ISSUE 110 SEMESTER 1, 2022
Photographers: Stefani Driscoll Nick KatieMikeAntoniaFletcherHempelHowellRafferty(Spry, Ga’84) Josh Robenstone (Timbertop ‘95) Drew Ryan
Survivor Liaison Coordinator Renee Handsaker provides outreach and support for survivors of child sexual abuse at the School. Renee can be contacted by phone on 0432 707 355 or by renee@sustainingconversations.comemail: Independent Counsellor The School continues to provide the services of an independent counsellor, Pauline Ryan. This service is available to those in our community wishing to access counselling or support regarding abuse. Pauline can be contacted directly during business hours by calling 1800 799 139. For further updates and links to services please visit the Healing and Hope webpage by searching Healing and Hope Geelong Grammar School, or by visiting explore/healing-hopewww.ggs.vic.edu.au/ +Hope
Editor: Brendan McAloon Design: Chloe Flemming Kate Noseda
Contributors: Sophie Church Margie Gillett (Cordner, Clyde ’71) Jennifer Hanson-Peterson Andrew Lemon AM (FB’67) Jacqui Moses Jill Nicholls (Holmes, The Hermitage ’68) Katie Rafferty (Spry, Ga’84) Nick Sculley Tony Walker AM (FB’64) Website: www.ggs.vic.edu.au Email: lightblue@ggs.vic.edu.au
Apology: unfortunately, this issue of Light Blue has been adversely impacted by illness and absence during production.
Healing
Members of the Geelong Grammar School community have faced significant challenges from the hurt of the past. In recent years, the School has been working to provide an authentic response to survivors of sexual Principal,abuse.Rebecca Cody, has observed: “I have met with survivors and I am deeply sorry for their pain and suffering: to be sorry though, is not enough; complying with new legislation is not enough – we need to set an example and lead. We need to move forward by recognising the devastating impacts and effects of childhood sexual abuse and by never losing sight of the learnings from them”. In 2019, Ms Cody said: “Whilst we cannot undo the failures of the past, together we can acknowledge the harm, recognise the pain caused and together, we can support and enable a culture which fortifies against such devastating harms and places child safety at its core. Together, we can make a positive difference towards shaping a better world”. For survivors, for victims of trauma, for those struggling in challenging times –there are options for reaching out and finding support. You are not alone – you are a valued member of the Geelong Grammar School community – we are thinking of you, and we care.
Contents 4 CHAIR OF COUNCIL 6 PRINCIPAL’S PERSPECTIVE 8 BOSTOCK HOUSE 10 BOB BARTON 12 TIMBERTOP 14 J OHN LANDY 16 H EAD OF ADVENTURE EDUCATION 18 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 20 TOORAK CAMPUS 22 PO SITIVE EDUCATION 24 MU SIC 26 M IDDLE SCHOOL 28 S PORT 30 ACADEMIC RESULTS 31 CAREERS DAY 32 FOUNDATION CHAIR 33 ANNUAL GIVING 34 B ILL MACKIE (P’39) 35 B IDDLECOMBE SOCIETY 36 MAILROOM
01SECTION — INTRODUCTION LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL ↓
As adults, our memories of primary school fade fast. But cast forward. Imagine today’s students heading to school full of eager anticipation of what adventures they might face: finding an insect in the vegie garden; seeing water flow through an ephemeral lake system; discovering that if they put the rainwater from the roof into a tank this will help with the world’s sustainability; or finding out that their breakfast porridge actually comes from the crop being grown outside their classroom; or that they can actually climb that seemingly towering rock wall!
Adventure in
Adventure Education, one of GGS’s strategic pillars, plays such a vital part in any young person’s development, and the fascination of ‘what lies around the corner’ is such an empowering thing. As young and older humans, we thrive on the anticipation of the adventures to come. What an exciting time lies ahead for GGS as it expands on and entrenches Adventure Education throughout the School. We already have Timbertop – the creative foresight of those who’ve come before – and we continue to see the effects that that this one year can have on our students.
Ourstudents.newPrimary School will realise the School’s vision of a learning experience that embodies the strategic pillars of Adventure Education, Positive Education and Creative Education, with a particular emphasis on nature and inquiry-based learning that leverages our Timbertop experience and enlivens Adventure Education for all students at Corio. Located on the northern aspect of our 230-hectare campus, this will be an unparalleled and innovative project that connects to the natural ecosystem of paddocks, ponds, native grasslands, creek, coastal ridge and lagoon, as well as the exceptional playing fields and facilities that Corio offers – the Handbury Centre for Wellbeing, the Music School, the Chapel of All Saints and the School of Performing Arts and Creative Education (the SPACE).
We now have the vision to build on what our forebears set in place with our new Primary School at Corio. This is a significant, strategic project for the School – a transformational ‘Timbertop moment’ – and an exciting new chapter for our Bostock House
the making
CHAIR OF COUNCIL
2 to share key findings and to test preliminary concepts and ideas with staff and students. They then held a Sense-making Workshop with the School’s Executive and Leadership Team to review feedback from these workshops and, importantly, to guide the next stage of the Masterplan’s development.
This all led to a presentation to the School Council’s Assets Committee in June, where I was able to grasp just how motivating all of this activity is, and will be, for the School. There will be a forthcoming presentation to the School Council’s August meeting. While it won’t be possible for all planned projects to be completed immediately, the Corio Campus Masterplan will provide the School with a clear and holistic path for integrated development of the Corio Campus. Casting far forward, it will be a valuable blueprint for the next 167 years of the School’s existence.
Adventure awaits GGS.
Paddy Handbury (M’72) Chair of Council
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The new Primary School feeds into the development of the entire Corio Campus Masterplan which, in itself, is most energising for the School. The development of the Masterplan is very much based on the strategic pillars and the imperatives that support them. Extensive stakeholder engagement has been completed across our School community to develop a shared vision for the Masterplan. The input from our community has been wonderfully pleasing to witness and has created a challenging sense of adventure for our project team of architects, landscape architects, engineers and specialist consultants. Our visual map-based CrowdSpot survey had 2,977 visits from 1,265 unique visitors, who added 256 spots and made 309 comments; adding to the enabling)(basedthemedTheWorkshopsquestionnairesinterviews,andVisioningcompletedin2021.projectteamundertookPresentationWorkshopsaroundliving,learningandatthebeginningofTerm
HorizonsAdventurousPRINCIPAL’SPERSPECTIVE
“Surely, of all the wonders of the world, the horizon is the greatest.”
– Dame Freya Stark, explorer In March, we joyously announced a new horizon for Geelong Grammar School (GGS). After almost three years of contemplation, scenario planning, market research and design iterations, we were excited to share how we are planning today for tomorrow’s adventures. Our vision is of a unique learning experience that embodies Geelong Grammar School’s Strategic Pillars of Adventure Education, Positive Education and Creative Education. We are inspired by others, both in Australia and around the world, yet our most significant inspiration is homegrown. Timbertop is not just a campus. It is a distinctive and innovative approach to learning and teaching that develops confidence and competence in practical ways, and prioritises growth and development in experiences beyond the classroom: “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hilary, Buildingmountaineeruponthelessons of our transformational Timbertop programme, our definition of Adventure Education is experiential learning with and through nature. The expansion of our Corio Campus with a new, purpose-built primary school utilising our natural environment – fields, native grasslands, forests, wetlands and coast – is a contemporary expression of Exceptional Education Our ambition is to create places for learning, teaching and being that provide our primary-aged students with flexible spaces to encourage inquiry, nurture curiosity and creativity, and engender a responsibility for supporting a sustainable environment. Enriching the inquiry-based curriculum of the Primary Years’ Programme of the International Baccalaureate, our design concept has three key elements: The Greenhouse – a flexible and communal campus hub; The Field Stations – modular spaces for exploration and discovery, each with unique identities informed by the natural environment; and The Spaces Between – integrated landscape experiences inviting our learners to engage with their environment and connect with each other.
