ISSUE 100 APRIL 2017
↓ SECTION 01 — INTRODUCTION
This issue of Light Blue is its 100th. The School has been blessed with many notable journals and publications during its 162-year history. A literary tradition, and one of record, derives especially from James Lister Cuthbertson (Staff 1875-96), who wrote four books of poems and founded The Geelong Grammar School Annual in 1875, renamed The Geelong Grammar School Quarterly two years later, then renamed again when the School moved from central Geelong to Corio in 1914. Together with the journal of Sydney Grammar School, started by his GGS predecessor Edwin Bean (Staff 1874), The Corian is the oldest of Australia’s existing school journals. Among the more celebrated of school publications was the literary magazine If, which was published from 1929-35 and nurtured the talents of poets John Manifold (M’33) and Michael Thwaites (Cu’33). It was reborn as If Revived in 1949, edited by Rupert Murdoch (Cu’49) and printed on a press from the Melbourne Herald given by Rupert’s father, Sir Keith Murdoch. The press also printed a number of student newspapers and magazines, including the Corio Courier, which was first published in 1935, renamed the Corio News in the 1950s, and succeeded by Tempo from 1961-71.
Editor Brendan McAloon Design Chloe Flemming Claire Robson Photography Mary Lou Ashton-Jones (Nielsen, Cl’66) Kim Blain Tod Fierner Nick Fletcher Richard Kumnick (M’68) Steve Lansdell (Fr’98) Mark Metcalfe Katie Rafferty (Spry, Ga’84) Drew Ryan Paul Sanwell Ann Tyers (Fairley, He’68) Website www.ggs.vic.edu.au
The first incarnation of Light Blue appeared in 1963 as a vehicle for the new Headmaster, Tommy Garnett (Headmaster 1961-73), to introduce himself to the wider GGS community, exhort the virtues of the School and outline new initiatives. Garnett had set about transforming the School he had inherited from James Darling (Headmaster 1930-61), and had met pockets of opposition and distrust. “I knew that it would not be an easy task to follow Dr. Darling and that the rapid development of the School had thrown up a number of problems,” Garnett wrote.
(He concluded that: “Indeed it is still rather good to have leather on the elbows… an Australia-wide fashion that unquestionably started at GGS.”) 17 issues of Light Blue were published intermittently between 1963 and 1978, with a yawning 31-month gap between issues 14 and 15. Quite a bit had occurred in the interim Charles Fisher (Headmaster 1974-78) sheepishly admitted, including the amalgamation with The Hermitage and Clyde schools. Issue 17 was published in November 1978. The cover story was about the new library being built at Corio. Just a few weeks later, on December 5, Fisher was killed in a car accident whilst driving from Corio to Timbertop. The new building became the Fisher Library. The Old Geelong Grammarians’ Association began publishing a newsletter in May 1984. The first two issues were so warmly received that John Lewis (Headmaster 1980-94) proposed a new publication that combined OGG news and events with information from the Headmaster, Foundation, HOGA and COGA. The first issue of The Geelong Grammarian was published in November 1984, celebrating 70 years at Corio and featuring news from Glamorgan (a piano recital by Ronald Farren-Price), Highton (mask-making with Mirka Mora) and Timbertop (canoeing on the Howqua River). The new publication was renamed Light Blue in August 1992; relaunched as a 24-page full-colour magazine edited by Sandy MacKenzie (FB’59) and distributed to 12,000 addresses. It has been published twice or thrice a year ever since, growing in size (52 pages) and distribution (17,000 copies). The 100th issue, like the very first, introduces a new Principal, Rebecca Cody, to the wider GGS community and outlines new initiatives, based on the belief of “growing our heritage through innovation”.
The first issue of Light Blue also explored generational change through an article by Keith Dunstan (FB’42), who was then at the height of his powers as a daily columnist for The Sun newspaper. With his trademark light touch, Dunstan pondered what had changed in the 20 years since he had left Corio: “Is it still considered rather Bohemian to wear leather elbows on one’s sports coat?”
Email lightblue@ggs.vic.edu.au CRICOS 00143G
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LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
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CHAIRMAN OF COUNCIL
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FROM OUR PRINCIPAL
Principal Stephen Meek reflects on the life of the School
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MIDDLE SCHOOL
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SENIOR SCHOOL
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POSITIVE EDUCATION
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TIMBERTOP
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HOUSE MUSIC
Senior School House Music Competition
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HEADS OF THE RIVER
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FOUNDATION CHAIR
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ANNUAL GIVING
MEET REBECCA CODY
YEAR 12 RESULTS
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A TALE OF TWO CAPTAINS
TOORAK WELLBEING CENTRE
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THE MAIL ROOM
News, notes and pictures of life beyond the school
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We welcome Rebecca Cody as the 12th Principal of Geelong Grammar School
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ROWING ON
“I started winning medals because I rowed and loved it, I didn’t start rowing to win medals.” –Fleur Spriggs (Ga’87)
THE TOMMY GARNETT SCHOLARSHIP
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Honouring the contribution of Tommy Garnett and his vision for co-education
↓ SECTION 01 — INTRODUCTION
CHAIRMAN OF COUNCIL I am sure that you will be aware that Council has appointed Ms Rebecca Cody as the School’s 12th Principal to succeed Mr Stephen Meek in April 2018. As you would expect, Council views this decision as the most important one that it makes and consequently the process we undertook was rigorous and diligent. Final shortlisted candidates visited each campus, met with each Head of Campus in addition to the Commercial Director, Vice Principal and Principal prior to a second extensive interview with all of Council, followed by dinner with their partner and Council members. This is a time consuming process but absolutely necessary for Council to make its decision and I want to thank members of Council who devoted significant parts of January and February to this task. Council is delighted that Rebecca has accepted the role to lead the School from April next year. She will bring an energetic, collaborative and strategic approach to the role as well as a deep love of educating and respect for the philosophy that guides the School. I encourage you to read the article that provides an introduction to her and her family on pages 8-9. She will commence in Term 2 next year after taking a break in Term 1, after what will be a very busy year completing her time at MLC Claremont. She will, however, attend the Staff Conference at the beginning of the year together with the Discovering Positive Education course that all new staff undertake. Stephen and Christine Meek have very kindly agreed to extend their time at the School until the end of Term 1 next year, ensuring we have a smooth transition to a new Principal. Both Stephen and Christine have been incredibly accommodating and supportive through the whole process of selecting Stephen’s replacement and I thank them for it. Dean Dell’Oro has left the School to become the Headmaster at Hale School in Perth. We are very sorry to lose him as he has been a wonderful Head of Corio and senior member of staff for many years. He will be a fabulous Headmaster and Hale will be very appreciative in the years to come. On behalf of the School community I wish that he, Nadia and their three boys continue to flourish in Perth.
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The School continues to be in high demand, with over 900 boarders at the School (Corio and Timbertop) and over 300 girls in Senior School, which is the most ever. The number of boarders in Middle School is the largest it has been for many years and the number of girls at Timbertop is the highest ever, facilitated by the new J and K units. It is not possible to ascribe any one reason to these strong enrolments but I am confident the School’s emphasis on Positive Education together with the refurbishment of the boarding houses and new Timbertop units are major factors. It is exciting to see the Toorak Wellbeing Centre building emerge from the ground and it is expected to be completed in Term 4 this year. Once it is, Rachel George, Head of Toorak Campus, will be able to fully implement her exciting plans to make the campus the best primary offering in Victoria. The combination of the Primary Years Programme (PYP) of the IB, quality of teaching and fabulous facilities really make Toorak a compelling proposition for parents of primary age children. Together with many others involved in governing and running schools, I continue to be frustrated with the lack of clarity and certainty in regard to government funding for schools. My concern particularly is for other schools, mainly low and mid-fee, which are less able to absorb such uncertainty. It is undoubtedly a complex issue without a clear, simple solution (apart from more money!). However, it is a problem caused by successive governments (both Federal and State of all political hues), not by the schools that rely on that funding. There is a loud push to use this period of low inflation to accelerate the transition for many schools that are “overfunded”. This is simplistic, however, as the main cost for schools is staff costs and these tend to increase faster than inflation. The recent agreement between the Victorian Government and teachers for a 13% increase over four years underlines this point. I urge governments across the country to put aside the easy point scoring perennially associated with the politics of school funding and come up with a sustainable solution that puts students first and provides clarity and certainty for schools and those running them. Jeremy Kirkwood (FB’79) Chairman of Council
FROM OUR PRINCIPAL
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Light Blue has been recording this rhythm for many years and this is its 100th issue. The introduction on page 2 places Light Blue in the context of other school publications of the past, such as the Geelong Grammar Quarterly and Tempo. Together these publications, along with The Corian, record our heritage – that which collectively makes us special and unique and which helps to create the wider feel of the School. Yet it is not the whole story, or the 100 issues of Light Blue would record the same events year after year. We are proud of our heritage, but it is a heritage which is grown by new initiatives and developments. Hence the theme for this 100th issue of Light Blue comes from our Purpose document: “We believe in growing our heritage through innovation”. Let me begin though, with those events which do occur year after year. Our Year 12 results from 2016 are examined on pages 10-11, celebrating some strong individual achievements alongside the broader academic trends. Overall, we were pleased with the way that the 2016 Year 12 students performed, enabling them to move on to the university courses of their choice and I congratulate them on their achievements. On pages 12-13 there are interviews with our 2016 School Captains, Eliza Chomley (Fr’16) and Lewis Nicholson (Fr’16), who gained places, respectively, to study Science at Melbourne University (at Trinity College) and Linguistics at Selwyn College, Cambridge. Two of the great events of Term 1 are House Swimming and House Music. Swimming has been a popular sport at the School since the 1870s, with school publications recording swimming sports being held in the Barwon River at that time. The Senior School House Swimming is the noisiest and most tribal afternoon of the year, as the Houses vie with one another to give the greatest encouragement to their participants. It is one of those occasions which has to be seen to be believed – and is a spectacular event! House Music on the other hand has a very different atmosphere – and yet no less an intense spirit of competition. I am always impressed by the level of respect that is paid to each performance and the fact that every member of each Senior School House has to be on stage performing in the House choir makes it the most inclusive event of the year. House Music has been held every year since 1932, after the School had procured a Steinway piano in 1931. Both House Swimming and House Music are therefore a strong part of the heritage of the School and yet both have evolved into very different events from how they first started. I am sometimes asked why we have both House Swimming and House Music in a very busy Term 1, when we could hold either, or both, of them in
LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
a different term. The answer is that because they are such great House events, requiring such involvement by all members of the House, they help bond the new Year 10 students to the other year groups in a way, and with a speed, which could not be achieved in other ways. Then we have articles on innovation. The new learning spaces in Middle School reflect different ways of engaging the students and encouraging them to learn in ways most suited to their needs. I enjoyed the passion with which the Years 5 and 6 teachers explained the new approaches to me when I looked around the learning spaces early in Term 1. On page 16, Frank Zhao (Yr10 M) explains the Maths Club which he has set up, to enable him (and others) to share their passion (and skill) for Mathematics with other students. Our Graduate Recruitment Programme is a great scheme, where new graduates are recruited to start their teaching career at the School, giving us the chance to find some of the very best young teachers in Australia to join us for a twoyear period. This year’s graduates are introduced on page 17. The Institute of Positive Education continues to do great work within the School, developing new ideas to include in our courses and undertaking research to develop further the field of Positive Education in schools. As you can read on page 19, the Institute is also doing great work in other schools, having conducted 100 courses, supported 1,000 schools and trained 10,000 teachers, most recently in Alice Springs, Dubai and Taipei. We are fortunate to have the great leadership of Justin Robinson as the Director of the Institute. Another of our great staff leaders is leaving us at the end of Term 1. Our Head of Corio since 2014, Dean Dell’Oro, has been appointed as Headmaster of Hale School in Perth from the start of Term 2, 2017. Dean has been, successively, Head of Francis Brown House, Head of Mathematics and Head of Corio. He has brought new ideas into play in each role. I have been impressed with the quality of his relationship with students and staff, his willingness to tackle difficult issues and his judgement. I thank him very much for all that he has undertaken at the School and wish him every success in his new school. Yet at the same time as we lose a member of staff to Perth, so we welcome the appointment of the new Principal from Perth, Rebecca Cody. There is a Q and A with Rebecca on page 9, and I know that the School community will welcome her warmly when she commences at the start of Term 2, 2018. The Toorak Wellbeing Centre (TWC) will be well established by the time Ms Cody arrives at the School, as the builders are making good progress with its construction, such that we should see completion by the end of the year. The TWC is a classic example of our heritage growing through innovation, where we combine the benefits (and heritage, as outlined) of swimming with the innovative ideas of nutrition and Positive Education. Lastly, I congratulate the Girls’ 1st VIII on winning the Head of the River for the fourth time in a row at the recent 150th anniversary APS Heads of the River Regatta. It has been wonderful to appreciate the way a simple rowing challenge between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar School in 1868 has grown into an event featuring 11 schools, with races for boys and girls, watched by a crowd of at least 15,000 people. The School has a proud heritage in rowing and we can all take pleasure in that. Stephen Meek Principal
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SECTION 01 — INTRODUCTION
There is a reassuring rhythm to the school year. Term 1 sees the arrival of new students and everyone else moving up a year and, for some, moving to a new campus. New friendships are being forged in classes, units and Houses. New academic challenges are being undertaken. There is a consistency across the School. Terms 2 and 3 see greater diversity, with some year groups taking NAPLAN tests, some campuses playing winter sports, community service at Timbertop in Term 2 and then skiing in Term 3, while Corio sees more drama productions and concerts – and all of this taking place against the backdrop of continuing academic study. Term 4 sees major academic examinations for Year 12, the start of summer sports, reports for all students and then the preparation for the following year, including the Year 8 journey from Middle School to Timbertop. There is also the flurry of Year 12s gathering for meals in the Dining Hall, reliving tales and experiences, knowing that it will be harder to reunite, so easily, in the years to come. Farewells are undertaken and then it all starts again the following year.
MEET REBECCA CODY We welcome Rebecca Cody as the 12th Principal of Geelong Grammar School. Rebecca will start her new position at the commencement of Term 2, 2018, succeeding Stephen Meek, who announced his retirement from the School in August last year. Rebecca is currently the Principal of Methodist Ladies’ College in Perth, a position she has held since 2009. A graduate of the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Education (First Class Honours), Rebecca’s teaching career began as an English and Drama teacher at St Michael’s Collegiate School in Tasmania and continued at PLC Perth, where she rose to Head of Senior School. She was appointed to her first Principal position at Woodford House, a boarding and day school in New Zealand, at the age of 31.
She became Principal of MLC Claremont in 2009, where she increased enrolments by almost 20 percent, including doubling the number of boarding students. “She is a purposeful, progressive and motivating leader, educator, mother and mentor who has demonstrated integrity, professionalism, resilience and kindness in her relationships with students, staff and the broader MLC community,” MLC Council Chair, Dr Penny Flett, said. Rebecca admitted leaving MLC was an “incredibly difficult” decision. In a letter to MLC’s senior students she explained: “I formed the view that, to put it in colloquial terms, I needed to practice what I preach! In other words, how on the one hand could I advise you to stretch to new heights, if I was not prepared to do the same by welcoming a new chapter in my own career?” Rebecca said that she was honoured to be offered the opportunity to enhance Geelong Grammar School’s international reputation as a pioneer of modern education. She will join our community with her husband Simon and children Jack (10) and Eve (5), who will be joining our Middle School and Bostock House campuses respectively.
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What has been the most exciting change you’ve experienced/ seen since you started teaching? Widespread, evidence-based support for the benefits of holistic education, and insights into brain plasticity. What has not changed? The importance of relationships. Quality student-teacher relationships contribute positively to school culture and student motivation. Learners deserve to be surrounded by adults from whom they gather strength; adults who offer ample opportunity to explore, evolve, and excel. How has technology changed education? Technology in education has enabled learning to become a highly mobile experience. Generally speaking, the complexity of this experience has increased access to learning, collaboration through learning and personalisation for learners. If well utilised, technology can improve flexibility of strategies and diversity of resources employed. This supports student engagement and the development of differentiation opportunities in the classroom. Lastly, if technology is optimised through regular communication with families, another of its benefits includes ongoing and longitudinal transparency regarding learner progression.
