Valemark

Not a job or a meeting. A Thursday dinner in London, with 5 strangers chosen by our Secretary. £39 reserves your seat; food and drink are paid at the restaurant. Why men? The Secretary likes a balanced table and, this autumn, is short of men. How it works: tell the Secretary a little about yourself and pick a Thursday. Each table & seating plan is composed by background, life stage, passions & hobbies and profession, with enough range that nobody talks shop and enough in common that the conversation flows. It is not networking. Leave the business cards at home and bring opinions. Honour and recognition, as promised: on Sunday at 9pm your Note arrives, telling you what your table made of you. This month's tables are being composed now. Register below to put your name forward.

One of the toughest things about building a community is having to say no to people. People often reach out to The Dam Social Club wanting to share something with the LSE Alumni community. Whether it be someone moving out of London and passing on furniture, launching a book, starting a run club, selling concert tickets, every time, I'd turn them down. I've always been protective of our channels. Our Instagram (4.6k), LinkedIn (3k+), WhatsApp (800+), and mailing list (600+) grew fast because we guarded them from spam and oversharing. The second you open that door, a community starts feeling like noise. But that protection meant genuine asks got rejected too, opportunities the community would've genuinely wanted to hear about. Finally, we found a solution 🎉 The Dam Social Club now has a space on Clanmark, where LSE alumni can sell, share, promote, and discover things within the community, without flooding anyone's inbox or group chat. We're just getting started, so if you've got something to share or want to see whats happening withn the community, make sure to join. The Dam Social Club, where LSE alumni connect 🤝 https://lnkd.in/ejQ2JhsD

🍹 You can now host events for your community on Clanmark. No painful sharing the link and adding email lists. Instant distribution and signups in your communiti(es). We released it last Friday, Wayne A. used it on Sunday and his event for Imperial alumni sold out in 48h! It is entirely free for now (except for the card processing fees).

⛵ BINGO ON A BOAT ⛵ Few people have ever been brave enough to try it! On Monday, a fearless cohort of Imperial alumni boarded the historic Golden Hinde to do exactly that. Founders, traders, scientists, doctors, operators, dealmakers and everything in between. The competition was fierce: Monday nights have never been done like this! Huge congratulations to the winners of the game Ovi Doke and to Julia Wiszniowska. 💰 And the winners of the best dressed award: Lantian Pinkney and Tom Bellingham. 👗 Link to all the pics are below.

Nobody warns you about the social side of moving to London 💂♂️. The job 💼 is sorted. The visa 🛂 is sorted. The flat 🏠 took longer than expected but you got there. Then month six hits and you realise London is a city that takes its time with you. The way most people crack it is repetition. Showing up to the same places or the same events, until familiar faces become actual people you know. Until someone mentions a baseball league or a golf society or a running group or a game watch.. and suddenly you have a Saturday. That's what the 🇺🇸 US Alumni Club (USAC) is built around. A calendar full of events for anyone who studied at a US university and now calls the UK home. Open to anyone who studied at a US university, regardless of where you're from. A place to land when you first arrive. Through the USAC you can opt in to a weekly newsletter covering events organised by the community. And on Clanmark you can see what fellow alumni are already sharing directly with one another: job opportunities, housing available or wanted, tickets to games and concerts, and much more. If you know someone who just made the move, send them this way. Link to join in the comments 👇

A cool ads posted in the Imperial alumni club! Few people know this, but I spent hundreds of hours learning Mandarin when I lived in Taiwan. I've forgotten almost all of it... and never used a word of it professionally. It's still the most fascinating thing I've ever studied. I thought it was magical to write the meaning of a word instead of the sound it makes, and I fell in love with the beauty of Chinese characters. Learning something new might be one of the most valuable human experiences there is, even when it's of no direct use to you. Which is exactly why I loved seeing this ad in the Imperial Alumni club on Clanmark today: a member offering authentic Chinese cooking and Mandarin tutoring to fellow alumni. And there are people in your own community who'd love to teach you something too. Imperial alum? The link below opens every listing inside the club. Not Imperial? Hop on Clanmark and find your people (or start a club of your own).