The Greenhouse, Field Stations and Spaces Between represent a new home of learning for ELC to Year 6, whilst enlivening the environment and opportunities for our Middle and Senior School students.
– Sir James Darling (Headmaster 1930-61), Speech Day report, 1951
Rebecca Cody Principal
“The School should be, as we believe, an abiding influence in the life of Australia, but to be so it may have to change its form, while preserving its true spirit and tradition.”
‘Changing form’ through a relocation of Bostock House to Corio will see, for the first time in our School’s history, an ELC to Year 12 learning community sharing and connected to the same campus. This innovation leverages new environments as we ‘preserve our true spirit and tradition’. Part of our ‘spirit and tradition’ is understanding that effective learners require strong foundations in literacy and numeracy, yet within and of themselves this is not enough. It is what you do with your literacy and numeracy skills that will determine your effectiveness as a learner. These new environments at Corio Campus will encourage students to challenge themselves physically and socially, apply their thinking and problem solving with and through nature, and fortify their tolerance for responsible risk taking. Ultimately this supports their capacity to shed the fear of making mistakes in learning; an outcome that shapes more academically buoyant and resilient young people. In communicating this thinking and the design concepts with our 2022 School Prefects, I was humbled to witness their capacity to be energised by the possibilities ahead; equally, I was inspired by their genuine enthusiasm for the next generations of Corio learners. It was a mature mindset and generosity of spirit that enabled individuals to quickly acknowledge that their experiences (eight or more years ago) were not diminished by these changes, just different. Of course, there were questions and suggestions about how best to honour the history of Bostock House and a dawning that new legacies must also be born if we are to continue to earn our reputation of being a progressive school.
Similarly uplifting has been our current Bostock House students’ contribution to the planning. For example, our ELC students’ drawings (on the next page and below) highlight the advantages of open spaces. At the existing Noble Street location, we simply cannot create the ‘giant slides, sandpits, swings in trees and forests’ that our current ELC architects envisage. For those curious about Lizzie (featured in Zoe’s drawing below), she is a local lizard! As adults supporting and respecting young people, it is a privilege to learn together, and to engage student voice and choice with this significant strategic endeavour.
This Geelong Grammar School vision is a bold and timely re-imagining of Adventure Education. It grows our heritage, anchors our future sustainability, and expands and enriches our Corio community. Please help us plan today for tomorrow’s horizon… adventure awaits!
Initially, the ideas started small. “There was lots of blank space on the plans, so they really wanted to put things in, like toys and blocks. When we started to talk about how we could use the indoor and outdoor spaces, that’s when the ideas really started to flow. They were excited about what they could do and how they could create this amazing space with monkey bars, hammocks and big slides. Everything was big – a big campfire, a huge sandpit, a giant garden – everything was oversized.”
ideasAdventurous
They might be our youngest learners, but our Bostock House ELC students are having significant input into the design development of our new Primary School at Corio. Guided by the team at Andrew Burns Architecture, MALA Studio Landscape Architecture and our expert Bostock House teachers, the students have been imagining fresh ideas for the project team to consider, with a particular focus on outdoor play areas and engaging with nature. Having collaborated with our Early Learning and Primary level teachers across multiple workshops and focus groups, Principal Architect, Andrew Burns, said it was essential “to also understand from the students what is important to them”. “There is often the kernel of a brilliant idea that if explored can become a driving concept behind the project,” Andrew said.
BOSTOCK HOUSE
The project team has been both surprised and delighted by the student contributions. “Many of the students’ ideas are about being in the landscape, gathering outside, with spaces for making,” Andrew explained. “A theme that has recurred has been the idea of being elevated, to get to a higher vantage point where there is an outlook and a sense of adventure. We’ve interpreted this into the element of the ‘mountain’; an internal tiered landscape that contains booths for gathering and amphitheatre spaces, leading up to the library. Sometimes there is a process of translating an idea – for instance, Jack’s brilliant suggestion of creating ‘zones for displaying our ELC “I drew hammocks. I like swinging on them and I like sleeping on them. I drew a garden with pink flowers because that’s mycolour.”favourite–Lucy
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Director of Early Learning at Bostock House, Diana Hammond, said the students were eager to be involved and haven’t stopped talking about the project. “They were very proud to be considered the experts and they really owned that,” Diana said. “It was also a perfect link with the PYP (Primary Years Programme) Unit of Inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas and feelings. This was a wonderful provocation to explore feelings and identify emotions, and the way we communicate those ideas and feelings with others.”
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As fun, creative and imaginative as the students’ ideas are, Andrew said the project team took consultation and collaboration “very seriously”. “It enables buildings to become layered, which means they can function in multiple ways and serve many people,” he explained.
In addition to this design collaboration, there is close collaboration with GGS teaching, executive, health and administrative staff, as well as students. All these voices have a key role to play in the project and design can optimise the outcome for all.”
“I drew a waterslide because I want one at the new school. I went down the waterslide at Adventure Park and I liked it.” – Hannah
“I have cookies.”chocolatesoAndcouldsomeIthatthatbecausemonkeydrawnbarsIthoughtIwouldliketoplayon.wouldalsoliketreesyouclimbon.akitchentoo,youcouldmakechip–Jack
feelings on the wall’ can be translated into a concept of arranging spaces according to emotion, which is a potentially transformative idea about learning spaces.”
“The Primary School includes a central design collaboration between architecture and landscape architecture, which introduces a range of perspectives and will create something deeper than a solo design – it’s very much both/and thinking instead of either/or.
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Venn diagrams illustrate the relationships between different sets (such as concepts, functions, objects, elements, groups and/or environments), how they are similar or different, and where and how they overlap. The centre of the diagram (the intersection of two or more circles) represents the nexus or focal point, where the overlapping sets share commonalities. In so many ways, Bob has been the nexus between the project team (of architects, landscape architects, engineers and specialist consultants) and the School community for both the new Primary School and the Corio Campus Masterplan. He heads the team from MALA Studio Landscape Architecture and has the unique perspective of a past student whose family lived on campus at BobCorio.was 12 years old when his father, Bruce Barton (Staff 1993-97), was appointed Head of Manifold House and the family moved to live on Biddlecombe Avenue. Bob’s mother, Pam Barton (Staff 1993-2015), became a Year 5 teacher, later serving as Assistant Head of Barrabool and Garnett, and Resident Tutor in Connewarre and The Hermitage houses. Bob was a House Prefect in Francis Brown, Captain of Rugby, and received the Philip Russell Prize for Fine Art; he graduated from GGS in 1998 to study landscape architecture at RMIT. His recent re-engagement with the School began with a conversation about Creative Education (“not just a fancy of the arts”) with then Vice Principal, Charlie Scudamore (Staff 1990-2020), at Pam’s 70th birthday. This led to a cup of tea with the Principal, Rebecca Cody. Rebecca initially asked Bob to review the playground area at Bostock House. This soon became a masterplan for Bostock House, which evolved into the new Primary School at Corio, to be located adjacent to Cameron Close. “My earliest relationship with the site (for the new Primary School) is fruitlessly trying to catch yabbies there with my little brother when we were kids,” Bob recalled. “Jon Apted (Staff 1978-2011) started revegetating that area when he was Head of Senior School and it was always a fun place to play. We had the whole campus to ourselves during the school holidays. We’d ride our bikes around and would gravitate to the giant trees in Cameron Close and the dam.”