For some, this is in a single-sex context, and for others, coeducation. The chance to lead a fully co-educational school represents a new learning adventure for me and broader scope to help strengthen a respectful and inclusive national culture.
SECTION 02 — SCHOOL
You’ve described being involved in education as a “blessing”. Why do you feel blessed to be an educator? Apart from parenting, I cannot think of a greater honour than shaping the hearts and minds of the world’s greatest resource – its children.
You will also be the School’s first female Principal. How does that make you feel? We are often caught up by firsts. They can be important signposts. As each position of leadership is filled by a first, we signal the openness of our society. We model new roles and make way for new aspirations. Personally, it is a privilege to be appointed GGS’s 12th Principal. I am sure any appointee would feel the same. The fact that I happen to be the School’s first woman in the position deepens that privilege and my sense of responsibility to be an exemplary role model for all students. Having said that, gender does not make an educational leader. Leadership has many dimensions. It is a layering of identity, values, judgement and skills that evolve over time. Ultimately, enabling others to learn, love and lead wholeheartedly is the priority I have set for my own leadership to be measured. What is your favourite activity outside of school? Relaxing with my family makes the top of the list. Most often this includes cycling or walking around the paths of our local lake or Cottesloe Beach, often stopping to enjoy playgrounds along the way. Holidaying in the Margaret River region and sampling the local produce are special times too, along with dinner and laughter with friends. For those moments on my own, Pilates is invigorating and reading philosophy an indulgent treat.
I’ve sought to mentor students to be motivated and resilient learners who become purposeful young people of character. Through such mentoring, the tenets of holistic education have guided me, and seeking to understand others has steadfastly anchored my style.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing schools in Australia? In one word – accountability. How educational accountability is perceived and responded to by all key stakeholders is a pressing item for our national agenda. This question and that response deserve a paper! Perhaps a column for another time. You have held leadership roles at three different schools. What was the attraction of leading Geelong Grammar School? Undoubtedly, the opportunity to progress the vision of Sir James Darling was the first attraction. Through his legacy there is a significant alignment between my educational philosophy and that of GGS. Similarly, leading a predominately residential community, an internationally-renowned Positive Education programme and a centre for creativity plays to my strengths. For me, it is also particularly motivating to extend my influence within a multi-campus, co-educational environment.
Your family will be joining (and will no doubt become immersed in) the Geelong Grammar School community. Are they excited about the move across the Nullarbor? We’re actually contemplating driving across the Nullarbor to reach our new home at Corio. Once unpacked, Simon will launch a reconnaissance mission to source the best windsurfing and SUP spots. Jack is eager to test out the mountain biking trails and make friends, especially ones who’ll show him all the highlights of the campus on the weekends. As for Eve, she’s convinced that GGS means she can finally have a horse, a dog and a cat! We’ve always indicated that our backyard could not accommodate such an extension to our family; amidst 400 acres, this logic won’t stick! Last but certainly not least, will you (and your family) barrack for Geelong? It wouldn’t be safe for me to answer that question until we’ve left the West!
You have been a strong advocate for single-sex education and GGS will be your first co-ed school. Is that exciting? First and foremost, I’m an educator who is seeking the same opportunities and quality outcomes for my son and daughter, as well as for the nation’s sons and daughters. I’m also a strong advocate for choice in education. Individual learners thrive in environments that directly meet their needs. LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
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YEAR 12 RESULTS Our 2016 Year 12 students
Our 2016 Year 12 results were outstanding. Our median ATAR score was 81.03, which means the top half of our students were in the top 18.97% of the State. 56 students (27.2%) achieved an ATAR score of 90 or above (top 10%), while seven students (3.4%) achieved an ATAR score of 99 or above (top 1%), which is excellent for an open entry school dedicated to providing an all-round education. The joint Dux of the School were Georgina Calvert (Fr’16) and Airlie Kinross (Ga’16), who both achieved a perfect International Baccalaureate (IB) score of 45 out of a possible 45 points.
achieved outstanding academic success, with 56 students The pair were two of just 34 students (27.2%) achieving an ATAR score of across Australia who achieved a 90 or above (top 10%). perfect IB score, which converts to an Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) of 99.95.
3 perfect VCE study scores of 50
56 students achieved an ATAR score of 90 or above
“We are extremely proud of the excellent results achieved by our students in 2016,” Principal, Stephen Meek, said. “These results build upon the increasingly strong academic performance of the past decade. The successful combination of effort and commitment from students and teachers, with encouragement and support from parents and guardians, has led to these wonderful results. On behalf of the Geelong Grammar School community, I thank everyone involved for their efforts, congratulate all our 2016 Year 12 students on their achievements and wish them continued success in their further studies and future endeavours.” In 2016, there were 156 VCE candidates and 53 IB candidates. Our VCE students achieved a 100% pass rate and there were three perfect VCE study scores of 50 recorded in Further Mathematics. 27 of our 57 IB students achieved at least one maximum study score of 7, achieving a total of 64 scores of 7 between them.
64 maximum IB study scores of 7 10
Median ATAR of 81.03
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↓ TOP VCE STUDENTS
Georgina Calvert (Fr’16) achieved a maximum score of 7 in Chemistry, Economics, English (Language & Literature), French, Mathematics and Psychology. Originally from Irrewarra, near Colac, Georgina joined Geelong Grammar School as a Day Boarding student in Year 10 and immersed herself in all aspects of school life – she was Captain of Debating, Captain of Hockey, Captain of Tennis, House Prefect in Fraser House and played bassoon in the Senior School Band. “I am so grateful for all the opportunities that Geelong Grammar has given me. It is a very special and unique school and I believe that the sense of community is unparalleled. Day Boarding gave me the best of both worlds. Everyone in Fraser House was so supportive and inclusive. There was always someone next door willing to help and I think that brought everyone up. The teachers were fantastic. They were contactable at any time I needed them and their words of wisdom and encouragement were invaluable.” Georgina also won the Swannie Award for Best Speaker in the Geelong Region of the Debaters Association of Victoria Schools Competition in 2015 and 2016, while representing the APS (Associated Public Schools of Victoria) in Hockey and Tennis. Georgina is studying a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws at The University of Sydney while attending Women’s College.
Pippi Callan (Fr’16) was the School’s top VCE student in 2016, achieving an ATAR score of 99.25, including two perfect study scores of 50 – in Further Mathematics in Year 12 and Business Management in Year 11 – as well as a 40 in French. From Newtown in Geelong, Pippi was Captain of Sailing, a member of the Karen Homework Club and received the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. Stephanie Louey (Fr’16) achieved an ATAR of 98.65, which included excellent results in Further Mathematics (46), Chemistry (43) and Geography (43). From Sanctuary Lakes in Point Cook, Stephanie was Choir Captain, a member of the Girls’ 1st Tennis team and received the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. Lewis Nicolson (Fr’16) achieved an ATAR of 98.30, which included outstanding results in French (45), Music (44) and Literature (41). From Staughton Vale, north of Geelong, Lewis was also School Captain, a member of the Senior School Jazz Band, a cast member of Clue!, a joint winner of the Coriobald Photography Prize and received the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. Pippi noted that the three highest VCE scores (and eight of the School’s top 14 ATAR scores) were achieved by students in Fraser House. “It was an exceptionally put-together house built on great relationships,” she said. "From Academic results to winning House Music, Fraser was a great place to spend Year 12.”
Airlie Kinross (Ga’16) achieved a maximum score of 7 in Biology, Chemistry, English (Literature), French, Mathematics and Psychology. From Bowral in NSW, Airlie joined the School in Year 9 at Timbertop. She was Vice Captain of Garnett House and a member of the Girls’ 1st Hockey team, Senior School Choir and Karen Homework Club. She also participated in the Monash Scholars Programme and received the Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award. “I loved the freedom of boarding at Corio and the positive environment within Garnett House – created by both the teachers and students – was great for me,” Airlie said. “It was such a privilege to attend Geelong Grammar School and, whether I was good at it or not, I wanted to make the most of every opportunity.” Airlie is planning to study Medical ScienceMedicine at The University of Sydney after taking a gap year. “After working for the first half of the year, I’d love to go to France – I vowed to myself that if I achieved a 7 in French I would work really hard to become fluent.”
OTHER OUTSTANDING RESULTS A number of other students achieved an ATAR score of 98 or above (top 2%), including Grace Creati (Fr’16) from Highton, Sasha Culley (Cl’16) from Bowral, Sarah Ellice-Flint (Fr’16) from Neutral Bay, Peter Fair (FB’16) from South Yarra, Tom Grills (A’16) from Barwon Heads, Lucy Stewart (Cl’16) from Armadale and Isabelle Stringer (EM’16) from Kooyong.
90.3%
62.6%
27.2%
PROXIME ACCESSIT
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11.7%
State average
50%
25%
10%
5%
3.4% 1%
The Proxime Accessit for 2016 was Eliza Chomley (Fr’16), who achieved a maximum score of 7 in Biology, Chemistry, Japanese, English (Literature) and Mathematics. From Newtown in Geelong, Eliza was also our 2016 School Captain, a member of the Girls’ 1st Tennis team, performed The Legend of the Rose ballet concert, received the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award and was involved in various charities, including Amnesty International and Ladder Geelong (Lorne 160). “We are so lucky to lead the privileged lives we do, so I think giving back is a necessary and important aspect of our School,” she said. Eliza is studying Science at The University of Melbourne while attending Trinity College.
GGS students
The graph above highlights the percentage of Geelong Grammar School students who achieved ATAR scores that placed them in the top 1%, 5%, 25% and 50% of students in Victoria
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SECTION 02 — SCHOOL
OUR JOINT DUX
A TALE OF TWO CAPTAINS Eliza Chomley (Fr’16) and Lewis Nicolson (Fr’16) have been friends since joining Geelong Grammar School in Year 7. They spent Senior School together in Fraser House and shared their final year at GGS as our 2016 School Captains. Eliza achieved a near perfect IB score of 44 out of a possible 45 points, which converts to an ATAR of 99.85. She is studying a Bachelor of Science at The University of Melbourne while attending Trinity College. Lewis was one of the School’s top VCE students, achieving an ATAR score of 98.30. He has been accepted to study a Bachelor of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge in the UK while attending Selwyn College.
Eliza and Lewis recently caught up at a local café to reflect on their journey through Year 12 and beyond before Lewis jetted off to work at a farm in France before university starts in the UK in October.
Eliza: Everyone talks it up so much before you go into Year 12 that I got so scared. You have all of these expectations and you think it’s going to be terrible and stressful. Lewis: You are pretty bombarded. Eliza: You think that everything matters so much, but you kind of just do it and you get through it and you realise that it’s just like any other year – there’s just a bit more pressure. But I do think you grow up a lot in Year 12. When you’re faced with Year 12, I think you do become a lot more mature and you think: ‘Okay, this really matters to me, I really do care about this and I really do want to get into this course’.
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Lewis: That’s very true, actually. Eliza: Think of the boys in Cuthy. Lewis: Term 3 is when it really starts to show. When you see your buddies heading off to the Fisher Library every afternoon or heading into their study. If everyone is doing that, you’re just sitting by yourself and there’s no-one to hang out with. Eliza: You have to study. Lewis: It’s almost practical to study and fill your time. Eliza: It did make a difference that everyone was into working hard and studying.
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Lewis: It doesn’t define who you are, but I suppose that is easy to say when you get your first preference (at university). Eliza: I think it is more important knowing that you tried your best in Year 12. Lewis: What PC (Peter Craig) used to say was that if you really wanted to do something, it might take a roundabout route, but you will get there if you are really determined. It sounds so annoying but it’s true. I’m convinced it is true. Eliza: I know a lot of people thought it was weird that I was doing Science (at Melbourne University) because I had the ATAR to get into other courses and the ATAR entry for Science was 85. The ATAR of the course literally does not matter, it’s the course that matters. I told someone (I was doing Science), and they said: ‘All that work for that’. (Laughs) That was a bit rough. I chose Science because I have no idea what I want to do. I have no clue what I’m interested in career wise and the Melbourne (University) model broadens you choices. I can major in Geography or Chemistry, then I can go into Medicine or I can go into Teaching or I can go into Law. I can do so many different things through Science. I chose Engineering as one of my subjects and I hate it. I thought: ‘What if I want to be an engineer? I should do that just to check’. So that’s how I worked out that I definitely don’t want to be an engineer, which was pretty worthwhile. I am also guilty of choosing this path for lifestyle reasons. I thought living in Melbourne would be really cool and I wanted to go to college – my cousin went to Trinity and he loved it, so I really wanted to go there too. Lewis: Linguistics sounds a lot more specific. When people hear that I’m going to study Linguistics the reaction a lot of the time is: ‘What is that?’ Eliza: So many people have told me so many different things, like: ‘Yeah, yeah, he has to learn five languages’. Lewis: You don’t learn languages as such. I’m not going to come out of this course being able to speak Spanish or Italian. The reason I chose it was because it is quite broad and it combines a lot of different fields that I’m interested in, like Psychology, Philosophy and Language. It is a real mix of Science and The Arts.
I’m interested in the Neuroscience and I haven’t limited myself to becoming a linguist. Eliza: You’ve always been interested in Languages. Lewis: I’ve been interested in Languages for a long time. I studied French from Year 7 up to Year 12. I had Japanese going for a while too and really regretted it when I dropped it, because Languages are really interesting to me. Eliza: I think college is probably very similar to boarding, but different. Everyone says it’s boarding without the rules. That was Deano’s (Head of Corio, Dean Dell’Oro) favourite line. There are eight of us from GGS at Trinity. There’s only one other girl in my year (at Trinity), but a lot of Grammar students go to college at Melbourne Uni because they come from interstate or overseas. There are a lot at Queen’s too, so there are lots of friends around and I feel lucky that I still see a lot of people from school because I know some people have struggled with not having their friends around all the time, particularly people who have gone from boarding to uni interstate. I think people have found that difficult at times and get quite lonely. School is so busy and you’re always with people, then suddenly you can’t see your friends regularly. Lewis: I am pretty sad to be saying goodbye to people for such a long stretch of time – the next time I will be back here is in a full year, which is a long time to spend away from really close friends. But it is cool to think there won’t be any pressure to be the Lewis of high school and there is no expectation of any kind and I can make a fresh start. Not that I’m ashamed of my past self, but there are certain parts of who I want to be that maybe weren’t so present a few years ago and maybe people still think of me that way. It will be good to get to know a new group of people, but I’m sure you’re doing that too. It’s eight people out of how many at Trinity? Eliza: 300 Lewis: 300 at Trinity and thousands at Melbourne Uni. Eliza: Social media and FaceTime make things easier. Lewis: Having said that, I kind of hate Skype. It’s so stilted, especially signing off. You say: ‘Bye now’. Then there’s this awkward moment when you’re waving and… (mimics closing window). I hate that. Eliza: We just won’t Skype.
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Lewis: Calling is good. Eliza: We’ll call as much as ever, you’ll just be on the other side of the world. I think it’s just about making the effort. Even though everyone has dispersed, it makes it more exciting when you do catch up. Lewis: The last few months have been a nice contrast to the end of last year, because it was pretty full on, so this mini gap year is really nice. Eliza: Have you been bored yet? Lewis: I’m gearing up to get back into it again. The term is quite short (at Cambridge) but very intense. This break is pretty important for me. Eliza: What’s the name of your college? Lewis: It’s Selwyn. S-E-L-W-Y-N. Who was the first Bishop of New Zealand. Thanks Colly-P for the random fact. Eliza: How does he know that? He’s so good with names and dates – it must require a different kind of memory. Lewis: I think remembering dates is the most impressive. How do you attach meaning to a number? Eliza: He would have so many events he would know of and remember. Lewis: Do you think he has a visual in his mind? Is it like a web or a timeline? Eliza: You should ask him. Lewis: I should, the next time I see him. I will definitely write him a letter because I think it is cool that he can live through all the letters that we send him, particularly the younger OGGs. He can kind of experience what we’re experiencing. He gets to see into our world. Eliza: My younger brother, who is in Year 8, visits him. And Colly-P was my Dad’s tutor when my Dad went to the School. He knows my Grandpa too. He has relationships with generations of my family. That must be so weird. Lewis: Weird or cool? I reckon it would be cool.
