Events

Recent Graduate Drinks in London

6:30pm – Vinegar Yard, 72-82 St Thomas Street, London, SE1 3QU

We are delighted to invite recent graduates to an evening of drinks and conversation in London on Thursday 8 October, from 6.30pm to 10.00pm, at Vinegar Yard, located next to London Bridge station.

We're joining forces with Trinity, Jesus, Pembroke and Girton to bring together alumni who have graduated within the last ten years for an evening of reconnecting with old friends and meeting contemporaries from across Cambridge.

Tickets are £16 for Emmanuel graduates from the Class of 2026 and £21 for those who graduated between 2016 and 2025. Guests are welcome to attend at £26 per person, with a limit of one guest ticket per attendee.

The ticket price includes two drinks vouchers and a food voucher. There will be various bars and food stations around the venue. 

As places are limited, we recommend booking early to avoid disappointment.

Book your place.

All ticket prices include a £1 booking fee.

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Contemporary Art Walk in Central London

2:30pm – Central London

As the art world gathers for the annual Frieze London fair, join art historian Emma Davis (2002) for a gallery hop around a handful of small and medium-sized spaces with introductions by gallerists, curators and artists.

The idea will be to sample, rather than survey, the range of contemporary art being made and displayed in London outside of the blue-chip galleries.

Emma will guide you to several galleries in close proximity, where you will discover some of the newest and most thought-provoking pieces in contemporary art from those who know them well. It’s the perfect time to visit as most commercial and public institutions schedule their best shows to coincide with Frieze London.

The specific galleries and meeting place will be circulated closer to the time, but will likely be in the Fitzrovia or Soho/Mayfair areas of London.

This event is now fully booked. Please click here to join the waiting list. 

Photo credit: Nigel Ip

Curator's Tour of Modern Art Oxford

5:15pm – Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford, OX1 1BP

Emma members are invited to a curator-led tour of Modern Art Oxford's major autumn exhibition, marking the gallery's 60th anniversary and Mike Nelson's return to the gallery since 2004. Nelson revisits his earlier work, Triple Bluff Canyon, to create an environment that unfolds across space and time and touches on questions of travel, memory and displacement; protest and individualism.

You’ll start the visit with light refreshments and the chance to meet your fellow guests, before embarking on a curator-led viewing of Mike Nelson’s major new work and the new Platform Graduate Award exhibition, showcasing exciting works by emerging artists.

Modern Art Oxford is a leading contemporary art space with an international reputation for innovative and ambitious programming. Across 60 years of bold exhibitions by established, emerging and sometimes overlooked artists, Modern Art Oxford has championed creativity in all its visual forms as an agent of social change. Modern Art Oxford brings artists and audiences into dialogue and celebrates the relevance of contemporary visual culture to society today.

NOTE: The tour will finish by 6.30pm, allowing those attending the Emmanuel Society Dinner at Exeter College to make their way to the college for the reception at 7.00pm. Modern Art Oxford is approximately 7 minutes’ walk from Exeter College.

Places are £13, which includes a curator-led tour of the new major exhibition by Mike Nelson and the Platform Graduate Award exhibition, and light refreshments in the cafe. Members are welcome to attend with up to three guests.

Book your place here.

Photo: Mike Nelson, Triple Bluff Canyon, 2004. Installation view at Modern Art Oxford, 2004. Photo: John Riddy

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Emmanuel Society Dinner at Exeter College, Oxford

7:00pm – Exeter College, Turl Street, Oxford, OX1 3DP

You are warmly invited to a special joint formal dinner with our ‘sister’ college, Exeter College, Oxford.

Generously hosted by Exeter in its 400-year-old dining hall, this occasion offers a unique opportunity to spend an evening in good company, renewing friendships, recalling shared experiences, and meeting members of both Emmanuel and Exeter from across generations. The longstanding relationship between our two colleges makes this a fitting and convivial gathering celebrating 90 years of connection!

The evening will begin at 7.00pm with a drinks reception in the Rector’s Lodgings, followed by dinner in Hall. We are delighted that the Master of Emmanuel, Doug Chalmers, and the Rector of Exeter College, Andrew Roe, will be in attendance and will address the gathering.

The cost of the dinner is £67 per head or £45 for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers at the Univeristy of Oxford (any college).

The dress code is lounge suit or equivalent. Members are invited to attend with a guest. If you will attend with college friends, you will have the opportunity to let us know who you would like to sit with upon booking.

This event is now fully booked, please click here to join the waiting list.

Our cancellation policy can be viewed under our Member Events Terms and Conditions.

Supporting graduate students

Those who matriculated at Emmanuel and are now studying at the University of Oxford (any college) are invited to attend this dinner at a subsidised rate of £45.

The Emmanuel Society has a long-standing tradition of inviting students to events at a discounted rate.

The college and Society would very much appreciate the generosity of members willing to sponsor a recent graduate to attend the dinner. There is an option to do so on the booking form.

Emmanuel Society Culture Club - A visit to the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge

4:45pm – Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HA

We are delighted to once again offer members the opportunity to visit Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy for a special guided tour and talk with Paul Fellows (1979), Chair of the Cambridge Astronomical Association.

