Alumni Associations & Old Scholars
An alumni association keeps you tied to the school or university you left, sometimes decades after you walked out the gates. Members share a single credential (you were there) and turn it into a lifelong network of reunions, mentoring, fundraising, and loyalty to the old colors. In Australia, India, South Africa, and beyond they go by Old Scholars, Old Collegians, Old Boys, and Old Girls, and the tie to the institution often outlasts almost everything else about student life.
Shared formative years give members an instant, durable identity, and the yearly rhythm of reunions and homecomings keeps that bond alive long after everyone has scattered across the map.
How this one actually works
Most associations run on an annual calendar built around a homecoming or reunion weekend, with milestone years (often the tenth, twenty-fifth, and fiftieth) getting their own dinners and class photos. A volunteer committee or elected council handles the newsletter, the alumni register, and the fundraising drives, while regional chapters in other cities and countries host smaller meetups. The public, shared moment is the reunion itself: old classmates back on the grounds, the school song, blazers and ties in the house colors, and a formal dinner where speeches and giving pledges land. Many associations also run mentoring and career-networking programs that pair recent leavers with established members. Dues and donations fund scholarships, bursaries, and building projects that tie the giving back to the place.
The formal alumni association is usually traced to the Society of Alumni of Williams College in Massachusetts, founded in 1821 and described as the oldest continuing college alumni organization in the world. The old boys and old girls tradition grew out of Britain's fee-charging public schools and spread across the Commonwealth, where regional names took hold: Old Collegians and Old Scholars in Australia, and Old Boys' societies across India, where Bishop Cotton School's Old Cottonians Association was established in 1910. Universities everywhere later built professional alumni offices on the same model.
If it is your first reunion, you already hold the only ticket that matters: you went there. Turn up to a homecoming or a local chapter drink, find your year group, and expect to be folded in fast, because shared corridors and teachers do most of the introducing for you. Nobody expects you to have kept in touch; the whole point is picking the thread back up.
Real groups you could walk into
Each is a specific, verified community currently active in this archetype.
How to start alumni associations & old scholars in your city
a seasonal cycle · 50+ people · global anchor
- A consistent core of 50+ people after six months
- Public visibility through belonging
- Cross-generational membership (or at least mixed ages by year two)
- Newcomers absorbed without losing the founding crew
- Find 3-5 co-founders who can commit to a seasonal cycle for at least a year.
- Pick a recurring time and place. Calendar discipline matters more than perfect timing.
- Design a clear visible identity early: name, simple kit or symbol, a short manifesto.
- Make the activity itself the recruitment tool. Show up in public; people will join.
- Build an explicit beginners path. The first session should feel welcoming, not intimidating.
- Decide your contribution to the wider neighbourhood now, not later: a performance, a service, a cleanup, a meal.
- · No athletic background required; calibrate expectations honestly.
- · Don't let founders become irreplaceable. Plan for handover from year one.
- · Open entry means churn. Build rituals that turn drop-ins into regulars.
Alumni Associations & Old Scholars near you?
If a named group above is missing (yours, or one you know), submit it. The catalog grows by who notices what.