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Eliza: I think the main thing to remember is that Year 12 is not the end of the world. People forget about your ATAR by the next week. Even you don’t care after a while.
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MIDDLE SCHOOL LEARNING SPACES
“
You can’t build better learning
for children, but you can certainly build it with them.
”
The school year started “rather bizarrely” for our Year 5 and 6 Middle School students, according to Head of Middle School, Michelle Phillips. “They arrived at school to find new furniture, all placed in the centre of their classrooms,” Michelle explained. “And so there began the first inquiry unit. Students measured the room and furniture, visited a variety of other rooms and began designing their own learning spaces.”
– Stephen Heppell
“
I thought it was great because we could all express our ideas to make the room so it is suited for all of us.
”
– Angelina Didulica (Year 5)
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“It is a great example of student agency,” Year 5 and 6 Coordinator, Jye Hearps, said. “The students brainstormed ideas, looked at classroom lay-outs on the internet, talked about great classrooms they’d been in and what made them work, as well as classrooms that they didn’t like and what the characteristics of those were; they might have been dark with dull colours. We established in our minds what makes a good classroom and then we started designing; drawing scale maps of where the furniture should go and why. We trialled different things and the students sat in different spots for different activities, then reflected in class meetings on what was working well and what changes could be made. It empowered them to make decisions about their learning environment based on their own learning styles, which helped them understand that they are all different and they all learn differently – what works for one doesn’t always work for another.
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The common understanding is that the flexible spaces need to be flexible for different students and for different activities.” The flexible learning spaces feature conference tables, lecture-style tiered seating, writable walls and tables, standing tables and mobile screens to create reading/study nooks. Michelle, Jye and Year 6 teacher Geoff Carlisle went on fact-finding missions last year, touring Middle Schools around Melbourne to identify elements to support inquirybased, transdisciplinary learning. “Our new environment supports a re-designed curriculum,” Jye said. “I’ve taught at a number of different schools, including International Baccalaureate MYP (Middle Years Programme) and PYP (Primary Years Programme) schools, with an inquiry-based approach. While we could re-arrange furniture, our classrooms were not very practical for the way we wanted to teach Year 5 and 6 – there was only so much you could do in a square room with rows of square tables and a teacher’s desk out front.” Jye said the curriculum and the environment needed to work together to provide the best learning outcomes for students. “A lot of schools have moved towards large open-plan classrooms, but you need the pedagogy to support it.
Open-plan classrooms need to be flexible and support the number of students you have. Our class sizes are small and we’ve designed our environment to suit the curriculum, so we have got a bit of a balance – everything is on wheels, classes have bi-fold doors so we can revert back to a traditional classroom with rows of desks. Depending upon what the class is or the activity is, we can adapt and tweak to suit.” Within the space of a few weeks of Term 1, the re-designed classrooms had already become vibrant explosions of colour, with walls, desks and display boards festooned with evidence of the most recent classroom activity. “The students can make their learning visible; it’s all around them and they’re sharing the learning process,” Jye said. There are no teachers’ desks or whiteboards to define the front of rooms. “This changes the focal point of a classroom, allows for collaboration between students and provides an active area to generate, share, discuss and consolidate ideas,” Michelle explained. Teachers and students alike are flourishing in this new-found freedom. “It is like a breath of fresh air,” Jye said. “We’re invigorated. We’re not locked at a desk in the classroom. The kids are more open to inquiry. They’re thinking about how they learn. If it’s not working, they’re making smart choices about where they sit and what they do and how they do it.”
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The primary focus of the Performance and Development Programme (PDP) undertaken by all teaching staff is “to improve student outcomes through an increased emphasis on student agency in the classroom”. The re-design of our Year 5 and 6 Middle School classrooms into contemporary, flexible learning spaces was not just student agency in the classroom, but student agency of the classroom.
Frank Zhao (Yr10 M) dreams in mathematical equations; of trigonometry and impossible triangles, of calculus and lambda expressions. When he reminisces about “training” 10 hours a day for 10 days at Melbourne University’s School of Mathematics and Statistics as part of the Australian Mathematical Olympiad Committee (AMOC) Invitational Extension Programme, Frank makes it sound like heaven rather than hell – a blissful diet of problem solving and hyperbolic thinking. “What I like most is the sense of achievement after you solve a problem, exploring new concepts and thinking rigorously,” he explains. “I think I learnt a lot from the training. It was really good.” Frank was one of 28 Australian school students selected to compete in the 2017 Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad (APMO) in Term 1. Frank was invited to sit the exam after an outstanding performance in the 2016 Australian Mathematics Competition (AMC), which requires students around Australia to solve 30 mathematical problems in 75 minutes.
From the AMC, Frank was invited to compete in the 2016 Australian Intermediate Mathematics Olympiad (AIMO), where he successfully solved 32 out of the 35 problems and qualified for the 2017 Australian Mathematical Olympiad (AMO), where he won a bronze medal and selection for the Asian Pacific competition. Frank discovered his love of mathematics when he was “really, really young”, growing up in Zhejiang, south of Shanghai. “When we were doing tests in Year 1, I always finished them in half the time as everyone else and then would go outside and play by myself,” he recalled. He joined Geelong Grammar School in Year 9 at Timbertop, which he describes as an “interesting” experience. “I think what Timbertop does outside of the class is very good for development of character. It was a challenging year but the reward at the end was really good.” Upon arrival at Corio, Frank decided to start a Maths Club. Encouraged by the Head of Mathematics, Michele Wakeham, he arranged an inaugural meeting. Unfortunately, Frank was the only attendee. But word soon spread and more than 30 students were crammed into the D12 classroom for the second meeting. “That was a really amazing experience,” he said. “It’s not about teaching more math, but exploring new ideas. I normally just write some cool mathematical equation on the whiteboard and it goes from there.”
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Trudy Purcell liked the idea of living and working in a community, while Jennifer Chin was curious about Positive Education. The two graduate teachers joined GGS in 2017 as the second intake of the School’s pioneering Graduate Recruitment Programme. The unique programme offers two full-time, two-year fixed term teaching positions to the best graduate applicants from Master of Teaching (Secondary Education) courses at Sydney, Melbourne and Monash universities. Trudy completed a Bachelor of Commerce at Monash University and worked as an accountant before returning to university to undertake a Master of Teaching. She now teaches Year 10 Business Studies and History at Corio. Jennifer started a Bachelor of Veterinary Science at The University of Sydney before transferring to a Bachelor of Education (Secondary Education: Mathematics) and Bachelor of Science combined five-year degree. She teaches Science and Mathematics in Year 8 and Year 10. Inspired by the success of similar graduate and internship programmes at large corporations like Google, Deloitte, Microsoft, BHP and Westpac, GGS is the first and only school in Australia to establish a Graduate Recruitment Programme. The aims of the programme are multi-faceted – to attract the best and brightest graduate teachers in Australia, to position GGS as a preferred employer in the education sector, to raise the profile of teaching as a profession, and to forge stronger links with universities, not only for recruitment purposes but also to keep abreast of the latest thinking in educational research. The programme was actively promoted at partner universities from Term 1 last year through posters, flyers, videos and formal presentations. “For me the attraction was that it was the whole package,” Trudy said. “I really liked the idea of living and working in a community where everyone is focussed on promoting the wellbeing of students. If we’re going to talk about teaching in a nutshell, this place is trying to nail every aspect of it. This (the Graduate Recruitment Programme) is a great opportunity and I knew straight away it suited me to a tee.”
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THE BEST & BRIGHTEST
Consequently, Jennifer has been surprised at how easily she has adapted to the busy boarding school environment at Corio. “We are very much immersed in school life and hold our breath until exeat and the school holidays, but I don’t mind that, I quite like it. When I was at university I was working part-time, at least 25 hours a week, on top of my studies, so you get used to that pace. In a boarding school there are so many layers of support for students. I think it’s easier to address any issues that you might have. I’ve also been surprised at how people at this School are so willing to give. If there is a problem that I’m stuck on, it is easy for me to ask for help, which isn’t always the case in some schools.” The School’s support structures are a critical strength of the programme, which provides dedicated mentoring and tailored professional learning. “Matt Leeds (IB Coordinator) is our mentor and he’s really taken us under his wing and shown us the ropes,” Trudy said. “We meet on a weekly basis and check in. It’s a really nice, supportive relationship.” Both graduates undertook a Professional Development (PD) course about pastoral care in Term 1. “I’m a lot firmer in the classroom and the PD helped me recognise that it is okay to loosen the reins in the boarding house because it’s important for students to feel like they have a space where they can relax and feel at home,” Jennifer said. Both graduates have enjoyed the relationships they have developed in their Middle School boarding houses. “Teaching isn’t just what happens in the classroom,” Trudy explained. “You get to be the sports coach, you get to be the tutor in the boarding house, and I really like having all those different roles because it keeps it fresh.”
Jennifer wasn’t so sure. She initially deleted the email she received about the programme before having second thoughts and fishing it out of her trash. “I had actually never heard of Geelong Grammar before,” she confessed. “I didn’t know what to expect because I went to public schools out in Western Sydney my whole life and had no experience of boarding school and had no idea what boarding school was like, except from what I’d seen in movies. Everything has been new to me.”
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INTERNATIONAL HAPPINESS DAY International Happiness Day is celebrated annually on March 20 and this year students across our campuses marked the occasion in different ways. At Bostock House, the focus of the day was doing good and feeling good. ELC verbalised what things made them happy; Prep students made cards to give to a selected role model in their lives; Year 1 looked at the meaning within a picture story book about the gift of giving nothing but time; Year 2 made large flowers where the petals were gratitude letters from one student to another; and Year 3 and 4 classes spent time engaging in a conversation with special visitors from Rice Village aged care facility which was followed up with the creation of a meaningful gratitude card. Joke telling, party games and happy dancing completed an enjoyable day. At Toorak Campus, the four pillars of International Happiness Day 2017 were Positive Health, Positive Emotions, Positive Relationships and In Kind Giving. Continuous running, mindful colouring and basketball trick-shots were incorporated into the day, while students made buddy bracelets as part of In Kind Giving. An initiative of the Institute of Positive Education, In Kind Giving was launched at GGS to coincide with International Happiness Day. Our definition of In Kind Giving is: making a positive difference in the lives of others and the world around us by performing actions that show appreciation, respect and compassion. If schools can create a culture in which our students learn to give more and see the value in this, then we are helping to prime the next generation to be a community of citizens who intentionally consider the wellbeing of others and who action care and support.
Channelling the age-old slice of wisdom that your grandparents would have shared with you “It is better to give than receive” - we challenged our Senior School students to complete three actions, in-line with In Kind Giving: - Perform a deliberate act of kindness - Spread kindness - Be a Role Model We asked students to then share their experiences on Instagram with the hashtag #InKindGiving2017 which at the time of writing, has been used more than 100 times.
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SHARING WELLBEING
“The vision of the Institute is for all schools to place wellbeing at the heart of education,” Director of the Institute of Positive Education, Justin Robinson, said. “When the School embarked upon Positive Education, we wanted to be a pioneer but we also wanted to be a role model. Having seen the benefits of our whole school approach to Positive Education for our community, our staff and our students, we wanted to share what we’d done, how we’d done it and what we had learned. We believe that this (Positive Education) is an important shift in education and there has been a growing interest from beyond the School to learn more about promoting wellbeing in education.” In the last few years, a lot of interest has come from the United Arab Emirates, which recently appointed a Federal Minister for Happiness. “They want to be the happiest nation on earth,” the Institute’s Associate Director, David Bott, explained. “It comes from the top down but they’ve realised that if they really want this to happen they have to start in schools. They’ve scoured the world for experts and they keep coming back to us because we’re the school that has done this the longest and knows how to really help on the ground – the practicalities of 20 kids in a classroom and what actually happens.” In February, Justin and David gave presentations to more than 500 teachers at the What Works event at Dubai’s Amity University, hosted by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), and delivered three one-day Getting Started with Positive Education courses to various schools in Dubai. They were then joined in the Middle East by Vice Principal, Charlie Scudamore, who delivered a workshop at the World Government Summit’s Global Dialogue for Happiness. “So now we don’t just have independent schools coming to us for help, we have federal governments,” David said. “We’re able to assist them in the practicalities of how you embed a whole-school approach to wellbeing and I think it is really exciting for us to be able to contribute in this way.” “I often worry about my girls and how they’ll make their way through life, but today I thought more about their strengths. I have really great girls. I feel my mind is more at peace.” – Jonathon, father of four teenage girls, Dubai parents’ workshop “I admit I spend a lot of time wishing I was a better mother. Today I spent a few minutes talking about the ways I am a good mother. And it felt great. I feel much better about myself.” – Pari, mother of 14 year-old son, Dubai parents’ workshop
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The School’s Institute of Positive Education has delivered 100 courses, supported 1,000 schools and trained 10,000 teachers. The Institute recently delivered a series of presentations, courses and workshops at various events in Dubai, including the World Government Summit. It has also run Positive Education courses in Taipei and Alice Springs in 2017, with training courses scheduled for Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore, Brisbane and New Zealand during the year.
↓ SECTION 02 — SCHOOL
PADDOCK TO PLATE The farm at Timbertop now supplies its own grass-fed lamb and beef to the kitchen. At the beginning of each term, 20 prime lambs are chosen for delivery to Gathercole’s Wangaratta Abattoir. The carcasses return to Marks IGA Supermarket in Mansfield, where their team of butchers cut and pack the meat to Timbertop head chef Gerald Losa’s requirements.
THIS PROVIDES ENOUGH ROAST LEGS OF LAMB TO MAKE A THURSDAY FORMAL DINNER OF GERALD’S POPULAR TIMBERTOP ROAST LAMB – A FAVOURITE WITH STUDENTS AND STAFF. LAMB CHOPS ARE BAKED WHILE SHANKS AND NECKS MAKE HEARTY CASSEROLES. The challenge is to provide an even group of lambs throughout the year that weigh between 44-50 kilograms live weight, with enough fat cover but not too much. We call these lambs two-to-three-score, with 6-15 millimetres of fat over the twelfth rib. These lambs will produce carcasses that weigh 20-24 kilograms. Following the success of Timbertop Lamb comes Timbertop Beef. The cattle herd at Timbertop currently numbers around 80, mostly Murray Grey cows. From these cows the best steer calves are kept for showing and the best heifers retained as future breeders. The remainder, depending on seasonal and market conditions, are sold as store cattle for others to grow and fatten or kept and finished on farm.
20
Back in the 1990s, cattle from Timbertop were processed for use in the kitchen. Last year saw the return of Timbertop Beef to the menu. Two 18-month old steers weighing 450 kilograms live weight were selected and managed in the same way as the lambs. The carcasses were cut into sections and final cooking determined in the kitchen by requirements at the time. Sections can be cooked as roasts, sliced for steaks or diced for casseroles. Any off-cuts are minced and cooked in pasta dishes. The journey from paddock to plate is an invaluable lesson for our Year 9 Agriculture and Land Management students, who gain an understanding of each stage of where meat comes from and what carcass sections provide what cuts of meat. Timbertop Lamb and Timbertop Beef is written on the menu blackboard outside the kitchen indicating when home bred and fed lamb and beef will be served. Seconds are available, but you need to be quick! Greg Maroney Farm Manager, Timbertop
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UP TIMBERTOP
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Francis Brown House sang its way into the record books at the 2017 House Music competition. Led by Harrison Fricker (Yr12 FB) and Nick Taylor (Yr12 FB), FB won the overall House Music title as well as best conductor, best original composition and best House Choir. The Hermitage won best ensemble performance, while Chris Dixson (Yr12 Cu) accompanied by Oscar Yencken (Yr12 Cu) on guitar won best solo performance.
Trophy oar. 1944 Geelong Grammar School 1st VIII crew. The practice of painting oar blades is a long-standing tradition in the world of amateur rowing.
