Easter Monday saw the College’s annual party and Easter Egg Hunt for the children of Fellows, staff
and graduate students. There was a lunch in Hall, with sausages and chips on the menu, and then
participants in the hunt assembled in the College garden.

A star attraction this year was a giant tortoise, brought along by Selwyn’s veterinary Fellow,
Stuart Eves.

But the greatest satisfaction seemed to be for those with most chocolate in their bags at the end
of the Egg Hunt!

One of Selwyn’s Fellows, the neuroscientist Fabian Grabenhorst, was featured on a BBC One science programme this week. He
was interviewed for ’The Truth About Fat’, seeking to discover whether our brains are hard-wired to like fats. Keen-eyed
observers will note that he was filmed in the Diamond in Cripps Court. You can watch the whole programme on the BBC iPlayer,
and it’s available for the rest of April at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05psf4l/the-truth-about-3-fat

Selwyn’s Hannah Evans (second left in the photograph below) will be competing in the first women’s Boat Race to be held on the Tideway in London. The women’s event has been moved to the same day and location as the men’s, and it will take place – with live television coverage – on Saturday, April 11th.

Hannah is a PhD student in Physics, and she has a previous Dark Blue allegiance from her time as an undergraduate at St John’s College, Oxford. But she didn’t row there at University level, and tells us that the Boat Race has only been an aim since her arrival at Selwyn. “When I came to Cambridge to start my PhD last year I decided that I would like to see how far I could get at the university level. I was selected for the reserve crew last year and raced in the Blondie versus Osiris race at Henley where we lost by half a length. After that, I kept rowing and competed in quite a few summer regattas, and I also raced for Selwyn in May bumps. We started training in September for the 2015 Boat Race, and the selection for the Blue Boat has been going on all year performances on the water and also in the gym being taken into account. It has been a very challenging year but I am very excited and honoured to be part of the first Women's Boat Race on the Tideway.”

There’s more about Hannah and the Cambridge crew at http://theboatraces.org/cuwbc, and live coverage on the day starts on BBC One at 4.15pm.

Selwyn’s undergraduates are away from the College until mid-April, but there’s a programme of events continuing in the College through the vacation.

Saturday March 28th saw a Congregation for those returning to Cambridge to be awarded their Masters degrees. Selwyn’s contingent is pictured below as they were lining up in Old Court before setting off for the Senate House. Later there was an MA celebration dinner in College. We were delighted to welcome back so many former students and their guests.

You can read more about the degree ceremonies here: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/studentregistry/current/newstud/graduation/index.html.

On Easter Monday, April 6th, there will be a children’s party and Easter Egg Hunt. Children of Fellows, staff and graduate students are invited; and lunch in Hall will be followed by a chase for chocolate eggs around the gardens.

Alumni will be coming to the College on Saturday, April 11th, for a reunion for those who matriculated in 1965 and 1975. Before dinner, there’ll be a chance to cheer on one of our current students – Hannah Evans – who is in the Cambridge crew for the women’s Boat Race. This year for the first time the women’s race will be rowed on the Tideway shortly before the men’s event. Click this link for information about the Cambridge crew: http://theboatraces.org/cuwbc.

 

Deputy head porter Bob Watson with a spring in his step outside Ann’s Court.

Congratulations to Tom Hollander, who studied English at Selwyn, on being named Best Actor at the Royal Television
Society’s 2015 programme awards. Tom was honoured for his portrayal of Dylan Thomas in the BBC’s "A Poet In New
York". A review of the programme at the time said Tom was "startlingly good" in the role, and we congratulate him now
on his recognition by the television industry.

The College held its annual lunch for parents on Saturday March 14th, to coincide with students getting ready to go home for the Easter vacation. The parents invited were those with undergraduates in their first year, and almost 200 people had lunch in the College Hall.

The Master, Roger Mosey, explained the reason for the event in a short speech at the end of the lunch: "We want to thank you for the support you've given to your students over the years. Parents are very much part of this community, and we're looking at more ways in which we can involve parents and families in what we do. It's partly that family involvement strengthens us all: to use a political phrase, we're all in this together. We don't want the feeling that your student goes off to somewhere you never see, and emerges as part of some kind of club from which feel the rest of the family feels excluded. It's partly because it's just a good thing to do: my own parents would have absolutely loved to have lunch in my Oxford college, but this would have been unheard of in the 1970s. What we also hope today is that this will help you fly the flag for Selwyn - so that you can tell people in your wider family or neighbourhood, or in schools your other children might go to, that this is a good place and one you'd recommend. "

Selwyn Fellow David Newland, an emeritus professor in engineering, will be giving a public talk in the Engineering Department
on Friday, March 13th.

