Downing entered two crews in Boston's 50th Head of the Charles race – see race reports, below.

Segs: It was brilliant. Credit must surely go most of all to the two Ians, one of whom [Ian Schmertzler] steered and cheered us down the course with truly amazing skill, the other of whom [Ian Watson] kept us all fighting until the last metre had been covered. My thanks go, too, to Jon Hickey and Pete Forester, the Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee of 6 and 5, the golden oldies in 4 and 3, Rory Ross and Paul Hatfield, and my fellow young'uns, Sam Glynn and Edward Chalklen, bringing us home in the bows. Sure, we weren't entered in the Championship event, but we were undoubtedly counted among the many 'Great Eights' that rowed this year's Head of the Charles. Mike Whetnall

W1: The first Downing women's crew to row the Head of the Charles had an absolutely fantastic experience! Huge thanks for his very generous funding to Paul Hatfield who, with the immense help of Gabrielle in the Alumni & Development Office, ensured that the trip was such a success. The conditions were great on the day, with only a slight head wind round the last turn and the race went very well. To huge cheers from the crowd (thanks to all of those who were out there to support us!), we maintained our speed until the line, where we finished in 20th place with a time of 19:54. As all other crews in the Division were University crews, we were very pleased with our position. Jess Stewart

Dr Monica Moreno Figueroa and Dr Brendan Plant were welcomed as Fellows, Dr Moreno Figueroa as a Fellow in Social Sciences and Dr Plant as the new Hopkins Parry Fellow in Law.

Dr Moreno Figueroa came to Cambridge from Newcastle University, where she had been a Senior Lecturer in Sociology.

Dr Plant had been a PhD student in Law at Downing College and is a member of the University Law Faculty.

On 30 September, Professor Paul Linden and Dr Peter Evans became Emeritus Fellows.

This year's Varsity Match, the 133rd, will be dedicated to the 27 Oxford and the 28 Cambridge Blues who lost their lives in World War I. Kicking off at the new time of 14:30, the match will be at Twickenham Stadium on 11 December 2014.

Downing College's pre-match tailgate party will begin at 12:00 and will be held in the Stadium's West Car Park. Click here to go to our booking page for tickets and the tailgate party.

The Downing College Alumni Day was busier than ever, this year, with a family fun day, including a bouncy castle, outdoor games and ice cream! For the more mature audience, entertainment included an exhibition of the College silver, wine tasting and a lecture by the Master. The Association AGM was followed by the presentation of the Everitt Butterfield Fellowship donors' board and dinner in the Hall. See more photographs on Flickr, here.

Downing College boat house welcomed back eleven intrepid oarsman from the 1970 May boat for a paddle down the Cam. This was followed by dinner in West Lodge. Follow their progress along the river on Flickr, here.

This year's DCBC London Reception took place aboard HQS Wellington, moored on the Thames just across the road from Temple tube station. About 65 alumni and guests attended - see more photographs on Flickr here.

Downing has been given a Gold Award for its outstanding performance as a Green Tourism site for conferences. During the accreditation assessment grading, the College was scored across ten different categories to judge its green credentials - from the use of environmentally friendly paper, cleaning products and toiletries to the provision of wildlife and cultural activities.

The assessor highlighted a number of areas of excellence. These included the Howard Theatre as a sustainable conference venue, using a ground source heat pump with heat recovery, solar thermal and PV arrays, and toilets fed by rainwater. Also commended was the adoption of low-energy lighting throughout the accommodation, the use of good local, organic, vegetarian and Fair Trade options in catering, and the provision of electric vehicle charge points on site.

Green management and communication scores were also strong due to excellent monitoring of utilities and water, and to significant engagement with the local community.

Professor Nick Coleman, Fellow of Downing College, is one of 44 researchers from across the UK to be recognised for their contribution to the advancement of medical science by election to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Professor Sir John Tooke PMedSci, President of the Academy, said, “The Academy of Medical Sciences represents the excellence and diversity of medical science in the UK, and this is evident in the broad range of expertise demonstrated by this year’s new Fellows." The new Fellows will be formally admitted to the Academy at a ceremony on Wednesday 2 July 2014.

The Master of Downing College, Professor Geoffrey Grimmett, is one of 50 new Fellows of the Royal Society.

The Royal Society's website notes: 'At a time of flowering of probabilistic methods in all branches of mathematics, Geoffrey Grimmett is one of the broadest probabilists of his generation, and unquestionably a leading figure in the subject on the world scene. He is particularly recognised for his achievements in the rigorous theory of disordered physical systems. Especially influential is his work on and around percolation theory, the contact model for stochastic spatial epidemics, and the random-cluster model, a class that includes the Ising/Potts models of ferromagnetism. His monograph on percolation is a standard work in a core area of probability, and is widely cited. His breadth within probability is emphasized by his important contributions to probabilistic combinatorics and probabilistic number theory.'

Three crews of alumni, as well as Downing's W1, M1 and M2 boats, took part in the 2014 Head of the Cam race over a 2600m course upstream from Baits Bite Lock. 'Segreants McPhail' – a 2008-2010 crew - won the Alumni VIIIs prize, while Downing W1 came top in the women's VIIIs. The photograph shows 'Segreants 1980s', a crew that included six members of the 1984 Lents Headship squad. A Segreants' Dinner in the Hall rounded off the day. For more photographs of the rowing and of the evening's entertainment, please click here.

Robert Markwick (1979) was admitted as a Wilkins Fellow in recognition of his generosity to Downing College.

Downing's Lent Bumps campaign saw M1 taking the head of the men's 1st division, M2 finishing in the same position as it started in the men's 2nd division and W1 coming 3rd in the women's 1st division. Traditional celebrations were enjoyed! See the DCBC - Lent Bumps 2014 photostream on Flickr and a brief video on YouTube.

The Lent Bumps campaign began this year with Downing's W1 at the head of the women's 1st division, M1 chasing Caius M1 for head of the men's 1st division and M2 fifth from top and chasing Churchill's M1 in the men's 2nd division. See daily race reports on our Facebook page and follow the progress of all the competitors on CamFM's Bumps website.

This year’s Oon International Award was made to Dr Daniel J Drucker MD, Senior Investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Dr Drucker visited Downing on 12 February to talk to Downing medical students before delivering his lecture entitled L cell pharmacology advances the treatment of diabetes and gastrointestinal disorders in the Howard Theatre.

DCRUFC won the league and cuppers double in 2013 for the first time since 1993. In honour of this recent success, a reunion match was held (boys of '93 vs boys of 2013) on Saturday 8 February followed by a celebratory dinner in the Hall.

DCRUFC won 52-17

DCRUFC secured the Division 1 title for the second year running with a 28 – 7 victory over Robinson on 4 February 2014. They are now in an excellent position to go onto a historic double-double for the Division 1 and cuppers trophies. Congratulations to all involved.”