School blazer belonging to Colin Douglas Smith (GGS 1931-1937, School Prefect, Captain of Boats). The embroidered elements on the blazer indicate that he won colours for both Rowing and Football. He went on to be a member of the Coxed IV crew that represented Australia at the 1948 London Olympics.
Chats on Rowing manual for rowing by Steve Fairbairn (GGS 1874-1880), first published 1934. Steve Fairbairn was a legendary rowing coach and oarsman whose influence extended well beyond Australia. By the time of his death in 1938 he was regarded as the “world’s greatest authority on rowing”.
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Display and captions by Geoff Laurenson, Archivist
Geelong Grammar School rowing cap made by Buckley and Nunn Ltd, Melbourne. c.1900-1920. Caps like this one were worn by rowers at the School until the late 1950s.
Geelong Grammar School 1st IV crew 1882. Frederick Fairbairn (GGS 1880-1884) was the brother of Steve Fairbairn. At the 1882 Head of the River, Frederick’s performance came close to rivalling “his brother’s aquatic fame, and he rowed with an absence of flurry, noticeable in so young a performer”.
G. P. Douglass Memorial Oar. Given by Mr and Mrs H. P. Douglass in memory of their son George Percival Douglass MC (GGS 19051914) who died in France during WWI. He was only 22 years old. The miniature oar was given to crews who went to the Head of the River, regardless of outcome and was awarded from 1926-1930. This particular oar belonged to Richard Roderick Andrew (GGS 1919-1929).
Geelong Grammar School Girls’ 1st VIII crew 2017. Our Girls’ 1st VIII has won eight Head of the River races between 2007 and 2017, including the past four. Photo courtesy: Richard Kumnick (M’68)/Photoplay
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↓ SECTION 03 — FOUNDATION
FOUNDATION CHAIR I believe that it is vitally important to support the School so it can provide an Exceptional Education for all of our students and extend financial assistance to enable a diversity of students to experience a Geelong Grammar School education. I also believe that every community member should have the opportunity to support the School to the best of their ability. Annual Giving is that opportunity. It is something everyone can participate in. Every gift makes a difference, no matter how small, and every person who gives is valued. While the Foundation runs fundraising campaigns for specific projects, Annual Giving is focussed on the School’s needs and is the primary way for past students (whether they attended GGS, Clyde or The Hermitage), parents and staff to help sustain what makes Geelong Grammar School exceptional. Annual Giving was established in 1997 and has raised more than $3 million for the School during the past 20 years. It has raised funds for various scholarships and bursaries, including the James R Darling Memorial Fund, the Indigenous Scholarship Fund and, most recently, the Michael Collins Persse Scholarship, which is currently enabling three students to attend the School. It has helped make our libraries modern learning environments, enabling the purchase of iPads and electronic reading devices, interactive screens, digital subscriptions to newspapers and periodicals, as well as the conversion of workrooms and storage spaces into group study rooms and open plan spaces for collaborative learning. It has supported the ongoing refurbishment of Timbertop, including the recent rebuilding of two new units so our incoming J and K Unit girls could move into new accommodation at the start of the year. It has made a real and positive difference to the life of the School.
The success of Annual Giving reflects our community’s spirit of philanthropy. The Foundation values each and every gift it receives and much energy is directed towards investment decisions and asset allocation. Financial prudence, the careful and wise handling of our resources, is essential. Consequently, with the cost of postage rising, this year’s Annual Giving brochure has been inserted in Light Blue rather than distributed as a separate mail-out. The 2017 Annual Giving campaign is a wonderful opportunity to build on the foundations of the past 20 years, to have an immediate and profound impact on the life of the School by enhancing library resources, Timbertop and scholarships, specifically the Tommy Garnett Scholarship, which is very close to reaching its financial goal and assisting its first student. I do believe in giving back to the School and making a positive difference for future generations of students. It is why I support Annual Giving and why I am a member of the Biddlecombe Society. The Biddlecombe Society is for people who have made a bequest to the Foundation in their will. The Society continues to grow. I joined more than 60 guests at the Biddlecombe Society Luncheon at the Barwon Heads Golf Club on Thursday 16 March. It was a wonderful reminder that there are many people – OGGs, Clyde Old Girls, Hermitage Old Girls, past and current parents, as well as past and current staff members – who believe in supporting the School. Penny McBain Chair, Geelong Grammar Foundation
Clockwise: Michael Palmer (P’68), David Hawker (M’67) and Penny Hawker at the Biddlecombe Society Luncheon at Barwon Heads Golf Club; Adam Kempton (P’75) and Penny McBain; Diana Wilson and Jim Wilson (C’56);
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↓ WHY PARTICIPATION MATTERS.
Whether it is big or small, your gift will make a difference. All members of the Geelong Grammar School community are asked to contribute to Annual Giving. High donor participation in Annual Giving is not only valuable to the long-term health of the organisation, it shows your strong commitment to Geelong Grammar School’s pursuit of inspiring our students and community to flourish and make a positive difference through our unique and transformational education adventures.
2012 — 16 IMPACT STATEMENT The 2016 Annual Giving programme was linked with the final year of our Exceptional Futures Campaign.
SINCE THE CAMPAIGN COMMENCED IN 2012, ANNUAL GIVING HAS RAISED OVER $1.1 MILLION FROM 1,786 DONORS. THESE FUNDS HAVE SUPPORTED VARIOUS PROJECTS INCLUDING; SCHOLARSHIPS, TIMBERTOP UNIT REFURBISHMENTS, THE RENOVATION OF THE CLOISTERS AND RESOURCES FOR OUR LIBRARIES. Scholarships continue to play a critical role at Geelong Grammar School with more than 23% of all students receiving financial support, for merit or need, from the School. To date $616,367 has been received for scholarships including the Annual Giving Scholarship, Exceptional Futures Scholarship, JRD Memorial Fund, Hartley Mitchell Scholarship, Clyde & Hermitage Scholarships and the Michael Collins Persse Scholarship.
Through Annual Giving, $141,108 has been raised for Timbertop Unit Refurbishment, helping the School retain the special qualities that reflect the original Timbertop educational philosophies whilst including the necessary sustainability and safety features. This has also enabled two extra spaces for girls at Timbertop. Our campus libraries remain an epicentre of learning and creativity. To date, we have received $110,891, enabling us to provide resources to fund vital library projects, including additional collaborative study rooms, interactive spaces and additional purpose-built shelving to house new Positive Psychology and mindfulness collections. To all the supporters of Annual Giving across the Exceptional Futures Campaign, thank you. Your generosity really has made a difference.
ANNUAL GIVING WAS ESTABLISHED IN
1997 IN THE LAST
20 YEARS ANNUAL GIVING RAISED MORE THAN
$3m
$3 DOLLARS WAS THE LOWEST AMOUNT GIFTED
T H E H I G H E S T WA S
$50,000
2,226 GIFTS HAVE BEEN MADE
42%
OF DONATIONS CAME FROM OLD GEELONG GRAMMARIANS IN 2016
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ANNUAL GIVING 2017
WHY IS ANNUAL GIVING IMPORTANT?
The purpose of the Annual Fund is to support Geelong Grammar School’s operational needs. Relying on the generosity of past students and their families, parents, staff and the wider community, your gift to Annual Giving will have an immediate and profound impact on the School: financial assistance to students in need in the form of scholarships and bursaries; academic and co-curricular programmes; library resources; facilities maintenance.
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Sunday Gibson (Yr11 EM) was sailing long before she took her first steps. “Dad had me out on a boat when I was just five days old,” Sunday said. Growing up on the shores of Sorrento, in a family where to sail was almost an expectation, it felt inevitable for Sunday to find her second home on the water. “I started sailing my own boat when I was seven and I’ve been doing it ever since.” Sunday competed at the annual Girl Sail event on Davey’s Bay on March 3-4. Sailing with Melanie McCullen (Yr11 EM) for the first time, with Sunday as skipper and Melanie as crew the pair progressed through the grades across the weekend; ultimately winning the Division 2 Gold Fleet title after winning both their races by a large margin.
Sunday’s sailing has gone from strengthto-strength in the space of 12 months. She won a racing encouragement award in 2016 and has improved every time she’s hit the water this year. The close proximity to Limeburners Bay is an advantage for our sailors; one that will be felt more acutely when our new facility is built. “Once the facility is built I’m sure it will attract many more sailors and bring more success to the team,” Sunday said.
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GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL YACHT CLUB REBUILDING PROJECT
- Fundraising for the new Geelong Grammar School Yacht Club facility is ongoing and to date we have raised $532K. We are grateful for these leadership gifts, however with just under $1.2M still to raise for this exceptional building, we need the philanthropic support and involvement of our wider sailing community.
- Sailing is a passionate sport, made up by enthusiastic sailors and their families. The new facility we are raising funds for will not happen without the support of our wider sailing community. Now is the time to be inspired by our sailing programme’s proud past, the vibrant future of our young sailors, and to help realise our aspirations for our sailing students.
- An information evening cocktail party will be held in Sydney at the Shangri La Hotel on Thursday 25 May. For more information regarding this event, or if you would like to discuss how to support the Geelong Grammar School Yacht Club rebuilding project, please contact Kathy Hines on 0418 732 236.
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THE TOMMY GARNETT SCHOLARSHIP
The Tommy Garnett Scholarship is being created to honour the contribution of Tommy Garnett, who arrived as Headmaster from Marlborough College in September 1961. By the time Tommy had left the School at the end of 1973, his inspired and bold vision for co-education had begun and the very first girls were enrolled at Corio. “Co-education is one of the strengths of the School and it was such a visionary idea, to move from what existed in Tommy’s day to where we are now,” current Principal, Stephen Meek, said. “It was such an enormous transformation. If Tommy Garnett was to look at the School now, I think he would be ecstatic that what started as an idea of his has grown into an everyday part of the School and what makes it such a pleasure to be part of the School.” Geelong Grammar School was arguably one of the most famous boys’ schools in the world in 1967 when, just a year after Prince Charles attended GGS, Tommy Garnett began talks with The Hermitage to invite sixth-form girls to attend Maths, Science and Latin classes at Corio. In 1971, Tommy welcomed girls “in their own right” and 33 girls were enrolled at the School in 1972, including 15 boarders. At his last Speech Day in 1973, Tommy announced that 70 girls were enrolled for 1974 – with others being turned away because the Senior School was full. Tommy’s vision was realised when the School became fully co-educational in 1976 following the amalgamation with The Hermitage and Clyde schools.
The scholarship will be awarded to students who display qualities of general excellence and demonstrate enthusiasm and interest across the School’s academic and wider co-curricular activities – in the spirit of Tommy Garnett himself. Penny McBain, Chair of the Geelong Grammar Foundation, said the Foundation was much closer to achieving its fundraising target for the Tommy Garnett Scholarship and was hopeful it would receive additional support through the 2017 Annual Giving campaign. Penny said the Foundation anticipated awarding the Tommy Garnett Scholarship for the first time in 2019. “It is very exciting to think that very soon a student will be able to benefit from the generosity of the donors to the Tommy Garnett Scholarship and that the legacy of one of our great Headmasters will be celebrated in this way,” Penny said. If you would like to know more about the Tommy Garnett Scholarship please contact Sheila Colwell on 0488 773 396 or email: scolwell@ggs.vic.edu.au
The Tommy Garnett Scholarship celebrates his legacy and recognises the contribution that girls have made to the School since 1970. “I definitely cannot imagine Geelong Grammar School as a single-sex school,” 2016 joint Dux, Airlie Kinross (Ga’16), said. “Opening up the opportunity for girls to attend this school is just one of the many important steps taken towards women having equal access to education and equal opportunity in the workforce.”
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TOORAK WELLBEING CENTRE The Toorak Wellbeing Centre is rising out of the ground on Jackson Street. This exciting new facility is scheduled for completion in Term 4 and will feature a 25-metre swimming pool and fully equipped kitchen and nutrition centre, as well as flexible spaces for mindful meditation, Positive Education and inquiry-based learning. So much has been achieved in our fundraising for the Toorak Wellbeing Centre thanks to the generous support of, and encouragement from, our wider School community. We are grateful for those leadership gifts that have enabled construction to commence. However, with less than $1 million left to raise, there are still opportunities for those families who have not yet made a gift to contribute. The Toorak Wellbeing Centre Fundraising Committee in conjunction with the Glamorgan Association is hosting a gala dinner at the National Gallery of Victoria on Saturday 17 June to raise awareness and financial support for this important project, which will be the first of its kind on a primary school campus in Australia. All guests attending the gala dinner will have the opportunity to purchase tickets to a private viewing to the NGV’s Van Gogh and the Seasons exhibition prior to dinner, while the MC for the evening will be current Toorak Campus parent, actress and author Madeleine West. Book online via: https://www.trybooking.com/PHLW For more information regarding how you can become involved as a philanthropic supporter for this exceptional learning space and add your family’s name to the Toorak Wellbeing Centre donor board, please contact Kathy Hines 0418 732 236 or email: khines@ggs.vic.edu.au
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SPORTS SHORTS Allie to lead Victoria at Nationals Allie Smith (Yr12 A) has been named captain of the Victorian 17 and Under (17/U) Netball team set to compete at the National Championships beginning on April 18. Allie has progressed through the grades of representative netball during her time at GGS. In Year 10, she represented School Sport Australia in the International Schoolgirls’ Challenge, held in Kuala Lumpur. Last year, playing for the Victorian 17/U team as a bottomage player, Allie earned selection in the Australian 17/U team.
Rowing Success Our Girls’ 1st VIII won a fourth-consecutive Head of the River title on Saturday 25 March at Nagambie Lakes. Our girls rebounded from a disappointing semi final performance at the Head of the Schoolgirls’ Regatta the week prior to finish more than three seconds ahead of their nearest rival at the APS Regatta. Our Girls’ 10A IV (pictured above), coached by Andy Beauchamp, completed a winning double at the Head of the Schoolgirls and Heads of the River regattas for the first time in School history. The Boys’ 1st VIII finished on the Head of the River podium for the first time since 2012, finishing third behind Scotch College. From there, our crews traveled to Sydney for the Australian Rowing Championships. The Boys’ 1st VIII won silver in the Schoolboys’ Coxed VIII sprint, and a select crew of four won silver in the Men’s Under 19 Coxed IV.
Christian and Mia excel at Nationals Christian Davis (Yr12 Fr) completed yet another 400m/800m winning double at a national competition, this time at the Australian Athletics Championships in Sydney, held in late March. Christian won the Under 20 400m final in a personal best-time of 47.11 seconds, before doubling-up with a win in the Under 20 800m final. Christian was named the Victorian Under 20 Athlete of the Year in 2017. Mia Gross (Yr10 Fr) has been unbelievable on the track in 2017, running PBs in the 100m, 200m and 400m. Unfortunately, after running a strong second behind Queensland running sensation Riley Day in the Under 18 100m final, Mia’s championships were derailed by injury. Mia’s main goal for this year is the Commonwealth Youth Games in July. Having achieved qualifying times in three events, Mia will be awaiting the team announcement in late April to find out whether she’ll be on the plane to the Bahamas.
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Four current students in AFL Academy Jarrod Brander (Yr12 M), Jye Caldwell (Yr11 P), Paddy Dow (Yr12 M) and Lochie O’Brien (Yr12 P) are part of the NAB AFL Academy squad; Jarrod, Paddy and Lochie are draft-eligible for this year, Jye for 2018. Jarrod, Paddy and Lochie (pictured above) travelled to the USA in January for a high-performance training camp; splitting their time between the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, and UCLA. All four boys took part in a curtain-raiser on the MCG on Sunday 9 April, prior to the Carlton vs Essendon. Lochie was named in the best players on the day, while Jarrod and Paddy kicked a goal each.
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Welcome to The Mail Room, a place for our wider School community to share news, notes and pictures of life beyond school. The Mail Room builds on the strong sense of community that we share and the foundation work of our Curator, Michael Collins Persse, who remains our invaluable oracle of information and the source of much of the content within. As a thriving boarding school, our mail rooms at Corio and Timbertop are central to the life of the School and the flow of information, from parent to student and beyond. Long may this continue.
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AVENUES OF HONOUR Sarah Wood (Lloyd Jones, P’74)’s stunning images of Avenues of Honour across regional Victoria will be exhibited at the FrancoAustralian Museum at Villers-Bretonneaux, France, on ANZAC Day. Planted mostly in Australian regional towns in memory of those who served their country in times of conflict, Avenues of Honour are a singularly Australian response to loss and the experience of war. With no distinction between religion, race or rank, they are also a particularly egalitarian approach to commemoration. The State of Victoria has approximately 300 Avenues of Honour, with the majority planted either during or after the two World Wars, but also after the wars in Vietnam and, more recently, Afghanistan. The planting of trees honours men and women who served Australia, many of whom never returned. Each Avenue is unique. What is believed to be the earliest was planted in 1916 by the small rural community of Eurack. The largest is at Ballarat, comprising over 3,000 trees and stretching for nearly 22 kilometres. And, while many feature exotic trees, the Calder Woodburn Avenue planted near Shepparton after World War II is a double row of Australian eucalypts either side of the Midland Highway.
All are haunting and beautiful memorials to the servicemen and servicewomen who offered their lives for their country, and living records of each community’s commitment to remembering them. Many Avenues have been lost through development, drought or neglect. Out of concern for the future of those remaining, Sarah, a photographer and horticulturalist, started recording the six heritage-listed Avenues ten years ago. She has now photographed 23 Avenues in this ongoing project. “Our family often travelled between Melbourne and Sydney when I was a child,” she said. “Passing through Victorian country towns my mother would talk to us about the significance of the Avenues and the different trees planted. Her father, my grandfather, Ernest Turnbull, saw action at Gallipoli and later became a founding member of the Returned & Services League for veterans and their families. So I grew up with stories of both World Wars. Photographing the Avenues has been a labour of love that has brought childhood memories and family stories together with my passions for history, education, horticulture and photography.”
Top: Arch of Victory, Ballarat Left: Calder Woodburn Avenue, Shepparton Above: The Eurack Avenue of Honour was planted by the Eurack School children in 1916 as a tribute to the enlisted servicemen.
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COMMUNITY NEWS 1935
John Ogden (P’35), who died on 4 February 2017, was an unusual boy at GGS in the 1930s, being an American citizen and virtually motherless. Born in New Jersey on 9 July 1918 to John Stanley Ogden and Janet Cocoran – teenagers who separated early – he lived as a small child with his mother and her family until his father, with whom he had had less contact, took him to Australia in 1926 (he never saw his mother again). His father found work with Noyes Brothers, engineering consultants and contractors. After living for some years at the Menzies Hotel, they had a flat in South Yarra and a series of housekeepers. Early schooling at Brighton and Melbourne Grammars led on to boarding for four years at GGS where he sometimes stayed during holidays, when his father was away, with James Darling (Headmaster 1930-61) and developed a deep love of music under the influence of William McKie (Staff 1933-38), later Master of the Choristers and Organist at Westminster Abbey (and, like Darling, knighted). McKie was also City Organist in Melbourne and John would accompany him as pageturner, coming to know the technology of the organs in both the School Chapel and Melbourne Town Hall. His father established a manufacturing base, Ogden Industries (which early in World War Two made locks for military use, torpedo detonators, demolition fuses, landing flares, needles, syringes, and magnets for field telephones), and remarried to become the father of two daughters of whom Judith (head girl at St Catherine’s School in 1957; now Lady Thomson) is the mother of Edward Cabot (P’82). John matriculated and could reasonably have tackled virtually any university course, but family duty called and, having obtained technical and business qualifications, he helped his father with the pewter objects produced by a company established in 1938, Australian Diecasters Pty Ltd. When war broke out, he wanted to join the RAAF but was judged an “alien national”; applied to join the Navy but was rejected because of his high arched feet; had his work acknowledged as Essential
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War Occupation; and in his spare time established the Victorian Squadron of the Australian Air League, enlisting teachers to educate young men sufficiently to qualify for the RAAF. When, in 1943, the Ogden factory was destroyed by fire and his father died soon afterwards, John found himself at a loose end. Having learnt that the Australian Army was looking for experienced sailors to develop a water-transport unit, he qualified in marine navigation and joined that Army himself. Commissioned in December 1944, he believed that he was the only American citizen to have been appointed an officer in it. His war service took him to several Pacific islands, particularly to the operating of supply at the battle of Tarakan in Borneo. After leaving the Army in March 1946, he was employed by an American firm, Reynold’s Metals, to build their business in Australia. Thus he met Annette Oldfield, whom he married in 1949 in Reno Nevada. A son, now Dr Edward Ogden PSM (P’69; Senior Prefect), followed, and daughter, Elizabeth (Cu’72). After some other manufacturing ventures he bought Scribal in 1951 to produce ball-point pens, but unfortunately the international Biro company pursued patent litigation against it, fighting which for eleven years, though ultimately (after an appeal to the Privy Council) successful, proved financially exhausting. As the years advanced, John kept abreast of developments in technology, building his own computers, pursuing projects with his son, and enjoying his electronic organ. He and Annette lived for half a century in the house he had renovated in Toorak until she died in 2002, after which he moved to Doncaster, where he built a thriving new business (lending money to panel-beaters), enjoyed the company (and musical talents) of Edward’s children, and gardened expertly while remaining a wise, gallant, and fiercely independent individual into his 99th year.
1940
Vice-Admiral Robert Squires DL, RN (retd) (Bw’40), known in Royal Navy circles as Tubby but to family and friends as Robin, died on 30 June 2016. Born on 11 February 1927, he was the son – with two older sisters including Margaret (1916-2015), parent with Bill Landale (1914-74; P’32) of Jennifer (Cl’56), Michael (1943-1996; P’61), and Vanessa Landale, and stepmother to Peter Lodge
(1939-2016; Cu’57) and Michael Lodge (Cu’60) – of Lieutenant-General Ernest Squires DSO, MC, who came to Australia from the Indian Army in 1938 at the invitation of the Lyons government to be Inspector-General of the Australian Army – primarily to investigate its preparedness for war; in 1939 he was made Chief of the General Staff and formed the 2nd AIF, only to die in Melbourne of cancer in March 1940. Robin, who had earlier been at the preparatory school Summer Fields, near Oxford, returned to England with his widowed mother – Ethel Elsie Sylvia nèe Risley – after five terms at Corio, to have four years at Eton and in 1944 enter the Britannia Royal Naval College (then at its wartime home of Eaton Hall in Cheshire). Awarded the King’s Telescope on passing out, he went on to train in destroyers and battleships (arriving in Tokyo Bay on the day the Japanese surrender was signed) and – to quote a London Telegraph obituary – was soon recognised for his “brains, initiative, and energy”.
He volunteered for submarines in 1948 and passed the Submarine Command Course (“the perisher”) in 1955. In 1960, when he was appointed first lieutenant of Dreadnought, there were no nuclearqualified submariners, and Robin was one of five who then began training in the newly established Nuclear Physics department of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, where a small nuclear reactor was established in the cellars. Some months and valuable friendships ensued with the United States Navy, and he stood by Dreadnought (powered by an American S5W reactor) as it was built at Barrowon-Furness and launched by the Queen on Trafalgar Day (21 October) in 1960. In the early 1960s the successful sea trials of Britain’s first nuclear-powered warship owed much to his “loyalty, efficiency, and reliability” and his “leadership, tact, and cheerfulness”. After his only desk job, as Assistant Director of Naval Warfare in Whitehall, he commanded in succession LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
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1942
The Venerable David Chambers (Cu’42), long an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Melbourne, died on 21 March 2016. Born in India on 17 December 1925 to parents working for the Church Missionary Society, he had seven years at GGS with legendary housemasters – four in Connewarre House with Reginald Gellibrand Jennings (Staff 1914-41) and three in Cuthbertson with Edward William Henry (Ted or Joe) Pinner (Staff 1921-52) – and in his late teens had what at his funeral his and Audrey’s son the Reverend Jonathan Chambers (Cu’69) described as a personal conversion, going on to play an active part in the League of Youth and to train for ordination at the Melbourne Bible Institute and Ridley College, Melbourne.
Canterbury, exposed him to the breadth of the Anglican Communion. After service back in Melbourne as Rural Dean of Croydon (1966-72) and Archdeacon of Brighton (1972-82), he was with Community and Welfare as Diocesan Consultant (1979-82) and Archdeacon (1982-87). After retirement in 1991, with the title Archdeacon Emeritus, he served in honorary roles with no diminution of his gentle but strong zeal for souls. Jonathan described his father as “loving and generous”, “stubborn and fearless”, “a great traveller and adventurer, a deeply spiritual person (who) never lost his zeal for telling people of the Good News”, drawing on the wisdom of his wide range of heroes including Anthony de Mello, Desmond Tutu, Rowan Williams, Pope Francis, Vincent Van Gogh, and Michael Leunig. A Franciscan Tertiary, he was always concerned with the Church’s duty to be true to its age-old mission.
1942
Daniel Hollis QC (P’42), who died on 4 September 2016, was one of the UK’s leading criminal barristers and the longstanding head of his own chambers, QEB Hollis Whiteman, which he began in 1968 and which now has 61 barristers, including 16 Queen’s Counsel. Dan was born in Blackheath, southeast London, on 30 April 1925, the son of Norman Hollis and Phyllis (née Ward) and the grandson of Henry Park
June Mendoza’s portrait of Dan Hollis QC (P’42)
Graduating Licentiate of Theology with the Australian College of Theology in 1947, he was ordained Deacon in 1951 and Priest in 1952. A curacy in Balwyn was followed by ministries in Belgrave, Bentleigh, Ringwood, Sandringham, and Richmond. Study in the early 1970s in England at St Augustine’s College, LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
Hollis, the first astronomy correspondent of The Times. In 1937, aged 12, he suddenly found himself uprooted when his father, who worked for P&O, was posted to Australia. The family moved to Melbourne and Dan attended GGS, where he became a keen rower and a member of the Student Representative Council. (SRC). After the fall of Singapore in 1942, the family returned to Britain, travelling on the last P&O ship out of Sydney across the Southern Ocean, through the Panama Canal, evading U-boats that were waiting in the Caribbean. Before leaving Australia, Dan
had taken, and passed, his matriculation exams a year early, and with those results and a letter from James Darling (Headmaster 1930-61) he was accepted to read jurisprudence at Brasenose College, Oxford. During his first year at Oxford, aged 17, he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as a midshipman and spent much of his time learning Morse code and how to read charts in preparation for naval service. From 1943 to 1946 Dan served first in the North Atlantic and then in the Mediterranean as a navigation officer on escort vessels. He was demobilised in 1946, in time to resume his Oxford studies. He graduated in 1948 and was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1949. He married Jill Turner, whom he had met at Oxford in 1950 and whose father was a Cambridge don. They had twins, Sarah, now a specialist in geriatric psychiatry, and Simon, who tragically died in his early 20s. Dan’s early career as a barrister was in a Common Law set at Harcourt Buildings, where he discovered that he preferred oral advocacy to paperwork. He joined the Criminal set of Christmas Humphreys, who had just been promoted to the bench, and the foundations of what was to become Dan Hollis’s chambers at Queen Elizabeth Buildings were laid. Having divorced his first wife in 1960, he married Stella Hydleman, also a barrister, in 1963. They had a son, Gideon, now a successful lawyer himself. Dan took silk in 1968, becoming head of chambers that year, a position he retained for 27 years. He sat as a commissioner and then a recorder at the Old Bailey from 1971 to 1996 and was a deputy High Court judge from 1982 to 1993. He was a Bencher of Middle Temple from 1975 where, as master of silver, he used his interest and knowledge of silver and modern craftsmanship to add new pieces to the inn’s collection. After he left the Bar in 1995 he continued working at the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and he became a member of the Home Secretary’s Advisory Board on Restricted Patients. Dan’s laid-back charm, wit and minimalist but deadly effective advocacy gained him the widespread respect of his peers.
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a nuclear submarine, a destroyer, and a frigate squadron; was appointed Flag Officer, First Flotilla, in 1977; served from 1978 to 1981 as head of his profession as Flag Officer, Submarines; and in 1982 was promoted from Rear-Admiral to Vice-Admiral and became Flag Officer, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In 1955 he had married Sue Hill, and after his retirement in 1983 they lived in Scotland, the Isle of Wight (where he was a Deputy Lieutenant), and finally Dorset, where he particularly enjoyed singing in a church choir. Several visits to Australia brought him close to his sister Margaret and her family. Sue died in 2008, and Robin was survived by their two daughters and grandchildren. He had declined the offer of a knighthood (his father having died prematurely before being similarly honoured).
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1950
James Fairfax AC (M’50), who was born on 27 March 1933 and died on 11 January 2017, was the fifth-generation Fairfax to govern what had become a media empire based on The Sydney Morning Herald – and himself a munificent donor to public art galleries and other institutions, including Geelong Grammar School. A bachelor and a kind, wise, gentle, tolerant, highly civilised man, he proved – against the expectations of many, including his father, Sir Warwick Fairfax (M’19) – a successful chairman of John Fairfax and Sons Ltd for ten years until the sequel to the death of his father in 1987, just 30 years before his own. This had, by Sir Warwick’s will, the effect of delivering control into the hands of James’s half-brother Warwick (elder son of their father’s third marriage) over the heads of James and their cousins Sir Vincent Fairfax CMG (1909-1993; M’28; GGS Council 1955-66) and Vincent’s elder son, John B Fairfax AO (M’60).
James, his sister Caroline Simpson OAM (1930-2003), Vincent, and John sold their shares in the company and were greatly enriched as a result, but they also had the sadness of seeing the historic family empire founder and collapse three years later (as recounted in the 1990 book by V J Carroll, The Man Who Couldn’t Wait). Australia was much enriched, too, by the generosity of all four – Vincent and John have also been great benefactors of GGS (especially its music schools at Corio and Timbertop) – as by that of Vincent’s younger son, Tim Fairfax AC (M’64). It was typical of James that he forgave and was reconciled to Warwick, who came with his wife, Gale, from America for the service celebrating James’s life that was held in St Simon and St Jude’s Church in
Bowral, near his principal home, Retford Park, the apricotcoloured mansion and 33 hectares he had recently given to the National Trust (its greatest acquisition so far). He also had homes in Sydney, including a house at Palm Beach. Typical, too, was his earlier reconciliation with his father some four years after the John Fairfax board in 1977 had replaced Sir Warwick – a director of John Fairfax and Sons Ltd from 1927 and chairman since 1930 – with his eldest son: a move orchestrated by the powerful Rupert Henderson but supported by James, who had learnt the necessity of an occasional hard decision. Sir Warwick (1901-1987) was the only son of Sir James Oswald Fairfax (1863-1928), himself a son of Sir James Reading Fairfax (1834-1919) and grandson of the English-born founder John Fairfax (1804-1877) who in 1841, with Charles Stokes, had bought The Sydney Herald (they added Morning in 1842). The life of John and the early history of the company were told in two books by Sir Warwick’s (and Sir Vincent’s) first-cousin John Fitzgerald Fairfax (1904-1951; M’23). Warwick was a complex mixture of media magnate, philosopher, theologian, author, playwright, balletomane, cattle-breeder, dog-lover, thrice-married (twicedivorced) patriarch, with a donnish manner – seeming to many a remote and austere figure but to others childlike in his readiness to confide; and inevitably a looming presence in James’s life. He and James appear as one of three father-and-son pairs (the others being Morgans and Downers) in the book 100 Exceptional Stories, published by the School and Hardie Grant in 2014 to celebrate Geelong Grammar School’s first century at Corio.
James Fairfax AC (M’50) painted by Bryan Westwood in 1991.
