My mate #24 Janine Watson

Janine (in green) at her retirement do last from the UoM Alumni Board

I was honoured to give a citation to my friend Janine Watson last night as she stepped down as chair of the University of Manchester Alumni Board, which I have been on for the last 5 years. So, I thought I'd add it to the "my mate" series on this blog, where I talk about my friends, how we met and what I like about them. What follows is the speech with all the libels taken out.

Janine and I first knew each other in our poacher and gamekeeper roles. She the softly spoken Alastair Campbell of Manchester Town Hall, protecting her estate. Me, the editor, the occasional hunter. I well remember a whispering phone call from Janine to follow up about something that Sir Howard Bernstein wasn’t happy about that had been written in Insider, the magazine I edited. But it was an early glimpse of her quiet steel in how she delivered the words that turned your blood to ice - "Howard isn't happy".  It's also one of the hallmarks of how professional she was that we managed not to fall out and all emerge with dignity intact and relations remained strong. We always stayed good professional friends, especially so when she moved to Stockport Borough Council as assistant chief executive and her advice was always wise, especially when I got involved in the bear pit of local politics.

So I was particularly delighted when Janine asked me to apply to join the board of the University of Manchester Alumni Association, when she was taking over from our mutual friend Andy Spinoza.

In all that time over the last 5 years Janine has been mindful that the scope of the work of the board is to give strategic advice and to provide support and ideas to the Alumni and Development Office, and of course awarding travel bursaries to students. Part of the skill of any board chair is to make the best use of the rest of the board members, something Janine has become particularly skilled at. One day she called me with an invitation to support her on a particularly important piece of work. Given the build up and the hushed way she was briefing me on this special assignment I was practically packing my sunglasses for, the very least, a trip to host the Singapore Alumni reception, maybe even New York. No, it was to join her as part of a task and finish group to scrutinise an important piece of drafting on the new constitution.

But it is also a sure sign that Janine has been a fantastic chair because she also gets stuck in on important work like this herself and makes it a pleasure, as much as a constitutional drafting can be enjoyable.

In fact, there was probably only one job where she has consistently exercised chair’s privilege. Namely, any occasion where the job involved formally thanking and introducing Professor Brian Cox!

All of us do these voluntary roles because we care and we want to make a positive difference. I think we can agree Janine has done that, but more so that she's done it with great warmth and love. Keeping it going over and again is the real skill. But as a board we are more global, more connected, more digital than ever. We are working smarter and have held board meetings in London, to be closer to the wider network, though still not in Singapore! All meetings are now held using video conferencing with useful inputs from around the world, and we are all kept up to date on important events and ways we can support Kate White, Claire Kilner and all in the Alumni and Development offices. Both of us feel deeply that the University of Manchester transformed our lives. To serve on a board together like this and to turn business contacts into firm friends is a mark of how that experience persists to this day.