BOB BARTON
Bob Barton (FB’98) believes that there are few truly new ideas, simply new combinations of old ones. “To create something new you need to collide elements together and take the time to notice, and then harness, the reactions and the relationships,” Bob explained. As a landscape architect and creative director of MALA Studio Landscape Architecture, Bob has applied this process to designing masterplans, tourism projects, farms, schools, playgrounds, public parks, residential projects and waterways. “Our process is to combine everything that’s going on in a big Venn diagram – people, place and policies – and see how it all intersects and connects to identify the most powerful catalysts and most achievable goals.” Alongside brothers Barrie (FB’94) and Chris (M’01), he has applied the same process to pioneering urban placemaking and revitalisation projects, most notably Rooftop Cinema and the six-storey “vertical laneway” at Curtin House on Swanston Street in Melbourne, which led to Golden Age Cinema & Bar and the rejuvenation of the heritage-listed Paramount House, an iconic Art Deco building in Surry Hills, Sydney.
“To create something new you need to collide elements together and take the time to notice, and then harness, the reactions and the relationships.”
Theproblems.”stakeholder engagement for the Corio Campus Masterplan began with in-depth ‘wisdom holder’ interviews with long-serving staff (teaching and operational), current and past students, School Council (past and present), Foundation Board and traditional owners (Wadawurrung). Each interviewee was asked their vision for the campus in 50 years’ time. Bob considers the question, picturing his big Venn diagram of intersecting circles. “I would hope that in 50 years’ time this is a progressive and inclusive village as well as a place of learning,” Bob said. “I would hope that it is a centre of innovation in terms of learning and teaching, but also land management. I can envisage Limeburners’ Lagoon becoming a national park level environment. I can see the fields (at Corio) being a future farm and agricultural testing ground for the rest of the country. I can see students of all different capacities understanding where they might make the most impact, individually and together. I would hope that Geelong Grammar can harness its community to create something that is a legacy, for the environment and sustainability, and which influences the rest of Australia. A school like this can make a huge impact. I feel pretty lucky to come back after this amount of time with a different skillset and life experience, and to be able to bring those skills and experiences to try to set a course for the future. That’s something I’m very grateful for and have an energy to do.”
Bob CreativeBartondirector of MALA Studio Landscape Architecture
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The design of the new Primary School was developed in parallel with a new Corio Campus Masterplan. “We’ve got everything here (at Corio) for the new Primary School to be remarkable, but we wanted to ensure it was in the right location, so we started to explore the Masterplan at the same time,” Bob explained. “Corio is not just a school, it’s a village. We needed to think about how it functions for the future of education as well as how it functions for the people who live there; the students, the staff and their families. The collaboration with community is essential. It is the collective wisdom that will make the Masterplan functional so that it has longevity. We’re asking questions all the time. The ambition is for an authentic embodiment of the people and the place. We can only set the direction and energise people and give them a sense of agency to create and make it better.” In addition to the community collaboration for both the Primary School and Masterplan, Bob has reflected on his own personal experience and the shared educational philosophy of his parents. “I’ve talked to mum a lot about age-specific learning. She really liked teaching Year 5 because she felt that it was a beautiful time between being a child and becoming a teenager – it’s an age when kids are really curious and they get a buzz from learning through action. Dad was a geography teacher. He was always interested in the connection between people and planet, and understanding how societal shifts geographicalcreatechangeandviceversa.It’snotnatureandpeople.It’sallonesystem.”
The focus on nature, the surrounding environment and sustainability is of particular interest to Bob. “This place (Corio) is meaningful for a lot of people, so to engender that care for place, for nature and the environment, would be a fantastic outcome for the School and for society,” he said. “It is caring for country, caring for the planet, and caring for each other.” Bob is also excited by the potential of land management and sustainability to provide handson, real world learning experiences. “I’m hopeful the Masterplan provides opportunities for the curriculum and the campus to come together,” he said. “We have land (approximately 230 hectares) and how we use and activate that land is a huge part of the Masterplan, particularly for a school community that has a strong rural history. There is the potential for innovation in agriculture and agri-tech to be a focus, where subjects can come together, and where students can be creative and solve real world
The Outdoors Programme is fundamental to the philosophy that underpins the Timbertop experience, of presenting new challenges to our Year 9 students and helping them to discover their potential.
Student agency is empowering in the outdoors. As students become more experienced, they choose their own hike routes and how much they want to challenge themselves. “There were two girls who wanted to push themselves and we had some boys who wanted to do the hardest hike they could find,” Laura said. “They combined (as a hike group) and as individuals they had challenges – it was a really challenging hike – but they functioned really well as a group. The stereotype is that the boys tend to hike harder, and the girls are better in camp, but one of the girls set the pace and kept the group moving, whilst the boys were really supportive and kept the group together and motivated. It helps to break down some of those gender stereotypes. It doesn’t matter if your gender is male or female or where you sit on the spectrum, it’s about who you are when you show up hiking and if you are willing to challenge yourself, overcome discomfort and help other Co-edpeople.”hike groups are unlikely to be embraced by the majority of Timbertop students, but both Laura and Annabel think they are a positive addition to the Outdoors Programme. “It might only make a difference for a handful of students each year,” Annabel said. “But I think that difference will be significant. Sometimes we see students struggle to find a compatible hike group and now there is more choice for them to pick the people they will hike well with. Having that choice might be the difference between those students hating hiking or loving hiking. It’s also another way to be more inclusive, and not have boys over there and girls over here. This enables students to pick a group of people that they are going to hike well with – not pick a group of girls if you are a girl or pick a group of boys if you are a boy. I just think it’s more progressive and inclusive.”
For some students, the challenge begins with choosing a hike group – a small group of 6-8 students that hike and camp together. Laura Kearley (Timbertop’03), Campus Head of Learning and Teaching/Head of D Unit, said that choosing a hike group is a powerful example of student agency that can also be “a pretty challenging social dynamic”. “For some students it can be quite intimidating and nerve-wracking,” Laura said. “It can be like choosing a sports team on steroids.” As hikes progress in difficulty and duration throughout the year, students will spend multiple days hiking together, setting up camp, preparing meals and sharing a tent. “When you choose a tent buddy you literally get a cattle tag zip-tied with somebody else’s; you can’t pull apart, you have to work together,” Annabel explained. “The bonds formed through that shared experience are very strong.”
