News of Old Boys

The Melbourne Box

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Nicholas Searles (2007) found himself in a position where he lost a bit of work, but gained some extra time and perspective on just how lucky he was compared to others – particularly some of his favourite local businesses.

Nicholas wanted to do something productive with his new-found spare time, and subsequently came up with The Melbourne Box: a gift box concept that gathers products from a range of different Melbourne-based businesses and delivers them to your doorstep. It helps support local business, provides handy products for isolating Melburnians, and filled the gap in Nicholas’ schedule!

The Melbourne Box was launched in May and sold out in the first week! Nicholas had to quickly re-stock for the Mother’s Day rush and delivered over 100 boxes on the Mother’s Day weekend.

Congratulations

Jonathan Giokas (2008) married Eleni on 22 February 2020 at Aerial,

South Wharf in Victoria There were lots of 2008 Old Boys in the bridal party including: Milan Amarsi, Christian Pitsounis and Louis Goutos.

Tim Hare (2009) got married to Alex Ryan on 15 March 2020 at Lyrebird Falls. Hugh Banfield (2009) was best man, and Tim’s brother Pete (2006) gave a toast to the bride

and groom.

Congratulations to Liam Petterson (2014) of University of Melbourne who won the 2019 Student Journalist of the Year award for ‘IBM Australia to roll out neurodiversity program, hiring people with autism to fill variety of IT roles’.

JUDGES’ CITATION

Liam Petterson’s story showed excellent news instincts and initiative. While interning with ABC Radio Ballarat, Liam spotted the potential for a story in a job ad for IBM. The company was seeking up to ten candidates with autism for their neurodiversity program. Liam demonstrated strong research and reporting skills to craft a human story which attracted national attention.

Congratulations

Jonathan Henshaw (2013) for being shortlisted for B&T’s 30 Under 30 Entrepreneur award! Tackling Mount Kilimanjaro In October last year James Hogan, Ben Scott, Nick Barrington (all 2011) and myself were fortunate enough to collectively tackle the highest summit on the African continent: Mount Kilimanjaro. Looking back on it now, I think it is fair to say we were all probably a little overconfident going into the experience. The reality was that the combination of sub-zero temperatures, blistering winds and high altitude sickness pushed us all to our limits at some point.

Jayde and Cyrus Aftasi (2003) were married at St Andrew’s Conservatory in Fitzroy on a beautifully sunny day that was Saturday 5 October 2019.

In attendance were Old Boys David McCluskey (groomsman), Kelvin Hui, Sean Martin, Sunil Joseph The journey involved a lot of very sketchy bus rides/taxis, enough banana curry and orange porridge to give Ben nightmares, some wicked high-altitudeinduced-hallucinations for myself and an immense amount of washing at the end of it all. We are all proud to say we reached the peak at 5,895m above sea level – Nick even managed to crack open a bottle of wine at the top. For our next challenge we’ve chatted about having and Chris Senaratne (all 2003) and current student Dylan Davies (Year 8). We dearly missed the late Suzan Davies (Dylan’s mother and Cyrus’ sister), who loved being a part of the school community, teaching at Camberwell

Grammar until her passing in April 2019.

a go at climbing Mt. Elbrus in Russia so watch this space.

Our advice for any current or former CGS student thinking about giving it a go is the same advice the porters give us on the side of the mountain: Hakuna Matata. A quick shout-out to my Mum for sending this information to the school and the three zany gentlemen that accompanied me.

Matt Malin (2011)