The guided visit will comprise a tour of the historic buildings and telescope observatory, and a talk by Paul on the discovery of planets beyond the solar system.

If the evening is clear, you'll have the opportunity to look up at the night's sky through the telescopes and learn to navigate the constellations. If the weather is not conducive to stargazing, you'll enjoy a planetarium-style show indoors. An event not to be missed!

This is event is free of charge to members of the college.

This event is now fully booked. Please click here to join the waiting list. 

Ely Book Talk and Tea with Charles Moseley

12:00pm – Ely Museum, The Old Gaol, Market Street, Ely, CB7 4LS

Join us for an afternoon of stories, history and tea in the city of Ely with Charles Moseley.

After Charles Moseley's popular talk about his book on St Etheldreda a few years ago, he's back with a new book on Hereward the Wake, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman and leader of local resistance to the Norman Conquest of England.

Spend the afternoon with Charles and members of the college, discovering the story of Hereward in the city that was his base of resistance. Starting at midday, Charles will speak on the mayhem and myth that surrounds Hereward at Ely Museum from 12.00pm.

We’ll convene again at 2.30pm at the 13th-century Almonry Kitchen, in the cathedral grounds, where we’ll continue the conversation over a sumptuous afternoon tea.

For those that wish to join, we’ll close the afternoon with evensong in the cathedral, one of the architectural wonders of the medieval world.

Between the talk and afternoon tea, you’ll have some time to explore the museum’s collections or the delights of the city, including the cathedral, Toppings bookshop or the riverside antiques emporium.

Here's what Charles says about the book:

'We know virtually nothing for certain about Hereward, later surnamed 'the Wake'. But for a couple of years after William the Bastard won at Hastings - and nearly did not - Hereward gave him a good few sleepless nights. The resistance he helped lead, based on the almost impregnable Isle of Ely, might even have succeeded had the Danes not been bought off by a bribe from William. Hereward escaped and nobody knows what happened to him.

But of such a man stories can be made, and many were, from (probably) an Old English heroic poem to a hugely influential nineteenth century novel, and many modern iterations in various media down to our own day - and he gives his name to pubs, schools, a long-distance footpath and care homes.'

Join us for a fascinating exploration of Hereward: Mayhem, Man, Myth.

About Charles

Dr Charles Moseley FSA FEA taught medieval and renaissance literature at the University of Cambridge for many years, as College Lecturer at Magdalene College, Director of Studies and Fellow at Wolfson College, and Senior Tutor and Director of Studies at Hughes Hall. He is an accomplished lecturer and public speaker, and is the author of books including To the Eel Island: An Evening Journey, Etheldreda’s World: Princess Abbess Saint and To Everything a Season: A View from the Fen.

Charles is the husband of Rosanna Moseley Gore (1979), Emmanuel Society committee member, and a friend of the college, having given talks for members on a range of subject over several years.

How to book 

The cost for the full day, including afternoon tea, is £33 per person. If you are able to join only for the talk, the cost is £8, which includes a year of return entry to the Ely Museum.

Book now.

Copies of Charles's book will be available to purchase. 

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College and Emmanuel Society Advent Carol Service

6:30pm – St Pancras Church, 165 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BH

Please note this service will be held in a new venue for 2026.

Members of Emmanuel, families and friends are invited to the annual College and Emmanuel Society Advent Carol Service at London's St Pancras Church. Welcome the festive season with the chapel choir and a service of lessons, followed by mince pies and refreshments.

This event is free-of-charge to members of the college and their families and friends. If you would like to contribute towards the cost of the refreshments, which helps us keep this event free to all, there is an option to do so when you book.

Book to attend.

Booking closes on Wednesday 2 December or when the event is fully booked.

By attending this event, you agree to our terms and conditions.

The Scottish Colourists: Art and Life, a talk by Alice Strang (1992)

6:00pm – Online

Alice Strang (matric 1992) read History and History of Art at Emmanuel. Upon graduating she joined Christie's where she worked as a Specialist across Impressionist, Modern, 20th century and Contemporary art. She then spent 22 years at the National Galleries of Scotland, becoming a Senior Specialist in Modern & Contemporary Art. Since 2021 she has been an Associate Director of Lyon & Turnbull auctioneers. Alice has been described as 'one of the most cultured minds on Scotland's art scene.' (Scottish Field, 2026).

Alice will talk about her new book for the National Galleries of Scotland, The Scottish Colourists: Art and Life. This is the story of the interwoven lives of

Samuel John Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter and Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell who are Scotland's most celebrated artists of the twentieth-century. They were bound together by friendship and an immersion in progressive French art, which resulted in their use of bold design, beautiful brushwork and, above all, brilliant colour. Individually and collectively the four artists were the torch bearers of modern art in Scotland. In 1937 the artist David Foggie described Peploe as 'the creator of a new beauty, entirely of this century and unique'. This description can be applied to all the members of the quartet now celebrated as the 'Scottish Colourists'. Alice Strang re-examines the Colourists' lives, work and international legacy, revealing why their art continues to captivate audiences worldwide.

This talk will be hosted by Rosanna Moseley Gore (1979). There will be time for questions and discussion after Alice's talk.

Book your place here. 

Copies of the book can be ordered here.