The subject is centrifugal vibration absorbers and some applied mechanics history, which is explained as follows. "To meet
emission targets, car engines have become smaller and more highly-powered than they used to be. Lighter engines are more
prone to vibration and that has led to the introduction of centrifugal pendulum vibration absorbers to reduce noise and wear.
The history and design of these curious devices will be described. Current problems with their use as a component of
dual-mass flywheels (a standard part of most modern cars) will be discussed and recent research results described. The talk
will include extracts from a video of the late Professor Den Hartog of MIT lecturing on this subject in the 1970s."

Full details of the talk, timing and venue can be found at
href="http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/57107">http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/57107

It’s been a particularly successful period for some of the College’s sports teams, and for a number of individual students. The Selwyn men’s first XI football team (pictured below) won the University Cuppers Plate competition, with a tightly-fought 1-0 victory over Emmanuel College in the final. The team was: Matt Sullivan (c), Keir Baker, Jonny Dodd, Joe Hudson, David Alam, Simon Fox, Lawrie Wigham, Ryan Jenkinson, Dave Hawes, Alex Thompson, Lewis Ball, Sam Lumley, Luke Diana, Harvey Roweth. 

In Varsity matches: Selwyn’s Katie Holmes, as president of the University women’s rugby team, led Cambridge to a comprehensive 47-0 win over Oxford at Grange Road on March 7th. Also in the Cambridge team was the College’s Helen Lambert. In netball, the Cambridge teams won all three of their matches against Oxford the previous weekend, with Selwyn’s Frances Lee Barber, Nicky Taylor and Emily Coulter in the university first team. The photograph below shows a victorious Emily (left) with the Cambridge president and vice-captain.

In the Varsity men’s water polo, Selwyn’s Ian Cooper (below) played in the Cambridge team that had a last-minute 9-8 win over Oxford.

Elsewhere in College sport: the Selwyn men’s football second team clinched back-to-back promotions with a perfect league record. They played nine and won nine. Congratulations to the team: Ferenc Nadori, Ken Au (C), Dan Jollans, Zsolt Hofstadter, Willem Zwetsloot, Sungwoo Jeon, Tiago Silva, Luke Diana, Marius Ptaszny, Parris Sammut, Clayton Gillespie, Lance Mao, Dan Madridejos, Sam Raby, and Dan Eastment.

In College rugby, the men’s Selwyn-Peterhouse team have reached the semi-final of the Cuppers competition after a 59-0 thrashing of Homerton College. 

You can keep in touch with all Selwyn Sport on our dedicated Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SelwynSport

The students who took part in this year’s Telephone Campaign to raise funds for the College have been celebrating a successful outcome. A total of £209,000 was raised, and Selwyn would like to thank all the alumni and friends who made contributions.

As a mark of appreciation to the students for their work, they had a day at www.wildtracksltd.co.uk – courtesy of alumnus John Gorst, who owns the venue. In the afternoon there was a "Battlefield Live" experience, described as a muddier version of laser-tag. The photograph above shows our team preparing for action, with Development team members Giovanni Zappia and Andrew Flather. The morning had been occupied by Karting, with kitting out shown below.

The College is seeking to raise £1m towards the cost of a new Boathouse. The existing building is no longer fit for purpose, and work will begin shortly to create a new home for Selwyn rowers – along with the crews from King’s and Churchill Colleges and the Leys School. The College has a proud history of rowing, including some of its former students winning Olympic Gold Medals; but it also encourages participation in sport from people of all abilities. You can read the brochure that has been sent to rowing alumni at http://issuu.com/ciconiltd/docs/selwyn_combined_colleges_boathouse?e=7278733/11129493. Please note that this link takes you away from the Selwyn website, and you’ll need to use the ‘back’ button to return. If you’d like to donate to the appeal, you can do so at https://www.selwynalumni.com/sslpage.aspx?pid=298 or by printing out the form at the end of the brochure.