The OIU's Sports Lunch was held on Friday 29 August at Doltone House Hyde Park, with the 150 people in attendance enjoying a great afternoon catching up with old friends and making new ones. 

Proceedings kicked off with OIU President, Sean Cunial, providing an update on the OIU's activities in 2025, with a video of the many reunions, volunteering and fund raising events held during the previous 12 months. 

In recognition of the College's outstanding performances this year in rowing (Head of the River success, and National Champions), rugby (first 1st XV premiership since 2011) and AFL (1st XVIII winning the premiership for the seven time in eight seasons and the ninth time in 11 seasons), Sean also presented OIU Awards to recognise the achivements of the Riverview Rowing Program Coordinator, Dan Noonan, to the 1st XV Rugby Coach, Toby L'Estrange, and to Riverview's AFL Program Coordinator, Nathan Stempel. Congratulations Dan, Toby and Nathan. 

The new College Principal, Mark Tannock, also spoke for a few minutes, and took the opportunity to take full and sole responsibility for the College's exceptional sporting results in 2025, which was well received by the room. 

The theme of this year's lunch was The Ashes - Beyond the Boundary, and featured former Australian fast bowler, Geoff Lawson, as the guest speaker, who entertained the room with stories of where cricket has taken him and continues to take him around the world, and the people he has met along the way. Following his speech, Geoff joined a panel with former Australian cricketer, Jason Krejza, who is also Riverview's Cricket Program Coordinator, and Alex Lee-Young (OR2024), who is a current member of the Australian U19 cricket team, and they discussed the upcoming Ashes series, which the panelists all predicted Australia will win comfortably, of course. 

A real feature of the lunch was the exceptional MC performance by John Meagher (OR1990), who entertained the crowd and kept proceedings moving. Many thanks John for a job well done. 

This year's lunch featured a raffle and a silent auction, that was expertly organised by John Russell (OR1994). Thank you to everyone who donated prizes for this year's OIU raffle and silent auction. Your support is greatly appreciated, as we could not run the raffle and silent auction without your donations. 

Our donors this year included: 

- Adam Elbourne 

- Danny Culbert 

- Nick Wills and the Greenwood Hotel 

- Oliver Slobodetsky and Helping Hand Group

- Rob and Selina Nichols 

- Simon Terrell 

- Vince Heffernan and Moorlands Lamb. 

Overall, the OIU Sports Lunch was a great day, and a big thank you goes to Christine Zimbulis, Cath Moore and Brian Shanahan for organising the Sports Lunch. 

In regards to future OIU lunches and events, the OIU Committee is interested in hearing the feedback from the OIU Community via following online survey. We would love to hear your feedback so we can improve and make our events the best they can be. We'd be grateful if you could spend a few minutes completing a survey about the Annual Sports Lunch 

CLICK HERE

Your feedback is really important to us — it helps us understand how we can make the OIU Sports Lunch an even better event. The survey will only take a few minutes, and all responses will be kept confidential. Thank you again for your support, and we hope you can join us next year! OIU Committee