The newly launched chapters are the Pietermaritzburg and Durban Chapters and Gqeberha and East London Chapters. In 2021, new chapters were established in Pretoria, Johannesburg, the Southern Suburbs and Northern Suburbs of Cape Town, Elgin and Gansbaai and there are more to come.
According to Ferdi van Dyk, Manager: Alumni Participation at SU, chapters will be launched in the coming months in Stellenbosch, Paarl, the West Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard. "We do, however, need Matie volunteers to keep the momentum going and we urge any Matie to contact us if they would like to volunteer to get involved in any Alumni Chapters."
While many international alumni events have been held over the past 10 years and more, plans are also afoot to launch chapters in the Netherlands, Belgium, Paris, Norway, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden. London, Oxford and Dublin are all vibrant networks of Maties and Hong Kong has had a small but committed chapter for some years now.
Washington DC and Denver Matie Alumni Chapters were also recently launched. In the United States, the chapters in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Kansas City are building up, while in Canada, chapters in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary were somewhat derailed during Covid but have been going for the past four years.
Karen Bruns, Senior Director of Development and Alumni Relations, says the Maties network creates opportunities for alumni to tap into Maties expertise across diverse professional sectors. "These chapters open doors for alumni to network on a business level, to build lasting friendships with other alumni in a specific area and create a platform where any new alumnus/a is guaranteed of friendly faces and sound advice, especially if they find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings."
Currently there is a network of alumni structures in over 25 centres around the world. Many social events, thought leadership and professional development programmes are offered nationally, internationally, and online each year through these networks. The Stellenbosch Women Alumnae Network (SWAN) and the Young Alumni Programme (YAP) are both exciting flagship programmes which are incorporated into each of the chapters.
Maties who would you like to establish or join a chapter in their area can send an e-mail to alumnihubs@sun.ac.za. The SU Alumni Relations team is ready to help and support every step of the way.