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The most important challenge at Timbertop is hiking – students traverse mountainous terrain in the Alpine National Park, can cover more than 20 kilometres in a day, ascending and descending between 800-1,000 metres, subject to snow and adverse weather conditions, and sometimes arriving at their campsite in darkness. In total, our Timbertop students camp for more than 50 nights during the year. The lessons learned in the outdoors are profound and often life changing.
“There are lots of elements of the Timbertop experience that are designed to develop resilience,” Annabel Bainger (Southey, Cl’02), Campus Director Student Welfare - Girls, explained. “The Outdoors Programme is specifically designed to challenge students. Sometimes we get suggestions that if the hikes were easier, the kids would enjoy hiking more. But that’s not the purpose. The students are very purposefully pushed outside their comfort zone; socially, mentally and physically. The Outdoors Programme is the foundation for building resilience.”
In 2022, Timbertop students have been given greater choice with the introduction of co-ed hike groups. In the third year of 50:50 gender balance at Timbertop and following the successful transition to co-ed campsites, co-ed hike groups felt like a “natural progression”. “I think it’s been fantastic,” Laura said. “I think it brings out the best in both genders. I think it tempers a bit of the ego and it also helps the nurturing element of the group – there is more compassion and less competition. It’s also been normalised. That’s the beauty of having a different cohort every year – they don’t know any different.”
Not so well known was John’s love of butterflies and beetles. Some of his earliest memories “from around the age of four” are of insects. “One is the very clear image of two large yellow and black highly polished jewel beetles on a banksia tree and the other of a grass blue butterfly sunning itself on a leaf,” John told the Australian Museum in 2018. He started collecting butterflies from around the age of 11 and would ride his bicycle from the Landy family home in East Malvern to as far afield as the Dandenong Ranges in search of new species –a distance of almost 40 kilometres. When John commenced at Corio in 1945, he joined “an active Natural History Group” and remembers an “unusual Skipper butterfly on rushes growing in the salt flats near the School” and a “small Copper butterfly on the cricket pitch when I was in the outfield” which was “more interesting to me than the game itself”. Just months after his “Race of the Century” with Roger Bannister, John joined the teaching staff at Timbertop and imbued his love of insects and the natural world with a generation of Timbertop students. The Timbertop Magazine published in February 1956 features an article by John about the discovery and positive identification of the Tailed Emperor butterfly, a species previously unseen in Victoria, which he describes as “one of Australia’s most striking insects”. John’s enthusiasm is evident in his lively descriptions of the Tailed Emperor and Imperial Blue butterflies, as well as the relationship between ants and caterpillars. John spent 75 years studying and collecting butterflies. “My collecting was intermittent with a career in agricultural research and development, my athletics pursuits, family life and public service,” he explained. His collection, comprising 139 boxes of nearly 10,000 specimens, was donated to the Australian Museum. It was estimated that John had recorded more than 300 of the 400 butterfly species found in Australia. “My lifelong passion for butterflies has given me a wonderful insight into natural history and I’ve never had a boring day in the bush!”
John Landy AC CVO MBE (M’48), who died on February 24 at the age of 91, lived a truly remarkable life. An athlete, scientist, environmentalist and educator who served as Governor of Victoria from 2001 to 2006, John is best known as the second man to break the “impossible” four-minute mile barrier. John held the world record for the mile for more than three years, and his race with Roger Bannister at the 1954 British Empire Games in Vancouver was watched by more than 10 million Americans on a new invention called television, and listened to on radio by countless more around the world.
John EntomologistLandy,OVERVIEW
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A New Victorian Butterfly
The highlight of the year for the entomologists at Timbertop was undoubtedly the finding of the wings of the Tailed Emperor butterfly. Although only the wings remained, they were quite sufficient for positive identification. Even in Australia where the number of entomologists is very small, the discovery of a new species, or a species new to a State, creates great interest. The total number of Victorian butterflies just exceeds 100 but since 1930 very few have been added to the list. It will be interesting for future observers at Timbertop to determine whether the Emperor is a visitor or has in fact established itself at Timbertop. Some entomologists in Melbourne feel that it is quite possible that it is breeding in the locality. Both the silver wattle and black wattle found at Timbertop are food plants of the species.
The Tailed Emperor is without question one of Australia’s most striking insects. Vividly marked in black, green, and white on the top surface of the wings, he has a beautiful blending of brown, white and mother of pearl on the underside. The large of sharply pointed tails projecting from the hind wings. Powerful wing muscles give the Emperor great speed of flight. He can easily elude the most skilfully wielded net and is usually a match for that brilliant enemy of all butterflies, the willy-wag tail. During the year many other butterflies were seen at Timbertop. In all 40 different species were noted. Particularly good localities were the Howqua Valley with its wide range of vegetation and Mt Buller, where several Alpine species can be found. Perhaps the most interesting butterfly found during the year was the Imperial Blue. It is a delicately marked butterfly of slightly more than 1” across the wings and has a bright metallic blue upper surface. This species was found quite commonly around the School where its caterpillars were feeding on small silver wattles. This is an edited extract from the inaugural Timbertop Magazine, published in February 1956. Read the obituary for John Landy AC CVO MBE J. M. LANDY Esq.
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Head of Adventure Education
Simon Finnigan joined the School in 2022 as our inaugural Head of Adventure Education. Simon brings a wealth of experience, most recently as Director of Outdoor Education at Melbourne Grammar School for the past nine years. He believes in creating experiences in nature that integrate academic curriculum, nurture environmental stewardship, and promote leadership, Indigenous cultural awareness and community service. Simon has been a Director of Outdoor Education and Sustainability at Scotch Oakburn College in Tasmania, taught Outdoor Education at De La Salle College in Malvern, and worked with Adventure/Outdoor Education providers in New Zealand. He also spent a period at Hume City Council implementing the Council’s pioneering Pathways to Sustainability framework. I see Adventure Education as being broader than Outdoor Education. The definition of Adventure Education, of experiential learning through and with nature, opens it up to include sustainability and environmental education. We are in the process of developing the Adventure Education programme through a series of interviews and focus groups with staff and students, canvassing different ideas and opinions which will help inform what the strategy is for the Therefuture.isan element of how we leverage that Timbertop experience, which builds independence, self-reliance and resilience in Year 9, but really each year level should have an Adventure Education experience that is of importance and significance for that year level. If we get the scope and sequence of the programme right, then Timbertop is something that happens within that. There are a whole lot of components that can be included within an Adventure Education programme, like increasing levels of awareness around Indigenous culture, especially how it relates to the natural world. There will be a focus on giving students a greater sense of appreciation of the natural world through enabling time in nature. Hopefully, some values will stem from that experience – that through learning about those environments and appreciating those environments, our students will ultimately want to look after them and protect them, which will provide opportunities for future generations that come after them. We’re considering a lot of the philosophy that informs learning through and with nature.
SIMON FINNIGAN
Sim fAdventure Ed u c ation At Corio there are plenty of opportunities with Corio Bay, both through academic learning and enabling different activities that can take place on the bay. That will also be incorporated into the Corio Campus Masterplan; what infrastructure is required to enable adventure on campus, whether that be water-based activities or trail running or mountain biking, for example. The aim is to create something whereby students have access to adventurous activities on campus – the new Primary School will have a climbing wall for example, and those sorts of things will actualise adventure on campus and enable students to have an adventurous experience.
Adventure Education is really important for our younger learners because through nature and environment we introduce principles like sustainability. Play-based learning is so important for students to develop social and emotional intelligence. There is research that shows that through time spent in nature, you actually develop different neural pathways in your brain, which is distinct from what you learn from being in the classroom. There is a lot of research around the mental health benefits of being in nature as well. There are mental health benefits of being active too, like increased cortisol levels, which has an important physiological role in wellbeing. Adventure ticks a lot of boxes, including the interaction and overlap with Positive Education and Creative Education. We talk about these Strategic Pillars as the triple helix, and how they combine to underpin the School’s philosophy and approach to Adventurelearning.
LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
“The definition of Adventure Education, of experiential learning through and with nature, opens it up to include sustainability and environmental education.”
Simon Finnigan, Head of Adventure Education
Education is in the DNA of the School. Almost 70 years ago, Timbertop was such a progressive move for GGS and education more broadly. Utilising the opportunity to develop something that leverages that heritage and is unique and innovative in its own way is the key to the Adventure Education programme being successful. You look at how much that Timbertop experience means to OGGs and creating opportunities to provide those experiences for other year levels is a central part of my job. The fact that it has been such a defining part of the School’s history reinforces why it is such an important focus for the future.
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Our Term 1 Artist-in-Residence, Julia Roche (Davies, He’03), uses art to connect with nature and explore her relationship with the surrounding environment. Julia lives on the family property where she grew up, on Wiradjuri country near Wagga Wagga in regional New South Wales. Her studio is an old 1900s woolshed where she is deliberately exposed to the elements. “I have a roof over my head, but it is very open,” she explained. “I often paint outside, both during the day and at night. My process is to immerse myself in nature to feel and to understand the cycles of the landscape. The idea is to respond to the environment with an authentic and uncluttered visual and emotional perspective.”
JULIA ROCHE
Artist-in-residence
Julia Roche’s next solo exhibition will open on Thursday 3 November at Otomys Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery at 424 Malvern Road, Prahran. Visit www.juliaroche.com.au information.
for more
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Julia said that she hoped that through articulating and translating how she creates art, students would build a deeper understanding of their own work. “I was thinking about what an awesome experience it would have been for me as a Year 12 art student to have an Artist-in-Residence talk through their practice and explain what happens,” she said. It had been 19 years since Julia had been on campus and she admitted that initially it felt “really weird” to be revisiting the Art School and Sinclaire Centre, where she spent a lot of time during Senior School. “I think that’s probably where my art journey really began. I created a lot of work in Year 11 and Year 12. The then Head of Art, Mr (Richard) Newton (Staff 2002-05), was quite influential in the evolution of my art. It was a pretty pivotal time of my life and I’ve still got lots of the works that I created (at GGS) hanging up around my house.”
Julia’s work is a conversation with nature. She uses found objects and natural materials as well as oil paints. “The process is to help communicate the aesthetics of the landscape – it’s not just a pretty picture that is perfect and manicured, because our landscape is rough and rugged and beautiful. It’s inevitable that elements of my surroundings are going to be imprinted in my work and I’ve worked really hard at relinquishing control, to really welcome the environment and explore the idea of mutual recognition, where I feel like I am a part of the landscape, appreciating and responding to the environment, and vice versa. My aim is for the audience to create a closer connection between seeing and feeling.”
20 In the Early Learning Centre (ELC) at Toorak Campus, we have begun to research what Adventure Education means for our children in their daily learning. Being adventurous in our thinking, enabling learning experiences through and with nature, supports the development of our children’s individual confidence, competence and creativity. Children grow in independence, self-reliance and resilience as they problem solve or take risks in their learning, building upon their skills as they explore a variety of possibilities through open-ended and unstructured play and materials. We asked the children for their thoughts on what adventure is.
“Drawing with Anna. Draw some Princesses with me”
– Frankie Blayney
“The outdoors supports, evokes and creates possibilities for adventurous learning”
“It’s like exploring” – William Alder
“Looking at the trees and floor and the birds singing” – Joanne Liu “You know how we find those bottle lids, that’s like an adventure. You find something” Archie Barry “Going somewhere strange and finding interesting things like animals, bugs and many things. You can have an adventure in a different country. Find wood to make a house… a bird house” – Aristotle Kalogeropoulos
playAdventurousTOORAKELC
LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL ↓ “Something that gets my heart racing!” 2121 “Doing something new that might be scary at first but ends up being fun and exciting!” As educators we now need to ask ourselves, “How do we fuel a sense of adventure in our children, so they are excited and inspired each day in their leaning?” Simone Carter Director of Early Learning, Toorak Campus We also asked some of our parents what adventure means to them. haeserruOrccontinues. “Being inspired to try something new and excited”feeling
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When we are striving toward a goal we have set, discomfort almost invariably arises – the challenge can sometimes feel greater than our abilities, and we may feel anxious and want to quit. Recent research suggests that reappraising discomfort is an effective strategy to keep motivated to achieve our goals. That is when an activity gets hard and we feel outside of our comfort zone (e.g. learning a new instrument, working on a difficult maths problem, trying mindful meditation for the first time), it is particularly helpful to view this discomfort as a sign that our brain is changing. It is creating new neural pathways and, therefore, we are learning new information and building new skills. Understanding and harnessing neuroplasticity – the science of how our brains change – helps foster a growth mindset, which is key to personal growth and success in all areas of our lives. As the famous Henry Ford quote goes, “Whether you think you can, or we think you can’t –you’re right.”
HOW TO SUPPORT GOAL SETTING
There are some simple ways we can foster a learning-focused approach to goal setting in young people. We can engage them in activities they care about – maybe it’s playing guitar, or learning about bugs, or
Goal setting POSITIVE EDUCATION Goal setting is an important part of all our lives and is a key skill we support our students to develop at GGS.
Based on reflective conversations among staff and students over the past few years and recent student wellbeing data, Toorak Campus Positive Education Coordinator, Jacqui Moses, launched Project Hope – an ongoing initiative to equip Toorak students with the skills and strategies to look toward the future with positive expectancies, a hopeful outlook and the knowledge that they have the power to make that so. As part of this initiative, each term the Toorak Campus is focusing on a specific theme and explicitly teaching concepts related to hope. Hope centres on the assumption that all purposeful human action is goaldirected; therefore, Toorak kicked off the school year with a focus on goal setting in Term 1, as outlined on the opposing page.
Humans are internally driven to strive toward goals that we set for ourselves. Because we have the capacity to tell stories, to imagine a future, to hope for a better future, we spend much of our lives pursuing goals – from big goals (like what we want to be when we grow up) to smaller everyday goals (like deciding what to eat for breakfast). Setting goals is important as it develops longterm vision, short-term motivation and can increase self-confidence. For young people who are not feeling particularly motivated at school, research shows that helping them set goals can spark motivation and boost their academic achievement. Goal setting research suggests that the orientation, approach and motivation for a goal are critically important to achieving these goals. Goals with a positive orientation (Approach Goals) are more energising than goals with a negative orientation (Avoidant Goals). The science tells us that, for example, if you want to quit bingeing junk food at the end of a busy day (not a personal example at all!), you’ll have more success if you tell yourself, “I’ll put the packet of chips down because I want to be a healthy person”, versus “…because I don’t want to gain weight”. This optimistic approach to goal setting helps us feel more hopeful, motivated and confident in our abilities to succeed. Researchers have also identified that people tend to approach goal setting in one of two ways: with a learning-focused approach or with a performance-focused approach. A person who is learning-focused is motivated by developing their competence and mastering new skills. A person who is performance-focused is interested in doing well to get praise and approval from others. As you can imagine, those who are learning-focused are more likely to plan, set goals, put in effort and practise, seek out and respond to feedback, and ultimately achieve the goals they are striving to meet.
NAVIGATE PATHWAYSANDATCORIO Goal setting is built into the Navigate programme in Year 7 at Corio. In Semester 1, the focus is on understanding the story that shapes the setting of a goal. We have found that creating specific goals can prove to be a challenge – if we look at the headlines of our story, such as the grade we get or whether something is good or bad, we tend to get broad, shallow goals. Through Hive, we have been able to set up reflective tasks that help students explore the feedback they receive on the work that leads to their grades or learning behaviours. We have also been able to explore the VIA (Values in Action) strengths results and reflect on the various aspects that affect their wellbeing. This helps shape their story, enabling students to create a specific goal related to their learning or wellbeing that they are then able to action. Across Years 10-12, goal setting continues to be an integral part of the Pathways programme. At the start of each Semester students shape Student Action Plans, identifying: personally meaningful targets relating to learning, wellbeing and/or growth; steps to achieve their targets; and the strengths, strategies, and support they will utilise along the way. Across the Semester, students reflect on and refine their approach with their Learning Coach. This process is visible to parents via Hive and culminates in the completion of a Student Self-Report at the end of the Semester in which students reflect on their achievements across the Semester, as well as the obstacles faced in achieving their targets, the strategies they employed to overcome these, and the targets they will set themselves in the following Semester.
TERM 1 FOCUS AT TOORAK CAMPUS
POSITIVE EDUCATION
Jacqui Moses Year 3 Classroom Teacher Toorak Campus Positive Education Coordinator playing netball. When young people are engaged in an activity, we can use language that focuses on the learning process rather than just on their performance. That is, comment on the skills they are using and developing rather than just on how good of a job they are (or aren’t) doing. We can also give them specific feedback to help them improve their skills. You might say, “Wow, I really like how hard you’re working to learn that guitar chord. You are doing a great job of applying pressure to the string. Maybe try moving your finger closer to the bottom fret to get a clearer sound.” We can also help them set small, achievable goals and longer-term goals related to the things that are most important to them. Consider your own relationship with goal setting – what has and hasn’t worked for you and why do you think this is? Personally, a recent tip I was given, which supported my love of To-Do Lists, was the habit of also writing a To-Don’t List. This has helped me focus on my priorities and reduce some of my unnecessary or ‘busy’ work!
Towards the end of the Term 2, our Community Service Captains organised an event for the people of Ukraine. This day aligned with our final related concepts of Compassion and Empathy and was a lovely way to extend hope to others by taking action and raising both awareness and money for people in need.
At Toorak Campus, we are focusing on a year-long Positive Education theme of Hope. We have aptly named it Project Hope and our intention is to equip our students with the skills and strategies for them to look toward the future with positive expectancies, optimism and the self-belief that they have the power to make that so.
Jennifer Hanson-Peterson Positive Education Collaborator
Hope and its theory is essentially about goal setting (having something to strive towards), pathway thinking (identifying the resources and people we need to help us get there) and agency thinking (our ability to be motivated, committed and persevere). Across our campus, Positive Education lessons have been guided by an overarching theme and related concepts that are intentionally planned to increase hope and boost wellbeing. In addition to this, we have initiated Wellbeing Wednesdays. On Wednesday, our students are welcome to wear their PosiSocks! We begin the day with music and fun on the oval, we make an effort to incorporate mindfulness sessions in both the classroom and the garden, and we complete the day with Community Yoga whereby students, parents and staff are invited to attend a yoga session in the Toorak Wellbeing Centre. In Term 1, our overarching theme relating to hope was Goal Setting. We supported our students to set goals using the SMART goal framework. This will help to ensure that their academic goals, health and wellbeing goals, and personal goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely (SMART). After this, we focused on the related concepts of Grit and Perseverance to support our students to form the belief that they have the capacity to set goals, work toward achieving them and identify multiple strategies for continually moving forward through continued effort, evaluation and reflection. Finally, we made the connection between healthy habits and our ability to achieve our goals. Students reflected on the elements in their lives that promote goal pursual and identified those that stand in the way of goal Inattainment.Term2,our overarching theme was Mindsets. In an age-appropriate way, students across the campus discussed the impact that mindsets can have on our ability to be hopeful with the intention to develop an awareness of the connection between their mindset, their actions and good outcomes. Throughout our campus, students developed their understanding of fixed and growth mindsets at a level that was accessible to their age and stage. In Year 2, the students looked at how they can change a fixed mindset into a growth mindset by reading a variety of picture story books and discussing the messages of them. Our Year 3 students drew symbols to represent both mindsets and reflected on times that they have experienced them, and the Year Five students made up rap songs that epitomised their understanding, application and knowledge of both fixed and growth mindsets.
Project Hope
With more than 200 students enrolled in instrumental music at Corio, our Music School is a thriving hub of creativity. “There are many different aspects to our Music Programme, including our teacher-led curricular and co-curricular programmes, as well as our informal student-led culture of music making which we experience at events like House Music, Battle of the Bands and the various Soirees held throughout the year,” Director of Music, Ari Farrar, said. “Music has a unique and important place within our School and in the lives of our students. Performance opportunities such as these enrich students musically, socially and emotionally; over time, music will become an indispensable part of them – a gift that will last a lifetime.”
Our third annual Battle of the Bands lit up the Equestrian Centre in May, featuring a variety of musical acts from Middle School, Timbertop and Senior School. Senior School rock band The Five Bananas took home the coveted Band category prize, with the experimental Dysunktion Junktion runners-up, whilst other winners included gaii (Acoustic Category and Best Original Composition), Gus Leung (Solo Category), unplugged (Best Entertainer), Macey Callander (Best Vocalist) and Midnight Magic (Rising Star).
There’s a joke from the cult 1980 movie The Blues Brothers: “What kind of music do you usually have here?” asks Elwood Blues. “Oh, we got both kinds,” answers the bartender. “We got Country and Western!” There are no such limitations at GGS, where everything from hip hop to electronic, jazz, folk, rock, pop and classical was showcased across Term 2 at a series of concerts and performances, including Battle of the Bands, Winter Concert and the Middle School Music Programme Showcase.
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CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC
BATTLE OF THE BANDS
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WINTER CONCERT
The immense musical talent on display at our annual Winter Concert warmed the David Darling Play House in June. Held for the first time since 2019, the Winter Concert is our largest and most formal concert. An assortment of bands, choirs, orchestras and ensembles from Middle School and Senior School (including the newly formed Musical Theatre Troupe and Year 5 Starling Singers) performed an eclectic array of music, from Bach (Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major) and Les Misérables (At the End of the Day) to Justin Timberlake (Just Sing) and the theme from The Avengers
HEAD SCHOOLSENIOROF – GIRLS
Learning and teaching in our Senior School at Corio extends beyond the academic environment. Catherine Krause (Parkinson, Fr’00) has been a teacher of English, History and Religious Studies, but believes her most rewarding lessons happen outside of the classroom. “I’m not interested in working in a day school that is 9 to 3.30,” Catherine said. “I am here for the 3.30 to 9. The beauty is in that.” Head of The Hermitage House since 2018, Catherine commenced a new role as Head of Senior School - Girls at the beginning of the year. She brings a wealth of experience in a boarding school environment, having spent 12 years at Lancing College, a co-educational boarding and day school in West Sussex, on the south coast of England. Catherine was head of a girls’ boarding house at Lancing College for seven years (having also been a tutor and assistant head of house) before returning to Australia and Geelong Grammar School. “I wanted to come home and GGS is the pre-eminent boarding school in Australia.”
After studying at Melbourne University, Catherine completed a Master of Education (Educational Leadership) at The University of Buckingham, but she said her biggest lessons have been hands-on. “From the moment I started teaching, I was like a sponge,” she said. “I would sit in the common room and listen to colleagues’ strategies, thoughts, and experiences. I will learn from anyone, regardless of age, gender, subject, school. There is the classroom teaching and then there is everything else.” The “everything else” is centred around building relationships with students. “They are just the best company. They are funny. They are interesting. They are enthused. They are angry. If I ever have a bad day, I’ll go and sit on a chair in a boarding house and the girls will walk past or the boys will walk past, and we’ll have a chat, and it lifts my spirits. It’s magical.” Although she is no longer a Head of House, Catherine enjoys the day-to-day contact. “I have meetings in the houses rather than my office,” she said. “I’m still doing (boarding house) duty. I want kids to see a known face who they can Catherinetrust.” said the focus of her new role is “helping students at their most vulnerable moments”. “What I want for our students is for them to be safe, secure and supported,” she said. “I want them to know that they have someone who will listen and who will care. We don’t solve all their problems for them, but we will stand by them to try and get the best outcome for them. I’m not here to judge. I am an educator, so I’m always striving to make those scenarios where students make mistakes or have a problem an opportunity for them to learn and to grow.”
“What I want for our students is for them to be safe, secure and supported.”
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Catherine Krause Head of Senior School – Girls
Our Year 6 students visited Parliament House in Term 1 as part of the annual Canberra camp. During their visit, they had the opportunity to take part in the Parliamentary Education Office’s role-play; an immersive programme which explores the function, purpose and value of Australia’s democratic system of government. In Term 2, Year 6 students built on their Unit of Inquiry - we can influence our community through our effective leadership - by planning a mock parliament to put their learning into action. One of the first tasks was selecting a topic or project to debate and vote upon, and the class was inspired by the activism of the School’s Environmental Action Team (EAT) around the proposed new gas terminal at Viva’s Corio refinery. “We enjoyed the fishbone analysis (looking at cause and effect) to break apart the issue and explore the different perspectives of the people involved,” Tessa Baines (Yr6 Hi) said. “That helped to develop our speeches and cue cards, which we really enjoyed later in our parliament debate.” EAT members Myrah Dhawan (Yr12 EM), Millie Forwood (Yr12 EM) and Dan Tadmore (Yr12 Cu) spoke to the Year 6 class prior to the mock parliament to provide further background on the issue and detail the actions that have been taken thus far, before the matter was debated in Year 6 mock parliament.
The parliamentary session straddled the line between realistic, with a chorus of “hear, hear!” ringing out after each party member made their case for or against, and fantastical, with the Leader of the Opposition, as well as many members of government, crossing the floor on the final vote. A fine example of learning in action nevertheless!
”“HEAR,HEAR!
↓
VOICEGUIDINGA
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Former AFL footballer Troy Selwood joined GGS as Head Coach of Football & Sports Performance Mentor in Term 4, 2021. Troy played 75 games for the Brisbane Lions and was captain of Geelong’s VFL team before being appointed Geelong VFL and Academy Manager, guiding development of the Cats’ emerging AFL-listed players. He was then promoted to Talent Identification Manager, responsible for Geelong’s AFL recruiting operations, before joining GGS. Troy is passionate about mentoring aspiring young sportspeople to achieve their potential. I believe there are so many great life lessons to be gained by participating in sport. I have been extremely fortunate for sport to play a major part in my life and teach me about the importance of teamwork, discipline, work ethic, resilience, time management and leadership. I have predominantly been involved in team sports throughout my journey, so I respect the importance of developing a positive team culture and how this plays a significant part in success and achieving great outcomes. Sport can help define your character. It can test you in good times and bad –when you have momentum and when your back is against the wall. These experiences are invaluable whether you win or lose – it’s all about being prepared to push yourself out of your comfort zone and always trying your best. Most importantly sport is about enjoyment. We get to live healthy and happy lives – which is great for our physical, mental and emotional Iwellbeing.wasvery fortunate to enter the AFL industry three days after my final Year 12 exam. The last place I expected to be drafted to was Queensland, but what an amazing ride it was to join the Brisbane Lions at the height of their powers in 2002. I learnt so much about football and life from my teammates, coaches, and support staff over an eight-year Iperiod.wasthen very lucky to be offered a full-time off field role in 2010 to join the Geelong Football Club in football operations and recruiting. I spent 11 years at the Cats, which helped shape my professional career and skillset. Again, I was surrounded by some amazing operators and mentors.
Amongst all of this, I developed a strong passion for mentoring talented young athletes and providing guidance and support to assist their sporting journeys. When I saw an opportunity arise at Geelong Grammar to play such a role in a new environment, I knew I had to apply. It’s now my turn to ‘give back’ to aspiring young kids making their way through life. I find this opportunity extremely rewarding and uplifting. I am very driven to help our students realise their potential at GGS, and then launch into exciting futures beyond their years at Corio.
This School is a very special place and I have loved meeting everyone. I have also really enjoyed witnessing the School come back to life beyond the pandemic – it has been such a challenging past few years, so I think we all appreciate the little things that were probably once taken for granted. It’s so good to see students walking between classes, co-curricular activities and sport coming back to life, and school events returning. I underestimated how busy our students are on a daily basis – from the morning boarding house assembly right through to the end of ‘prep’ each night. There is so much happening in their days, but I think it’s fantastic! I wish I could travel back in time 20 years to experience life as a GGS student!
There is so much I’d love to sink my teeth into at GGS, but over recent years I have learnt the art of pacing myself. The core of my role at the School is to provide an environment where our student athletes are feeling supported and well looked after. I also want to help provide direction for our sports programme, starting with boys’ and girls’ football in 2022. I am big on the fact that our students must own their journey and drive their careers – but at times they may just need a helping hand to stay on course. That’s where I feel like I can come in and help. “The core of my role at the School is to provide an environment where our student athletes are feeling supported and well looked after.”
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Another thing I have underestimated is how big our Corio campus is – you don’t want to leave your books behind after class as it’s a fair old hike to go back and get them!
