All-Canada University Association of Washington, DC

Each year, the All-Canada University Association Executive Board works with one or more contacts from the host university's Canadian alumni office. It's easy to illustrate what's involved in planning these events by following one host university's footsteps.

One Host's Journey to Washington

In 2003, the University of Toronto hosted the event. The Executive Board worked with Lorraine Gillis from the host university. Lorraine contacted her counterparts across Canada regarding their willingness to "participate," that is, send notices/invitations to their alumni in the Washington, DC metropolitan area (Maryland, Washington, DC and Virginia). Many host universities also covered Pennsylvania. That year, 29 universities were listed as participants. Of course, not all had alums in the crowd.

Lorraine finalized the invitation in consultation with our chair, Serge Sira, then e-mailed a copy to her counterparts at other Canadian university alumni offices. These offices printed and mail out the invitations five weeks prior to the event. Lorraine looked after name tags, the paid and unpaid registration lists and many other matters.

Host university alumni offices also bear some of the costs. For instance, they cover the expenses of the president, the president's spouse and other host university VIPs who travel here for the occasion. The Board covers dinners for the host university's VIPs, invited representative from the Canadian embassy and guest speakers.

Guidelines for what and how to send materials to an event

Many of our participating universities send souvenirs and giveaways to distribute to attending alumni. The contact person at the host university alumni office can give instructions on how and where to send these.

Ask Your University to Host!

We welcome bids from universities to host events in future years.

Up to now, prospective host universities have always approached us, often through a representative on our Board.

An important consideration for a potential host university is identifying a representative on our Board (or an individual interested in joining the Board) that is willing and able to take on the year-long effort this entails. The experience is tremendously rewarding.