Online careers conference: Amplify your alumni - Develop a thriving alumni community and boost your careers provision

Are you a careers lead, or responsible for enterprise and development in a state school or college?

Join us in July for a week of webinars and workshops that will help you amplify the power of your alumni network to improve your careers provision, meet Gatsby Benchmarks and boost social mobility.

We have a programme packed with practical information, top tips and creative ideas to help you build a thriving and engaged alumni and employee volunteers network:

Tuesday 1st July

3.45pm to 4.15pm:  Hitting the mark: working with your alumni to meet the Gatsby benchmarks - Vic Geary, Future First resident Careers Lead

Get to grips with the updated Gatsby Benchmark requirements to include alumni in your careers programme with this informative session. Careers Leaders will leave equipped with practical tips, quotes to get SLT and teachers on board and a clear understanding of how to ensure your careers programme complies with the new alumni-focussed requirements from September 2025.

4.30pm to 5pm: Seeing it from all sides:  panel discussion with 

• Vic Geary, Careers Lead
• Rob Cremona, Gatsby Foundation
• Abby Vaughan, Shawbrook Bank
• Mark Feerick, Chief Analyst and Alumni Volunteer

Our panel will share their perspectives on what makes alumni and volunteer engagement in careers programmes so powerful. Seeing it from all sides will help to ensure an effective programme. The session will be led by Future First’s resident careers consultant, Vic Geary.

Wednesday 2nd July

3.45pm to 4.15pm: Your best year yet: Creating an alumni strategy for the year ahead - Georgie Lumu, Membership Manager and Mark Higgins, Head of Membership, Future First

This session is all about building your school’s alumni strategy. We will share our four key steps to help you create an action plan.

4.30pm to 5pm: Making it fun: Tips and free resources to keep your alumni engaged - Future First delivery team

During this session we will share examples of alumni events you can run in your school and ways to keep alumni engaged.

Thursday 3rd July

3.45pm to 4.15pm: Build it and they will come: How to build and foster a great community - Caroline Dowson, Volunteers Manager, and Sarah-Jane Freni, Comms Lead, Future First

In this session, we will look at what motivates volunteers and how you can communicate with them to create a sense of belonging.

4.30pm to 5pm: Setting you up for success: Launching our new alumni engagement course with the Careers and Enterprise Company - Marie Jobson, The Careers and Enterprise Company and Mark Higgins, Future First

This session will introduce the details of the free alumni course that is part of the CEC’s new VLE. Developed in response to the changes to the Gatsby Benchmarks, this course and other CEC resources will be discussed.


Friday 4th July

8am to 8.30am: Making it work for you - Drop in Q&A with the Future First Team (Future First members only)

The Future First team will be on hand to answer your questions, whether that is around membership, volunteering or communication.

This event is free for all staff of Future First member schools. You can book a space on individual sessions or on all 7 sessions.

For non-members, tickets are £5 per person per session or £25 for all 6 sessions. 

If you need help booking a place, please contact us: info@futurefirst.org.uk

Meet some of our speakers: