AGM 2008 – CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Many thanks to Mrs. Evans for chairing our meeting in her capacity as President of the Society and congratulations on the excellence of the School’s performance in this year’s Public Examinations.

I shall report on our year’s activities as briefly as possible, but there have been many:

Shortly after our last AGM (2007) about 24 members enjoyed one of our ’Southern Lunches’ at a delightful restaurant in Cheltenham called ‘The Daffodil’.  We enjoyed it so much that Di Apps our Southern Secretary, promptly booked it again for this year’s Autumn Lunch, so several of us here will be there shortly to see what Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen has achieved in his refurbishment of this lovely Art Deco venue (which used to be a cinema).

Last December, about 48 of us had Christmas Lunch again at the Royal Mersey yacht Club.  This year’s will be on Tuesday, 9^th Dec., and it is advisable to book early.

April of this year saw 27 of us lunching at the Criterion in Piccadilly, another new venue chosen by Di Apps after careful research!  This was a fascinating place, very easy to reach, and we all enjoyed the occasion very much.  It would be lovely to see more of our ‘Southern Members’ booking in for these occasions as they are so very enjoyable.

In June this summer, we were pleased and surprised when 58 OGs attended the Annual Summer Reunion here at school – surprised, because only 40 had actually pre-booked.  It turned out to be a very happy and successful meeting, however, which I hope will lead to higher attendance in the future.

Old Girls enjoyed examining archive material (pictured) provided by the School’s Librarian, Marilyn Hogan, during the reunion.

We are most grateful to Di Apps for agreeing to continue to arrange the Southern Lunches, which she does so cheerfully and efficiently.

Staying on the subject of food, we continue to meet for our informal monthly lunches at the Raby Wheatsheaf  (see your copy of ‘Daisy Chain’ for dates) and Ruth Jacobs has very kindly continued to organize outings of interest for our Members, for which we are extremely grateful.

Our popular Bridge Club continues to grow and now has over 20 members who meet monthly at each others houses on a rota basis.  We thank Mary Read for coming up with such a brilliant idea in the first place!

Erica Bastow reports that our membership has stayed roughly the same at 1,775, still by far the largest OG membership in the Trust.  Not so many of our more recent school-leavers are joining the Society these days, though, perhaps because of today’s ease of communication through the internet – they can keep in touch so easily without the hassle of travelling.

It is becoming more noticeably common, however, for more of our older members to arrange their own out-of-school year-group reunions and I like to think that our very active Committee has been instrumental in encouraging such get-togethers through our Summer bulletin ‘Daisy Chain’ and through our incomparable Newsletter, produced every Autumn by Angela Bolton.  Angela puts in a huge amount of work on this every year, throughout the year, and we are inexpressibly grateful to her.

• Maude Guillot – L6
• Eva Parry-Jones – L6
• Genevieve McCormick – L6
• Charlotte Lynch – U6

Congratulations to all four and our best wishes for their future success.

Sadly, in January this year, we learned of the death of Barbara Wilson, Old Girl and former member of staff in the Geography Department.

Barbara, (seated third from left) is pictured here with the Birkenhead Old Girls and Centenary Award winners. She will be fondly remembered.

After consultation with her sister, Patricia, it was decided that our Society would present a framed Map of the World together with Commemorative Plaque to the Geog. Dept.

Mrs Haynes tells me that a great deal of preparation has taken place for the hanging of the Map: furniture has been moved, a wall repainted and a new carpet laid but alas, the Map has not yet arrived and so we were unable to present it formally to Mrs. Evans as had been planned. 

Finally, as I come to the end of my term as Chairman, I should like to thank Carole and the Committee for all their cheerful support and encouragement.  I wish them, and Maggie Williams, the new Chairman, success in all of their future endeavours and will be happy to keep in touch.

 Kay Scarratt,   September 2008.