"distinguished gathering" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It can be used to describe a group of people who are highly respected or prominent in their field or society. It is typically used in formal or professional contexts. Example: "The charity ball was attended by a distinguished gathering of philanthropists, business leaders, and celebrities."
It was all rather vague and bland, and the only member of that distinguished gathering not to pick the obvious holes in his argument was Geri Halliwell.
By Branwyn Lancourt NEW YORK, USA, 10 June 2011 – Children and mothers must be at the centre of the global HIV/AIDS response, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake told a distinguished gathering of leaders in the fight against AIDS in New York last night.
CNN anchor Soledad O'Brian was conference chair, in the company of a distinguished panel of women gathering to explore the use of meditation to heal anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies in women and girls who have suffered trauma.
"I therefore call on the distinguished heads of state gathering here to enter every debate, every discussion, every ceremony of this Summit with the well-being of today's children, and the welfare of future generations, uppermost in your minds".
"Science, that's what mattered to Ruth," says Maxine Singer, a younger member of Kirschstein's generation who is herself a noted researcher, the former president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and another of the handful of distinguished regulars at the gatherings focused on young scientists.
The "lean elegance" that distinguished Mellon in any large gathering of officials was noted by Walter Lippmann.
We gathered a distinguished board.
It also explains why a distinguished audience is invited ("what an extraordinary gathering," gushed Jeffrey Sachs, opening his first lecture yesterday), even if we can't see any of them.
One Sunday evening early in the fall, Glenn C. Loury arrived at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass., where a group of distinguished black intellectuals, including Cornel West, Lani Guinier and Henry Louis Gates Jr., was gathering to discuss the Sept. 11 attacks.
At a gathering in May at the New York City Harvard Club, alumni with distinguished careers in law and finance rose to extol the virtues of planned giving. That refers, among other things, to schemes in which you transfer assets to your alma mater while taking back a lifetime income.
When he held forth at the regular gatherings of central bank chiefs in Basel, the distinguished figures at the table, titans in their own fields, took notes with the eagerness of undergraduates.
