March 2025 Newsletter
Message from the co-ordinators
It’s been a busy few months of highs and lows with the completion of the Metaswitch acquisition by Alianza, the departure of those staying at Microsoft from the Enfield and Edinburgh offices, and the redundancies occurring in the MaX teams. Plenty of changes coming in with the start of the spring, from desk moves to office closings, we’re looking forward to see what’s next for everyone. As usual there’s been loads of social events going on too - it’s been fantastic to see and hear about all the meet-ups that have been happening. There’s plenty more events going on in the oncoming months too, so lots of chances to get involved or organise something new on Discord!
Local Upcoming Events
Cambridge
Cambridge are very active so check out the #cambridge-events channel on Discord to keep up to date.
Edinburgh
March meet-up
We’re planning for our March meet-up to be a casual get together in a local pub. There will be a poll on the General channel of the WhatsApp community soon to determine a date!
Keep an eye on WhatsApp and the #scoff-chat channel on Discord for updates!
Enfield/London
Enfield Safari Supper - get in touch with Jen K or look here to find out more. Date TBC - a Friday or Saturday evening, in April to June.
RegularRepeated events:pub visit (next one is 7 March - tonight - at 6pm in the Cricketers)
lunch in Enfield - provisional date Friday 28th March. See Discord soon for more details.
lunch at Alianza. We’ll be repeating the “bring a friend to lunch” day that we held in February - probably a Wednesday in early April. Again, watch Discord!
Mark Thebridge’s concert - 26th April
More shameless music event advertising, since that seems to be the main use for these channels - I'm singing in what's shaping up to be an excellent concert at Cadogan Hall (near Sloane Square) on Sat 26th April. "Baroque Splendour", with 150-plus singers and proper Baroque orchestra. Details and tickets here https://cadoganhall.com/whats-on/baroque-splendour-with-constanza-chorus-and-whitehall-choir/.
A reminder that there are regular lunchtime sports still going on in Enfield. Check out the #enfield-london-sports channel on Discord if you’re interested. All abilities welcome and you don’t need to be a MSFT employee to come along!
Things you can get involved with
We’re looking for a new local meetup rep for the London and/or Enfield areas so if you’re interested in helping ensure regular alumni meetups happen in this area, get in touch!
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Events round up
Edinburgh
January meet-up at the Rose Street pub - Our January meet-up was a more low-key affair, with around 20 people turning out at a pub in central Edinburgh for a catch up over beers and burgers.
Scoff Whisky at Port of Leith distillery - The Scoff Whisky group meets every month or two, usually at someone’s home. Each month, everyone brings along a bottle of whisky and we go around in turn introducing our whisky and everyone gets to taste a wee dram. In January, we saw an opportunity to do something a little different, a tour and tasting at a new local distillery, the Port of Leith! It’s the UK’s first vertical distillery and the world’s tallest distillery, and we’d highly recommend a visit.
February meet-up at the Causewayside office - Initially scheduled to be the last Microsoft Day, this meet-up was held on the penultimate Microsoft Day at the Causewayside Office. It was an opportunity for everyone to get together at the Scoff to mark the end of many people’s time at Microsoft. We had a Task
masterconductor competition complete with a checkbox ticking exercise, a commemoration book to sign and a careful rebrand of the front desk.
Enfield
With so many people still being based in Enfield, twenty of us took the opportunity to head to Aksular on a Friday in January.
On 7th Feb around twenty five people headed down to the Cricketers to reminisce over old times, hear about what was happening in Genotin Rd and find out how everyone was getting on with new jobs. Thanks to Andrew Robinson Hodges for organising
For our first big foray into central London after the Christmas party Belle organised a dinner at Oxford Street Market Hills. It was a great venue with plenty of choice for food, no need for everyone to arrive or leave at the same time, and a location that allowed Enfield and central London people to all make it along.
In February we held a bring-a-friend-to-work day where Microsoft employees invited friends and family into the office to take advantage of the excellent canteen. With around fifteen people coming in, we’ll be looking to run it again in the future. And, most importantly, it achieved its main goal of giving Ken an excuse to show his wife the office.
Not strictly an alumni event but at the end of February, we held the “Goodbye” Party at Genotin Rd with half of the occupants leaving the build and most of the rest leaving Microsoft. Some sadness but mostly joy as we got to spend an evening together before moving to our new homes. Good luck to all of you, whichever direction you were heading!
Midlands
On 25th Feb, the remaining folks in the Midlands office cleared out their desks and said goodbye to the office. In true midlands fashion, we ordered in samosas and played many games of pool, in which Neil emerged victorious. Thanks to everyone for attending!
On 16th Feb, a few Midlands alumni attended a few games of Blood on the Clocktower - a social deduction game similar to Werewolf / Mafia, hosted by Stefan Grant. The premise is that everyone has a unique secret character and alignment (good or evil), and is trying to figure out who everyone else is. There was also cake, and this made everyone happy.
Updates from the community
Job updates
There have been a couple of new job updates shared in the Discord channel lately including:
Dave Watts starting a permanent job as an LSA at an SEMH secondary school in Enfield
Greg Walters and Mike Ramage both starting at Evroc (alongside 4 other ex-Microsofters!)
Mary Ford starting at Justice Digital
James Fletcher starting as Head of Solutions Architecture at Orca Computing
Jen Kitson starting at PortSwigger
Christophe Jefferies starting as a backend developer at Octopus Energy
… and a lot of people started a job at Alianza!
Keep sharing your updates, we love hearing where everyone is moving to!!
Other updates
If you have any updates that you’d like to be included in the next newsletter then email metaswitchalumni@substack.com or message Alice Walker on Discord! There’s also a #job-and-life-updates channel on Discord if you want a more low-key way of sharing news and keeping up with others.