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The failure of their parents’ marriage deeply affected both Caroline and James, as is illustrated – with much else of historic importance in a very honest and revealing memoir, Caroline Simpson: A Woman of Very Firm Purpose, compiled by her eldest of three daughters (who were followed by a son, Edward Simpson), Louise Dobson and researcher Michael Collins. Their father in 1948 married Hanne, née Bendixsen, mother of Alan (Bill) Anderson (M’59), who became very dear to the whole family – as did his and James’s half-sister Annalise Thomas née Fairfax, who is the mother of four daughters, including Sian Khuman (Thomas, Ga’95). Hanne was a kind stepmother through the decade of her marriage to Warwick, who in 1959 married Mary (née Wein, originally from Poland and formerly the wife of Cedric Symonds) with whom he not only had Warwick, born in 1960, but also in 1968 adopted Charles and Anna, who married David Cleary (P’83) and is the mother of three, including Ashley (Gl’04). James is survived not only by his second stepmother but also by 19 nephews and nieces and 16 great-nephews and great-nieces. Caroline contributed richly to knowledge of early-colonial New South Wales. James’s own great contribution has been through the collecting and giving to Australian galleries of Old Masters. His huge collection began with the purchase in boyhood of a painting by Eric Wilson, his art master at Cranbrook, from which in 1946 he went on as a boarder for five years to GGS where he was mostly unhappy, not least because of his parents’ divorce, but also because, by his own confession (he was always humbly and wryly self-critical), he was bookish, diffident, unsporty, and seemingly withdrawn by comparison with the more extroverted members of Manifold House. His headmasters were remarkable men (both later knighted), Brian Hone at Cranbrook and James Darling at Geelong (James Fairfax achieved an easy familiarity and friendship with Darling, unusually soon as a young OGG calling him Jim), and other GGS masters were influential: the classical scholar John Ponder (Staff 1934-65) and the former Bauhaus artist Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack (Staff 1942-57), who taught him to appreciate modern and abstract art. Contemporaries included David Roche (Cu’48), later a major collector and art patron, the future art curator and historian Daniel Thomas (FB’49), and Rupert Murdoch (Cu’49), who was to become an arch-rival professionally but with whom James had friendly, if distant and only occasional, relations personally. Kerry Packer AC (P’56) and Ranald Macdonald AO (M’56), who in different ways were to cross his path in the world of the media, were at GGS somewhat later; James was kind, courteous, and friendly to them both. After a short time at Sydney University, he went up to Balliol, the Oxford College of his Fairfax grandfather, great-uncles, and father (who in the early 1920s had read the then new Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics – or PPE).
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For three years, 1952-55, James read the Honour School of Modern History (spanning about 2,000 years since the Ancient World) and became increasingly enamoured of the 18th century. Amid Riviera holidays and much foreign travel with his mother, he was being taught how to judge great paintings by John Macdonell, the Queenslander who for many years advised and bought for the National Gallery of Victoria. James’s Balliol years were among the happiest of his life – and it was there that, partly in succession to earlier family friendships, he and I became good friends. With my closest friend, Sir Andrew Hills (1933-1955) – as I recount in a memoir of Andrew (Scholar Gypsy: An Oxford Friendship, published in 2012), where James makes many appearances – and with our friend the Chaplain and Dean of Balliol, Frank MacCarthy WillisBund (The MacCarthy Reagh), a very 18th-century character, we founded one of Oxford’s many evanescent dining clubs, called the Ancien Régime and dedicated to keeping alive the best traditions of pre-Revolutionary France. They were carefree years, until Andrew’s tragic death in a road accident. James and I, with Keith Thomas and Roy Napier, entertained about 400 friends in a farewell outdoor party through a long summer evening in June 1955 before returning together to Australia in SS Strathmore, he to join his father’s world of duty (away, as his father intended, from his mother’s world of pleasure and travel), I to start what has become more than six decades of service to GGS where James, with characteristic generosity, together with the Old Geelong Grammarians, financed the transformation in 2005 of most of the Hawker Library into the Michael Collins Persse Archives Centre. He was also a major benefactor of Balliol, where he and his father established a Fellowship in Ancient Philosophy, and he was elected an Honorary Fellow. A Fairfax Court adorns a Balliol annexe, Holywell Manor. In later years James funded the passage of many Australians through postgraduate degrees at Oxford. He was a director of Amalgamated Television Services Pty Ltd (Australia) from 1958-87 (chairman from 1975) and of Associated Newspapers Ltd (Australia) through the same years, a member of the Council of International House at the University of Sydney (196779), on the board of management of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Sydney (1967-85), and a councillor of the National Gallery of Australia (1976-84), to name but a few areas of his public service. He endowed the Lorimer Dods Chair of Child Medicine at Sydney University. In 2010 he was elevated in the Order of Australia from Officer to its then highest rank, that of Companion. Obituaries in Australia and England, where James long spent about four months annually at his restored manor house, Stanbridge Mill in Dorset, have rightly stressed both his services to the media across the world (for a time John Fairfax and Sons owned The Spectator) and his many artistic benefactions. More than one major Australian gallery has its James Fairfax Room. In my opinion, an always latent spirituality became more and more prominent in his later years (he tended to keep the more intimately religious paintings of medieval and Renaissance masters for his own inspiration). He had a strong sense of what was decent and right – one that helped keep an essentially gay and loving man safe in days when danger of persecution, blackmail, and other injustice prevailed. Despite, or together with, his tendency to quietness and introspection, he had a great gift for friendship, regardless of status (though he enjoyed and had easy entry to exalted circles), and was loved by the large staff whom he could afford to employ and serve him well. He was devoted to his dogs. He lived, in my belief, a blessed life, wisely and well and, like his sister Caroline, has left his country and friends an enduring debt. Michael Collins Persse
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Sir Warwick’s first wife, known as Betty, was Marcie Elizabeth (1907-1995), daughter of David Wilson KC and Marcia Rudge, a charming and popular woman (described by an old friend as “cocktails and laughter”), who late in World War 2 left Warwick for a French naval captain, Pierre Gilly (1905-1982), and in 1947 bore James’s half-brother Edward Gilly (my godson), who died in 2005, leaving two sons, Alexander and Oliver, and a daughter, Aurelie-Anne. Alexander was entrusted by James with the writing of a biography that, until strength ran out, he had intended himself to write, in succession to an earlier memoir, My Regards to Broadway (1991). Caroline and James joined Betty and Pierre in China, Japan, France, and England until their mother’s second divorce in 1956, after which they continued to travel with Betty, eventually establishing her in Sydney for her final years.
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1952
(Henry) John Stubbings (Ge’52) was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the annual Australia Day honours for service to music and to the community of Geelong. A trained opera singer, John has performed in more than 60 musicals and has coached generations of Geelong performers, most recently as the assistant musical director of the Geelong Chorale.
1954
The Honourable Stephen Charles (M’54) became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in annual Australia Day honours for his distinguished service to the law and to the judiciary, particularly in the areas of commercial arbitration and mediation, judicial administration and legal professional organisations. Stephen gained a Bachelor of Law (Hons) degree from Melbourne University, sharing the Supreme Court Prize in 1960. He joined the Victorian Bar Association in 1961, was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1975 and a Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1995, a position he held until his retirement in 2006. Stephen played an important role in the leadership of the legal profession and legal education in Australia, spending periods as a lecturer at both Melbourne and Monash universities. He served as Chairman of the Victorian Bar Association, President of the Australian Bar Association, Chair of the Civil Justice Review Committee and Chair of the Steering Committee for Equality of Opportunity for Women at the Victorian Bar. He was also a member of the Barristers’ Disciplinary Tribunal and a Director of Macquarie Bank. Stephen and his wife Jennifer are also members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) Chairman’s Council and patrons of the ACO’s National Education Programme.
1962
Andrew Hay OBE (Cu’62), who died in Melbourne on 9 November 2016, was born on 9 June 1945, the elder son of Sir David Hay CBE, DSO (1916-2009; Cu’35) – ambassador, Administrator of New Guinea, and Secretary of the Department for Aboriginal Affairs – and Alison (Lady Hay) née Adams (Cl’38). He was followed at GGS – where he was in Barwon House (1955-57) and Cuthbertson (spending 1959 at Timbertop) – by their other child, David (Cu’67), who is a New York- based playwright, and by his own three daughters with Marianne née Perrott (an artist), Clementine (Cl’00), Madeline (Cl’05), and Matilda (Cl’08). Winning Colours for both Cricket and Football, and being Captain of Golf, Andrew had the distinction of playing in the 1st XI during both years in which, after a gap of 36 years, GGS won APS Cricket premierships. Further study followed at Melbourne and New York universities and the ANU (where he graduated BA), after which he had a long career in business, including a term as President of the Australian Chamber of Commerce (1987-88), becoming known for his strong defence of the business community and for his own rationalist economic views. Even better known was his service as Private Secretary (197375) to the Federal Shadow Treasurer and Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Phillip Lynch, when he played a key role in unveiling what became known as the Khemlani Affair, convincing the press that they should investigate secret efforts by Labor Ministers to borrow billions of dollars from the Middle East. As he wrote, “I found myself at the very centre of the greatest financial scandal in Australian political history”. The downfall of the Whitlam government followed. Andrew had earlier assisted Peter Howson, Minister of Environment, Aborigines, and the Arts in the McMahon government. Other posts he held included the chairmanships of Adroyal Ltd (1987-95), Lease Plan Australia Ltd (1988-95), Moorland Hire Ltd (1989-95), and Berklee Ltd (1988-2010).
1955
Jenny Happell (Shaw Cl’55) was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the annual Australia Day honours for service to the community through voluntary roles with horticultural organisations. Jenny has worked and studied at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne since becoming a volunteer guide in 1983. She has made an important contribution to documenting the Camellia Collection, culminating in the reclassifying of 950 camellias and the Royal Botanic Gardens’ being named a Camellia Garden of Excellence. Jenny holds Honorary Life Membership of the Geelong Botanic Gardens, having initiated their volunteer guide service and developed a training programme to help new volunteers.
1960
Rosalind Leigh (He’60) was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the annual Australia Day honours for service to the community through a range of organisations. Ros is the President of the Highton Ceres branch of Cottage by the Sea, President of the Mount Moriac branch of the Red Cross, Ladies President of Highton Bowls Club and a Church Elder of Uniting Church congregations of Moriac, Barrabool and Ceres. She was also the President of the Hermitage Old Girls’ Association from 1982-84, is a past Treasurer and current HOGA committee member.
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Increasingly, however, with some disillusion at the way in which his advocacy of conservative politics was being received, and with a long illness from 2010, battling cancer, he devoted himself to his family and to the property by the Murray River, Boomanoomana, which his great-great-grandfather the pastoralist and politician William Hay had started and which Sir David, on his retirement, had bought back into the family. He became chairman of the nearby Corowa Picnic Races, where the H A Hay Cup, named after his grandfather, was a principal event. With Marianne he took up horse-racing (Sir Boom won 22 races, including the Memsie Stakes at Caulfield in 1996 and 1999). His brother wrote recently that Andrew’s “charming, idiosyncratic, occasionally irascible personality was well known in the sometimes stultified Melbourne circles of which he was part. His personal icons ranged from Clint Eastwood to John Cleese, from Jerry Seinfeld to Lucien Freud.” A devoted son, and close to his father (if rather different in personality and views from Sir David), he published a memoir of that legendary schoolboy and Old Geelong Grammarian.
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More than 70 people gathered in the garden of our Toorak Campus on Friday 10 March to celebrate a reunion morning tea for past students who attended Glamorgan from 1945-50. People travelled from the UK and USA to attend the reunion, which was followed by lunch at the South Yarra Lawn Tennis Club with guest speaker Andrew Lemon (FB'68), author of The Pride of Miss McComas, a history of Geelong Grammar School’s junior campus in Toorak. 2017 marks 130 years since the Toorak Preparatory Grammar School was established by Miss Annie McComas in a rented house
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in Wallace Avenue in 1887. The house was rented from “an old Welshman... he made it a proviso that the name Glamorgan be kept”, and soon the School was known simply as such, while Annie’s younger sister Isabel succeeded her as Principal in 1895. This year also marks 70 years since Glamorgan was purchased by Geelong Grammar School in 1947, allowing Isabel McComas to retire after 60 years of service. A broader reunion for past students who attended Glamorgan and Toorak Campus is planned for later in the year to coincide with the opening of the Toorak Wellbeing Centre.
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5 1. Wesley Erwin (FB’68), David Henry (FB’70) and David McKenzie (P’70) 2. Simon Waters (FB’69), Andrew Baulch (FB’70) and Chris McKeown (FB’70) 3. Simon Murray (M’70), Andrew Ashbolt (M’69), Chris Noble (Cu’69), Chris Koren (M’70), Mark Ewart (M’70) and Cameron Colquhoun (FB’69) 4. Jim Crossley (Cu’69) and Rod Druce (P’69) 5. Glen Bechly and Andrew Mackinnon (M’70) 6. Gordon Harten (Ge’70), David Shirra (FB’69) and Russ Knight (Ge’70) 7. Ian Shaw (FB’68) and Garry Woodhams (Cu’69) 8. Nils Koren (FB’69), Simon de Wolf (M’69) and Peter Lie (FB’69) 9. Group Photo
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↓ Amanda Elliott (Bayles, Cl’69) became the first female Chair of the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) in the club’s 153-year history on Friday 24 February. A passionate racehorse owner and former breeder, Amanda has been a trail blazer in race club administration in Australia. She was elected to the VRC Board of Directors in 2002, becoming only the second female VRC committee member in 140 years. She was elected Vice Chair in 2011, becoming the first female executive office holder of a major city race club in the country. She became acting Chair in December last year and was elected unopposed by the Board of Directors on Friday to lead the VRC, which is home of the Melbourne Cup and one of Australia’s oldest racing institutions. “I am deeply honoured and thrilled at this appointment (and) I am so excited about the next two years of my term,” Amanda said, underlining her commitment to the delivery of planned VRC initiatives, including the $128 million members’ grandstand, which is scheduled for completion before the 2018 Melbourne Cup. “This is a critical period of development at Flemington and I look forward to working with the CEO, Simon Love, and the great team at the VRC to ensure Flemington continues to offer world-class racing and entertainment facilities.”
Amanda has race club administration in her blood. Her father, Ian Bayles, was a VRC committee member for 12 years and Vice Chairman from 1986-88. “He would be so proud that the wonderful contribution he made those years ago will be carried on,” Amanda told The Australian newspaper. “Our family has always loved this sport, always been involved in it and always contributed to the administration of it, whether it be in the country at Seymour, where he started, (or) the VRC.” Although Ian Bayles attended Winchester College, the Bayles family is deeply connected to Geelong Grammar School. Amanda’s brothers Alistair (FB’59) and Arch (FB’65) attended GGS, while sisters Aprilla Hodgson (Bayles, Cl’63) and Ayliffe Caldwell (Bayles, Cl’69) went to Clyde School. Her daughters Edwina Machado (Drummond Moray, Cl’97) and Alexandra Elliott (Toorak Campus ELC) attended the School, as have numerous cousins, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews.
1979
Ian Darling (P’79) received the 2017 Leading Philanthropist Award at the annual Australian Philanthropy Awards night on Wednesday 5 April. The annual award acknowledges an exceptionally generous individual who is creative in exploring ways to advance the common good and seeks solutions to the complex social issues that challenge us. Ian’s creative vision and leadership has been instrumental in encouraging and developing philanthropy through documentary and the Arts with his work as Chair of Good Pitch Australia, Executive Director of Shark Island Productions and founder of the Documentary Australia Foundation (DAF). “There are so many people who are doing incredible things so it is very humbling when I see that I am named philanthropist of the year,” Ian told
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Pro Bono News. “It’s a great honour. I’m not sure if I’m the most deserving one for it, but I am very grateful for it.” Ian said he was unsure whether he considered himself a “philanthropist”, but for the past decade he has been the leading advocate for using documentary filmmaking to inspire social change. His homeless film project The Oasis won Ian an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award in 2008 for Best Direction in a Documentary, but it was also named one of Australia’s Top 50 Philanthropic Gifts of All Time in 2013. Ian said he didn’t set out for it to be a philanthropic project: rather he decided to make the documentary after working at the Oasis Youth Support Network and seeing the “enormity of the problem”. “Initially the intent was to create a really confronting film that took the plight of the homeless to as many living rooms as possible but soon after we started filming, and it reinforced how great the problem was, we thought we would take a more strategic approach,” he said. “But by the time we released it, we realised we had something quite powerful. Not only with the film but this major report which we presented to the government and the findings from an Australiawide youth commission. This provided the momentum for the government of the day to then produce a green paper and white paper on homelessness, which gave the sector enormous confidence and heart that something was actually going to be done about homelessness.” In 2008, Ian founded the Documentary Australia Foundation (DAF), which brings philanthropists and filmmakers together to raise awareness and inspire action on social issues. Since 2008, DAF has facilitated development, production and outreach funding for more than 200 documentary films, and received over $8 million in donations. Since 2014, DAF has collaborated with Ian’s Shark Island Institute to host Good Pitch Australia, which brings together filmmakers with NGOs, foundations, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs and broadcasters. Filmmaking teams pitch their film and its associated outreach campaign to the invited representatives at the table and a theatre of up to 300 participants. Since 2014, more than $14 million has been raised in philanthropic grants for the funding of 19 social impact documentaries and their outreach campaigns. “I think the power of documentary is that it can really humanise a very complex issue and it puts a face to homelessness or domestic violence or racism or intolerance or whatever it may be, so I guess my ultimate goal is just to keep working with documentary and keep supporting the sector to increase the effectiveness of gift giving and outcomes along the way.”
