the hospice he was not living among his peers. However, knowing his indomitable spirit, you will not be surprised to learn that he reoriented himself, accepted his fate and social circumstances, and dedicated his time in the hospice to serving others, in his own Yavelovian way of course. When I last saw him, he had more or less taken over the place: coaching the staff there; organizing their careers and, where admitted, their private lives; managing their grievances; and representing their cases to management. This last, his barrack-room lawyering, got him carpeted a couple of times - but it thrilled him to know that he was shaking up the institution, in his view for the better. I am told he wrestled all kinds of concessions and improvements out of management. The nursing and janitorial staff adored him; and so it seems did some of the other patients, judging from their cheery salutes as I walked through the premises with him.
Mark had a distinguished career as a consultant, dedicating his last professional decade to Mountbatten. Many former interns have told me that he exerted a profound influence on their career planning and their general thinking processes in the work place. I know his brand of tough love wasn't for everyone, but let me share with you something that may not have been evident during your internship: he cared a great deal about all of his Mountbatten charges, including those he had bullied. The pride he took in learning of your subsequent achievements gave him a ridiculous grin at the time and enormous comfort during his long dying years. Certainly, out of all of his own myriad accomplishments, you were his favorite.
Michael Billett
December 6, 2012
Jobs
Check out all the current vacancies we have on our website, including 2 managerial posts at Audible (an Amazon company) in New Jersey, Research Assistants for a recruitment company in London, and a Marketing Assistant role in a London based marketing company.
Alumni Committee Updates & Announcement
The London based Mountbatten Institute Alumni Committee will meet early in the New Year to discuss amongst other items our programme of alumni events for the next year and newsletter content. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any ideas or if you would like to be involved.
In the meantime, the Alumni Committee would like to wish you all a very happy festive season and a great start to 2013.
email: vmccordall@mountbatten.org
web: http://alumni.mountbatten.org
Feedback
Let us know what you would like to read about in the newsletter. Are there any stories that you would like us to cover in our Alumni newsletter? If so, please get in touch. |