1985
Dr Emma O’Brien (Je’85) was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the annual Australia Day honours for service to community health through music therapy programmes. Emma has been a pioneer of music therapy in Australia, founding the music therapy programme at The Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1997. She has become especially recognized for developing innovative song-writing courses to assist patients, their families and carers. Her work was the subject of an award-winning SBS documentary, Opera Therapy (2005), and a special edition of ABC TV’s Compass programme in 2015. Emma was awarded the Victorian Public Health Care Award in 2011 and was named in The Age Melbourne Magazine as one of Melbourne’s Top 100 provocative, passionate and powerful people of 2012. She was appointed to the board of The Institute for Creative Health in 2013 and was awarded her PhD degree at The University of Melbourne in 2014, having written about the effect of guided song-writing on cancer patients’ quality of life, mood states, distress levels and satisfaction with hospital stay.
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OGG PRESIDENT The Old Geelong Grammarians’ Association was formed 117 years ago in 1900. Frederick Pincott, one of 14 boys at GGS on opening day in 1855, was the first OGG President. The objectives of the Association have held true since that era; namely to promote the welfare of the School and to unite its alumni community, which now includes past students of Glamorgan, Clyde School and The Hermitage. In 1909, a new constitution for GGS meant that the new School Council was led for the first time by OGGs, especially William Manifold, Donald Mackinnon, Edward Austin, Herbert Austin and John Turnbull, who all served as councillors for many years. The enormous contribution by OGGs to the administration and development of GGS has always reflected their passion for the welfare of the School. This strong tradition of service to the School has created a heritage worth preserving and building on for future generations of students. What is heritage? It is the full range of our inherited traditions, monuments, objects, values and culture. It is the range of contemporary activities, meanings and behaviours that we draw from them. Heritage is not static, it continues to grow and develop when communities embrace innovation and pursue new ideas. History has shown that good communication is vital in maintaining the OGG Association’s unity, identity and connection with the School, which in turn benefits the School. In the early years, OGGs were contacted by mail, by word of mouth or by the Bush Telegraph, with school news delivered via the GGS Quarterly and later The Corian. It was a big step forward when the first telephone line was rented by the OGG Secretary in 1934. In 1983, longserving OGG committee member and past president, Garth Manton (P’48), suggested a newsletter “as a vehicle to publicise OGG events”. The first two OGG newsletters, published in May and September 1984, were such a success that then Headmaster, John Lewis, proposed combining OGG news and events with information from the Headmaster, Foundation, HOGA and COGA. In November 1984, the first issue of The Geelong Grammarian was published for distribution to parents as well as past students. Thirty issues later, in August 1992, The Geelong Grammarian was relaunched as Light Blue. We are now enjoying the 100th issue of this excellent magazine, thanks to editor Brendan McAloon and the Community Relations Office.
The OGG Business Lunch was held on Wednesday 29 March, featuring guest speaker Mark Sheppard, General Manager and Chief Commercial Officer for the Asia Pacific Region of GE Digital. Mark drives the strategy and vision for how technology supports the growth of GE’s energy, oil and gas, aviation, financial services and healthcare businesses in the region. Prior to joining GE, Mark lectured in Computer Science in the UK, having completed his PhD studies in Artificial Intelligence, specialising in the use of neural networks in analysis of big industrial data and computational linguistics. Ushered into the upstairs dining room at Grossi Florentino’s, 80 OGGs wined and dined amid the elegant vintage panelling, chandeliers, tableaus and decorative ceilings as Mark described a different world of new-age technologies and sensor-optimised machinery. Mark explained that GE Digital connects streams of machine data to powerful analytics and people by leveraging Predix, an industrial cloud platform purpose-built for the security and safety needs of industrials. Mark’s advice about strategy was that a successful business must remain true to core company values, while being able to adapt and react to change. It is important not to stray too far from the pillars that are at the heart and foundation of your company. Flexibility is also vital – staying true to a strategy, taking time to see it through, yet not being rigid in a changing world. Sound advice for any organisation, whatever its purpose. Thank you to OGG committee member Nina Anderson (Thomas, Cl’93) who organised yet another fantastic business lunch, ably assisted by Alumni Relations Manager Katie Rafferty (Spry, Ga’84) and Kat Barnett in the Community Relations Office. Margie Gillett (Cordner, Cl’71) OGG President ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The history notes were gleaned from Jim Darby’s Light Blue Generations – A History of The Old Geelong Grammarians (2014) and from Michael Collins-Persse’s chronology of the history of Geelong Grammar School on the GGS website. Thank you to Michael, Jim and to all history buffs, authors and archivists who have helped to compile the story of GGS and the OGGs so far. We are primed for the next chapter.
By keeping pace with innovations in the communications industry, the OGG Association can now communicate with members via email, the internet and social media, with the help of a comprehensive database maintained by Dougal Morrison and IT specialists at GGS. The OGG committee is developing a social media strategy which is helping to build the OGG community online, enhancing global interaction and opportunities for business, social and mentoring relationships, as well as fostering a connection with the School. OGGs can benefit in turn from learning about the educational initiatives being implemented at GGS, like Positive Education and creativity.
Pictured: Margie Gillett (Cordner, Cl’71) and Bronwyn Friday (Je’88)
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Clockwise from top right: Edward Buckingham (P’86), Bronwyn Friday (Je’88), Margie Gillett (Cordner, Cl’71), Richard Davies (FB’65) and Katie Rafferty (Spry, Ga’84); (above) Rob Backwell (M’81) and Edward Arundell (P’16); (below) George Reed (Fr’13), Mark Haines (Fr’13), Jono Nevile (M’90), Max Roux (Cu’15) and John Roberts (Cu’15); (left) Organiser and OGG Committee member Nina Anderson (Thomas, Cl’93); (middle) Amy Carter (Lawrance, Cl’91) talking to Aaron Shirley (P’96); (top left): Guest Speaker Mark Sheppard
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The đ??•luthan and Coo-ee One purpose of alumni associations is to unite their communities of past students. As this is the 100th issue of Light Blue, it is timely to reflect on the role of the COGA and HOGA newsletters in connecting past students of The Hermitage and Clyde schools. Founded in 1910, Clyde School published the inaugural issue of its school magazine, The Cluthan, in May 1914. A preliminary meeting of Clyde Old Girls was held in March 1911 and the first Old Girls’ Day was held at Woodend in April 1919. After the closure of Clyde School in 1975, The Cluthan was published sporadically as the Old Girls’ newsletter and has been an annual publication since 1993.
Founded in 1906, The Hermitage published the inaugural issue of its school magazine, Coo-ee, in July 1909. The Hermitage Old Girls’ Association was established in March 1909 and funded and published the inaugural issue of Coo-ee, of which about one third was Old Girls’ news. When the School moved to Highton in 1973, a separate, standalone HOGA publication, The Hermitage Newsletter, was compiled for HOGA members and has been distributed annually ever since. More recently, the Community Relations and Alumni Office at Geelong Grammar School have assisted COGA and HOGA with aspects, including design, printing and distribution of The Cluthan and The Hermitage Newsletter.
Database manager, Dougal Morrison, has also assisted with the maintenance of the COGA and HOGA databases for mailing. Light Blue magazine has incorporated news from COGA and HOGA since 1992, helping to foster a sense of unity and belonging within the wider GGS community. If you have reunion news, photos or articles for The Cluthan 2017, please forward them to the editor, Julia Ponder (Cl’69), via email: coganews@gmail.com by 31 May. If you have photos or Coo-eegrams for The Hermitage Newsletter, please forward them to newsletter co-ordinator, Ann Tyers (Fairley, He’68), via email: hermitagegirls@gmail.com by 31 December.
HOGA NEWS Christmas Luncheon and Music On a very warm Monday in December 2016 we had our annual Christmas luncheon in the All Saints Hall, Newtown. It was so wonderful to see such a turnout of Old Girls, and a number had travelled from Melbourne to be with us. The Bostock Choir and strings, under the wonderful guidance of Lisa Peters-Roose, gave us a lovely little concert with carols and some musical items. The children perform with such enthusiasm and smiling faces and it is obvious they enjoy performing for us each year. Deidre Griffiths (He’68) once again presented a cheque from HOGA which goes towards new instruments for Bostock’s Music programme. This was followed with a delicious luncheon, glass of wine, tea and coffee, endless chatter and a chance to catch up.
At the 2016 Christmas Lunch were (top) Bev Kroger (McCracken, He’46) and Tamara Hall (Cassidy, He’75); (middle right) Bronwen Jacobs (Stanway, He’66) and Diane Challis (Woodfall, He’63); (bottom right) Valerie McDowell (Bendle, He’44) and Judy Polwarth (Noble, He’66); (above) Heather Cassidy (Harrison, He’51) and Irma Macauley (Skelton, He’46)
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COGA Jumble Sale The annual Clyde Jumble Sale will be held at the Toorak Uniting Church Hall, 603 Toorak Road, on Thursday 22 June. The jumble sale has been a COGA tradition since the 1940s, raising funds for the Isabel Henderson Kindergarten in North Fitzroy. Isabel Henderson (1862-1940) was a prominent educationist and founder of Clyde School (1910-1975). She was a key member of influential educational bodies, including the Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria, which strove to ensure pre-school education was available to all children regardless of their circumstances. If you are clearing out cupboards or clutter, donations of good quality household goods and bric-a-brac are always appreciated for the jumble sale. For further information, contact Jane Loughnan (Weatherly, Cl’70) on ejloughnan@gmail.com or 0417 535 862. 1966 Reunion The Clyde leavers of ’66 gathered at the Flying Duck Hotel in Prahran for a fun, noisy, reunion lunch on 30 November 2016. Tessa Clowney (Morris, Cl’66) came all the way from Edinburgh, Scotland, while Marion McPherson (Cl’66) walked over from her house. Five Tasmanians came over, some just for lunch – a wonderful effort! We can thank Wizz McCulloch (Bayne, Cl’66) for the reminder that 50 years had passed since we all departed Clyde and it was time to gather the troops. Marita McIntosh (Laycock, Cl’66) suggested another 50 years might be a bit long to wait for the next reunion, so she very sensibly recommended we gather again in five years.
Pictured (top) Tessa Morris (Clowney) and Jenny Bond (Makepeace); (middle left) Anne Hood, Belinda Winter-Irving and Marnie Craig (Bishop); (above) Suz Grimwade (Cloke) and Margaret Fogarty (Wood); (bottom left) Alison Mahar (Marshall ), Mary Burwood (Morralee) and Wiz Bayne (Mc Culloch); (bottom right) Caroline Burston (Consett) and Angie MacKinnon (St Hill)
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COGA NEWS
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OGG SPORT Old Geelong Cricket Club
OGG v OGC Golf Day
The Old Geelong Cricket Club has finished its most successful cricket season to date with both the 1st and 2nd XI playing in the Grand Final.
In another fully booked event, 72 OGGs played against an equal number of Old Geelong Collegians in the annual golf event at Barwon Heads on Friday 10 March and succeeded in retaining the trophy for another year. After the tournament, players enjoyed a drink in the club room followed by lunch where presentations were made. Sam Bingley (M’94) and Sam Cole (OGC) did an exceptional job organising the event and thanks go to them both.
The 2nd XI featured four Old Geelong Grammarians: Vice Captain, Darren Edmunds (Fr’86), Trevor Maggs (P’95), Julian Landy (Cu’95) and Captain, Roly Imhoff (Cu’95). Playing against Old Trinity, Old Geelong won the toss and batted first, making 144, which unfortunately wasn’t enough; Old Trinity chased down the runs in the 34th over. Despite this the 2nd XI has continued to improve its position on the ladder every season so should be well placed next season to again challenge for a premiership. The Old Geelong 1st XI took on Old Scotch on the Scotch College Main Oval. The team featured nine Old Geelong Collegians and three Old Geelong Grammarians: Tim Bayles (FB’99), Rob Hunter (M’03) and Joel Blain (A’16). Scotch won the toss and sent the OGs in to bat. Angus Boyd top-scored with a brilliant 93 and was well supported by Tim Bayles (23) and Will Langley (24). With a score of 188 on the board the OGs set about defending the total but, at 2 for 97, Old Scotch appeared to be well on their way with their two gun bats in, until Joel Blain removed them both in an inspired spell of bowling, which started a collapse and saw Old Scotch bowled out for 143 delivering the 1st XI their second flag.
The results were as follows: Winning School: GGS -3.59 Runner Up School: GC -3.73 GGS INDIVIDUAL
GC INDIVIDUAL
Winner: Trevor King (Cu’60) +6 Winner: George Leishman +5 Runner Up: Ed Plowman Runner Up: Nick Jarman +4 (Cu’94) +5 GC PAIRS
GGS PAIRS
Winner: George Leishman and Winner: Ed Plowman (Cu’94) Mark McConachy +11 and Ben Apted (A’94) +10 Runner Up: Ben Collins and (Countback) Sol Collins +10 Runner Up: Jake Ward (M’05) and James Richardson (M’73) +10
Old Geelong Women’s Football The Old Geelong Sporting Club is entering an exciting new era with the introduction of a women’s football team. The introduction of women’s football adds to the growth of the Old Geelong Sporting Club which already includes netball, tennis and cricket teams, as well as our very successful men’s football teams. With over 40 women training regularly with the men’s sides, the team is looking to follow in the footsteps of their male counterparts, who took out the premiership in Division 1 of the VAFA this year. They were certainly off to a good start winning all three matches and then the grand final game in the opening season round robin.
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OGG Annual General Meeting Tuesday 2 May 2017 OGG WA Branch Cocktail Party, Perth Thursday 11 May 2017 OGG UK Branch Dinner, Australia House, London Wednesday 28 June 2017 College Grammar Reunion, Albert, France Friday 7 July 2017 OGG Tasmanian Branch Cocktail Party, Cressy Friday 8 September 2017 1977 40 Year Timbertop Reunion, Timbertop Saturday 23 September 2017 2007 10 Year Reunion Saturday 7 October 2017 COGA Fun Cup Golf, Barwon Heads Friday 13 October 2017 1987 30 Year Reunion, Melbourne Saturday 14 October 2017 1967 The Hermitage 50 Year Reunion Sunday 22 October 2017 Tower Luncheon Saturday 4 November 2017 OGG Motoring Event Saturday 4 November 2017 OGG Golf Day, Barwon Heads Friday 10 November 2017 1977 40 Year Reunion Saturday 11 November 2017
Top (left to right): The Old Geelong 1st XI; Charles Baulch (OGC) and Stuart Whitehead (Cu’94); Duncan Scudamore (P’84) and John Weste (FB’75); Chrissy Skinner (Condon, Je’77), Georgina Moore (Li’74), Katryna Economou (Je’76) and Jo Wormald (Raggatt, Cl’78) represented GGS in the Women’s Interschool Golf tournament at Kew; OGC with Joe Crosbie (FB’61) and David Duff (Ge’61) LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
For enquiries about any of the above events please contact Katie Rafferty, Alumni Manager on tel: 03 5273 9338 or email: oggs@ggs.vic.edu.au
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ROWING — ON Every morning, Fleur Spriggs (Ga’87) walks down to the river’s edge in the milky morning light to escape the world. She pushes off the bank and strokes out onto the murky depths of the Yarra, delighting in that familiar feeling of the boat gliding through the water; a feeling she first discovered 34 years ago in the Lagoon at Corio Bay. “I just really love the feeling of the boat, the champagne bubbles when the boat runs well, and I like the early mornings,” Fleur explained. “It is time that you don’t need to be anywhere for anybody else, so it is a really precious time. It is my time. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. I don’t have to share it. Of course you’re there with your crew, but they’ve all got the same motivation. The women I row with all have children and jobs and partners. We’re all very, very busy, but that time in the morning is our time and it can be very quiet and peaceful.”
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Left: Sculling for Melbourne University Boat Club Right: 1986 1st IV Kim McKewan, Cathy Holmes a Court, Fleur Spriggs, Carolyn Cornwall and Sarah Hollingworth (front) won Head of River
Rowing has not always been a quiet and peaceful pursuit for Fleur. A member of the Girls’ 1st IV that won the 1986 Head of the River, she was recruited by the Australian Institute of Sport in 1987 and was a member of the first female Australian crew to win a medal (bronze) at the World Junior Rowing Championships (in Milan, Italy, in 1988). Fleur won a remarkable 21 Australian titles between 1988 and 2003. She was a member of the Senior Australian Rowing Team from 1990-95, competing at three World Rowing Championships but missing selection for the Olympic team in 1992 (Barcelona) and 1996 (Atlanta). She has described it as “like falling into a black hole”. “I was in the team in all the interim years, but I just missed out on the Olympic years. I’m not sure why. Maybe I was too intense and wanted it too much. Lots of people do all of the work and spend years trying to get to the Olympics only to miss out. It is tough and, to be honest, I’m still dealing with it. But the fact that I didn’t get to the Olympics doesn’t have to define me. My way of dealing with it has been to keep rowing and I think I’m really lucky that I can just enjoy rowing and remember all of those reasons why I started rowing.” Fleur started rowing in the Lagoon in Second Form (Year 8). “It was always a bit wild and woolly, but it was just beautiful. There was a freedom of being on the Lagoon. If you didn’t go in a straight line or if you fell in, it didn’t really matter. There weren’t really any traffic rules. It was just like playing. It was awesome. It was a really great place to learn and learning is all about experimentation, getting things wrong and having a go. It’s much harder to do that on the river. It was also a real escape from boarding school itself, to get out on the water.” Fleur had joined Geelong Grammar School the year before from Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. “My parents were keen for me to go to school in Australia, so I sat the scholarship exam up there and got an academic scholarship, which was a fabulous opportunity.” Her older brother, Simon (FB’86), was a year ahead of her at GGS, but Fleur admits that she sometimes found boarding school life “pretty tough”. “It was like having a big family around you, but sometimes that tended towards Lord of the Flies. I think the School has changed a lot since the early 80s.” Rowing became Fleur’s passion. “I couldn’t wait to get back from Timbertop so I could get on the water again.” Girls began competing at the Head of the River in 1981, with coxed fours racing over 800 metres. After finishing runner-up in 1981 and 1983, GGS won its first Girls’ Head of the River title in 1985. The next year, the 1986 crew went through the season undefeated and entered the regatta as red-hot favourites. “I was
LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
very nervous. I felt like there was a weight of expectation. We were undefeated all season, but all of our races had been over 1,500 metres. The Wesley crew were very quick starters but we’d normally row through them with about 800 metres to go, so we didn’t know if we would be able to get ahead of them over the shorter distance.” They did. Just. Winning by half a length. “There was a lot of relief when we won. It was a special thing to win that race. I’ve rowed all over the world and the crowd at the Head of the River was the biggest and most excitable crowd that I’ve rowed in front of. It was huge. Because the Head of the River was on the Barwon back then, it was always exciting if the School had the hill, the corner. The whole school would come down and chant and cheer for you. It was huge.” Fleur left for the Australian Institute of Sport the day after her final Physics exam and spent the next eight years in Canberra, initially studying an Arts degree at the Australian National University (ANU) before switching to Accounting. She started her career as an auditor with the National Audit Office. She went on to work as a Senior Researcher for the Victorian Parliament, Victorian Auditor General’s Office and Productivity Commission, before being appointed Assistant Director of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 2012. She was awarded an Australia Day achievement medallion in 2014 for her work on finance statistics (which included collaborating with the IMF in Washington) and has spent the past few years as a consultant for the Productivity Commission, contributing to reports on government services and overcoming Indigenous disadvantage. “The roles I’ve had looking at the performance of governments have been really interesting because as an auditor you’re compiling a whole lot of data about the efficiency, effectiveness and equity of government services and you get to look at everything from aged care through to environmental issues.” The one constant has been rowing. “I never really stopped. I think that after you’ve done it for as long as I have, it becomes part of your life. I need it.” Fleur continued to compete at the elite level until 2015, when she won a bronze medal in the Open Women’s Coxed VIII at the Australian Rowing Championships and a silver medal in the Queen’s Cup Interstate Regatta. She was 45 years old. Fleur now competes in Masters events, winning 16 gold medals at the Australian Masters Rowing Championships between 2013 and 2016. But the medals mean nothing in that milky morning light on the banks of the Yarra River. “I started winning medals because I rowed and loved it,” Fleur explained. “I didn’t start rowing to win medals.”
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1995
David Hooper (FB’95), who died on 9 September 2016, joined Geelong Grammar School in kindergarten at Glamorgan in 1981. He was a talented runner, dominating athletics events at Glamorgan, and was later a member of the Athletics and Cross Country teams in Senior School, ending the 1995 APS Cross Country season with a top 10 finish in the final round of races at Corio. He developed a love of working with glass at GGS and would later become an expert, acquiring a kiln and exploring techniques and processes that pushed the boundaries of glass work, leading to the development of unique glass tiles. David was recognised as one of Melbourne’s leading glass craftsmen and his bespoke tiles were used to great effect in the Limestone Café and Bar in Canberra Airport. David was also a member of the Old Geelong Cricket Club. He was a great club man and someone who enjoyed playing cricket hard but in good spirit. He became an irreplaceable member of the 2nd XI, playing his last game in the 2015/16 semi-final against Old Trinity. Both teams now play an annual game in his honour, the first of which was played on Chapel Oval on February 19 and ended in a draw. His friends and family will remember David was a kind, quiet and gentle person who never sought to be the centre of attention.
2013
Jock Landale (M’13) enjoyed a breakout thirdseason with Saint Mary’s College in California, which ended in the second round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament (known as March Madness or the Big Dance). Despite leading at half-time, Saint Mary’s Gaels lost 69-60 to one of the tournament favourites, the Arizona Wildcats. Jock started the game like a man possessed; stuffing the stat sheet with 10 points, five rebounds, one assist, one block and one steal in the first eight minutes as Saint Mary’s jumped out to an early lead. Jock finished the first half with 12 points and seven rebounds before Arizona made the move for Lauri Markaanen – their star player and a likely top-10 NBA draft pick this year – to guard Jock in the second half. Jock finished the game with 19 points, 11 rebounds and four assists to go with the 18 points and 13 rebounds he collected in Saint Mary’s first-round win over VCU. Arizona assistant coach Emanuel Richardson was effusive in his praise of Jock post-game. “He (played like) one of the best players in the country in the first half,” Richardson said. “I think we wore him down (in the second half), because he looked like an NBA lottery pick early on—I think he is an NBA player.”
2010
Henry Meek (A’10) rowed stroke for the Cambridge University Boat Club in the annual Boat Race against Oxford University, held on the River Thames on Sunday 2 April. The 163rd Boat Race got off to a scintillating start and there was almost a clash of oars as the two boats fought for the more favourable water channels on the river, before Oxford surged ahead coming to the Hammersmith Bridge section. Cambridge dug deep to stay as close as they could, even momentarily closing the gap, but Oxford found clear water at the end of the race to win by a length and a half and reclaim the title. Henry became the first Old Geelong Grammarian since Patrick Moore (M’62) in 1965 to compete in the men’s Boat Race. Henry spent four years at the University of Washington in the USA completing a Political Economy degree, before moving to Cambridge to read History. During his time at UW, Henry was a part of four IRA National Championship-winning crews with the Huskies: three at Varsity level and one in the Freshman VIII.
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Jock finished the season averaging 16.9 points and 9.5 rebounds and had 17 double-doubles (double-figure points/ rebound tallies in the same game) for the season. Jock’s incredible season led him to being shortlisted for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, given to the best center in college basketball in any given year. Jock was chosen as an Honorable Mention on the 2017 Associated Press All-America Team and was named in the All-WCC First Team; effectively recognising him as the best player in his position in the West Coast Conference.
2015
Tayla Honey (Ga’15) was promoted to the Melbourne Vixens 10-player squad as the temporary replacement player for the injured Khao Watts after Round 2 of the Super Netball season. Tayla joined the Vixens as a Training Partner in 2017 following some standout performances in the Australian Netball League (ANL) and Victorian Netball League (VNL) in 2016, including playing midcourt in the Victorian Fury’s 2016 ANL premiership winning team. A first-year law student at Monash University, the 19-year-old has been a state under-age representative from under-15 level upwards and is the daughter of the School’s 1st Netball coach, Di Honey.
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Nawwar née Hassan and Matthew Bryant (P’04), a daughter, Zara Alisya, on 16 November 2014, and on 6 October 2016 a son, Zachary Arif, who died on 21 January 2017 in the Bourke Street massacre Joanne Scanlan-Chatfield née Scanlan (Cl’03) and Joey Chatfield, a son, Harry Ryder, on 23 August 2011 and a daughter, Frankie Maya, on 26 August 2015 Catherine née Robertson (Cl’06) and Ashley Cohen, a daughter, Grace Violet, on 23 February 2017 Rachael and Edward Crossley (Cu’01), a daughter, Scarlett Mae, on 8 March 2016 Fiona née Thomson (Cl’99) and Sebastian Crowther, a daughter, Charlotte Ann Catherine, on 12 February 2017 Tanya née Laycock (Cl’93) and John Galwey, a son, Christopher Andrew, on 29 April 2016 Zarith Sofia and Ben Ibrahim (FB’96), a son, Kyle Iskandar, on 27th December 2016 Abby née Wall (Fr’00) and James Irwin (P’96), a daughter, Nina Patricia Montague, on 29 July 2015 Catherine Martin (Ga’99) and Marissa Egan, a daughter, Evie Joy (Martin-Egan), on 23 May 2016 Koo née McDonald (Cl’98) and Anthony Nicholson (M’95), a son, Archie William McDonald, on 30 August 2016 Skylah Sutherland (A’01) and Rowan Philip, a son, Leo James, on 10 March 2017 Alexandra Stafford and James Richardson (M’00), a son, James Nicholson Peter, on 9 November 2016 Marina Cornish and William Richardson (M’02), a son, Jack Edward Philip, on 27 May 2015, and a daughter, Phoebe Isabel Cornish, on 26 October 2016 Lisa and Hugh Robertson (FB’04), a son, Charles Ian Patrick, on 22 January 2017 Skye Landy (Cl’94) and Andrew Robinson (Cu’84), two sons, Otto Landy Macartney Syme on 2 May 2012 and Felix Landy Macdonald Snape on 12 July 2014, and a daughter, Willa Anouk Landy MacAdie, on 24 October 2016 Georgina and David Sacks (FB’92), two sons, Harry Ralph Griffith on 18 May 2012 and Louis Philip William on 16 June 2016 Anna and Dougal Speirs (Cu’99), two daughters, Heidi Kristina on 17 November 2014 and Zoe Victoria on 23 August 2016 Kate and Alexander Stewart (M’94), two daughters, Olivia Sally on 11 March 2008 and Chloe Eloise on 4 June 2009 LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
Amelia neé Tyers (He’02) and Charles Taylor, a son, Albert Kenneth on 6 November 2016 Claire née Bingley (He’01) and Stuart Timms (A’01), a daughter, Maisie Josephine, on 1 January 2017 Stephanie Barlow and Lawrence Simpson (M’08), a son, Harrison Lawrence, on 23 February 2017 Hyacinth (Hya) née O’Sullivan (Ga’96) and Sebastien Rebaud, a daughter, Marceline, on 14 August 2016 Pirata Yuttiyong and Mark Wylie (FB’99), a son, Siwagorn Joshua, on 16 Feb 2017
MARRIAGES Edwina Affleck (Cl’98) married Timothy Clatworthy on 13 April 2017 Elizabeth Alder (Cl’03) married Charles Sullivan on 11 June 2016 Matthew Bryant (P’04) married Nawwar Hassan on 20 June 2012 Lucinda Kimpton (Cl’98) married Paul Andrews on 11 March 2017 Hamish Macdonald (M’94) married Kate Stary on 10 February 2017 Joanne Hamlyn Payne (He’62) married Jack Noble on 14 January 2017 James Richardson (M’00) married Alexandra Stafford on 4 September 2015 William Richardson (M’02) married Marina Cornish on 31 May 2014 Lucy Speirs (He’03) married Patrick Cowper on 25 June 2016 Clair Elizabeth Szabo (Hi’97) married Dr Jack Griffin on 10 December 2016 Zoe Trethewie (Cl’05) married Thomas Richardson (M’05) on 28 January 2017 Andrew Treweeke (P’02) married Cassandra Paull on 12 December 2015 Alexander Watkins (FB’01) married Cynthia Sear on 11 March 2017
DEATHS Ann Selwyn Annand née Moran (Clyde 1937-42) on 5 February 2017 Geoffrey Alistair Baulch (1941-52) on 19 March 2017 William Philip (Bill) Béchervaise (1958-65) on 21 March 2017 Marjorie Alma Dunbar Cliff née Coutts (Hermitage 1936-38) on 15 November 2016 Peter Henry Connor (1965-67) on 10 August 2013
James Oswald Fairfax AC (1946-50) on 11 January 2017 David Tat Ming Fung (2008-16) on 15 March 2017 Frederick William (Bill) Gurr (1946-50) on 21 December 2016 Marilyn Constance Hage née Tully (Hermitage 1950-57) on 28 May 2016 Judith Harris née Cook (Clyde 1950-51) on 13 April 2016 Derek Garside Harrison (1941-48) on 3 February 2017 Anthony Hugh Hollick (1958-59) on 29 October 2016 Mary Jaques née Graham (Hermitage 1941) on 28 January 2017 Michael Hugh Kellaway (1935-44) on 31 July 2016 Margaret June Langford née Meldrum (Clyde 1943-45) on 25 September 2015 Geoffrey Norman Larmour (1967-74) on 29 October 2015 Jennifer Lee Lewes (Hermitage 1967-68) on 24 March 2016 Donald Angus McDonald (1946-50) on 26 February 2017 Donald McLeod Marles (Staff 1955-78) on 9 April 2017 Harriet Janet Elizabeth Nixon (2010, 2012--13) on 29 December 2016 John Stanley Ogden (1932-35) on 4 February 2017 Janis Margaret Purcell (Staff, Timbertop, 1984-2017) on 17 January 2017 Pamela Joyce Quickmire (Hermitage Staff 1964-75) on 31 January 2017 Clifford Robert Reeves (1944-48) on 21 October 2011 Graeme Ralph Reichman (1968) on 11 November 2001 Daryl Sleeman (1937-39; GGS Tennis Coach 1953-92) on 26 December 2016 Peter Roderick Leslie Smith (1952-55) on 15 February 2017 Arthur Davis Jellicoe Starling (1936-37) on 23 July 2016 Dr George Michael Tallis (1943-49) on 21 February 2017 Robert Franklin (Bob) Tate (1942-49) on 21 March 2017 Roberta Taylor née Cain (Clyde 1936-41) on 11 December 2016 Terence Rhys Tolhurst (1944-45) on 8 December 2016
Nigel James Dawkins (1980-81) on 1 December 2016
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BIRTHS
www.ggs.vic.edu.au