Troy Selwood Head Coach of Football & Sports Performance Mentor
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Twins Coco and Iris Jeffrey have been together throughout their academic journey; boarding at MLC until the end of Year 10, and joining Geelong Grammar School at the beginning of Year 11. “We had originally both planned to board in Year 12 too, but COVID-19 got in the way,” Coco said. In 2022, their learning journeys have diverged. Iris – one of our top VCE performers in 2021 – is studying Science at The University of Melbourne on a Chancellor’s Scholarship. Coco – having excelled in Visual Arts and Media during her time at the School –is weighing up a Bachelor of Culture, Criticism and Curation at University of the Arts London and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Art, Media and Technology) at Parsons Paris, while on a gap year in London working as an au pair. At GGS, Iris excelled in the classroom – achieving an ATAR of 97.7 – and on the water as a member of the School’s Heads-of-the-River-winning Girls’ 2nd Rowing VIII in 2021. The decision to move to GGS for Years 11 and 12 stemmed from a desire to be closer to home and some fatigue with the boarding experience. “As a day boarder you get the best of both worlds,” Iris said. “It allowed us to still have that boarding experience (during the day) while being able to sleep in our own beds each night,” Coco added.
Back in Melbourne, Iris is loving her course so far. “I like that it’s so broad and I can try so many different subjects, not just science-related,” she said. After three years of Science, she hopes to study Medicine. “I’ve always wanted to study Medicine,” she said. With the prospect of seven years of study on the horizon, Iris is hoping to go on exchange in 2023 where the paths of this pair’s learning journey could align once again.
DesTertiaryVICtinations(%)628 1729 11 9 Victoria OverseasInterstate140324
The University of Melbourne MonashRMIT University Deakin University Other ANU In Issue 109 of Light Blue we celebrated the academic success of the class of 2021, led by our Dux, Mody Yim (FB’21), who achieved a perfect IB score of 45. The combined IB/ VCE median ATAR of 84.1 was the School’s best result since 2015; to read more about our 2021 academic results, Issue 109 features student reflections and provides further context for our outstanding results.
TOWHERENOW?
Coco Iris C o
Coco’s impact on the arts at the School was profound, winning the People’s Choice Award for her portrait of VCE Co-ordinator, Mal Widdicombe, in last year’s Coriobald Prize and Best Performance in her film I Took a Pill to Kill at the 2021 GGS Film Festival, among other things. But it was perhaps a football jumper design that will have the most lasting impact at the School. “After the winter season finished, I decided we needed a girls’ Reconciliation Round jumper.” The design was specifically for our girls’ teams - “I loved being a part of that team,” Coco said – and her design was worn for the first time this year, coinciding with Reconciliation Round and the Girls’ 1st team’s first ever win in the AGSV/ APS first division. “I loved it! It was so good,” Coco said of seeing the photos and videos come through of the girls playing and celebrating in the jumper she designed. Coco describes her art as socially engaged - “I want it to advocate for something”.
In this Issue, we look at where the Class of 2021 are headed – in terms of their education beyond GGS – and celebrate the success of Coco and Iris Jeffrey (both Fr’21).
DAYDISCOVERYCAREERS
A number of Old Geelong Grammarians returned to the School to mentor Year 10 students at our annual Careers Discovery Day on Sunday 19 June. The OGGs talked to students and parents about their careers since leaving school, providing invaluable ‘real life’ information about subject selection, university courses and career paths. Each provided a unique insider’s perspective of their chosen career, exposing students to an incredibly broad cross-section of career paths, from architect Olivia Wetherall (EM’13), personal injury layer Maddi McLean (A’12) and clinical embryologist Celia Talbot (Harbridge, A’08) to senior project engineer Jack Merrin (Fr’07), real estate sales consultant Jack Edgar (M’15) and business management lecturer/tutor Parker Rettke (A’12).
Andrew is Principal of Mannix College at Monash University, having previously been Program Director of the Tuckwell Scholarship at ANU and College Head at Campbell Hall at Monash. The format of the day was re-imagined in 2022, with panel discussions taking place in various classrooms and performance spaces within the School of Performing Arts and Creative Education (the SPACE), whilst a University Expo was held in the Jeremy Kirkwood Foyer – it was wonderful to see a number of recent graduates return to speak to our Year 11 and Year 12 about their tertiary institution and/or residential college.
LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
This year's guest speaker for Year 10 students and parents was social researcher Ashley Fell, who spoke about the changing nature of the workplace and the future of work for generation alpha. Running simultaneously in the Cook Theatre, Andrew Swan (Fr'07) delivered a 'University 101' session for the School's Year 11 and Year 12 students.
1. Chair of School Council, Paddy Hanbury (M'72); James R Darling Orator, Joanna Murray-Smith, Medal for Service to Society recipient, Tim Fairfax AC (M'64), Principal, Rebecca Cody, Chair of the Geelong Grammar Foundation, Penny McBain 2. Members of the Class of 1964 peer group
3. Tim Fairfax AC (M’64) receiving his medal from Foundation Chair, Penny McBain 4. Members of the GGS community gathered for the Black Tie Dinner in The Ian Potter Queen’s Hall of the State Library of Victoria
It has been energising to see the return to in-person activity across the School and particularly with our donor community this Semester. We have so longed for this, and we have certainly made the most of it in the first half of 2022. So far this year we have seen members and supporters of the Geelong Grammar Foundation turn out in strength to attend two Biddlecombe Society events, first on the Bellarine Peninsula and then in Adelaide. At each of these events we were able to share with our members the new visual identity for our important society of donors who have committed a gift through their Will. The design takes inspiration from the leaves of Biddlecombe Avenue and has been crafted into new pins for all members and stamped onto the front of our leatherbound membership book, naming and honouring the members of the Biddlecombe Society from establishment and into the future. We also enjoyed the opportunity to connect with donors and other members of our community at the Geelong Grammar School and Geelong Grammar Foundation Black Tie Dinner, held at the State Library of Victoria in April. Our guest of honour at the Black Tie Dinner was our Medal for Service to Society recipient, OGG and Geelong Grammar Foundation Governor, Mr Tim Fairfax AC (M’64). The Medal for Service to Society is the highest honour awarded by Geelong Grammar School and the Geelong Grammar Foundation. It recognises individuals who, by way of the excellence of their achievements in their chosen profession or career, have enhanced society within Australia or elsewhere. For decades, Tim has provided support – particularly to rural communities – through his philanthropy, but also with time, knowledge and leadership. Tim believes that giving back to community is fundamental to our development and growth as human beings, whether through volunteering, sharing skills and experience, or through philanthropy. We were honoured to have Tim and his wife Gina Fairfax AC join us from Brisbane to attend the dinner. Those in attendance were also treated to the talents of our 10th James R Darling Orator for the evening, playwright, screenwriter and novelist, Joanna Murray-Smith.
5. Carolyn Munckton (Cl’84), Juliet Cook (Robinson, Cl’82), Georgie Somerset (Robinson, Cl’82) enjoying pre-dinner drinks in the La Trobe Reading Room of the State Library of Victoria 1 43 2 5
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From one great alumni story to another, we launched our 2022 Annual Giving campaign late in the semester, highlighting the story of OGG and past scholarship recipient, Rohan Byrne (Fr’09). Rohan is now a PhD candidate at The University of Melbourne, but his commitment to community and giving back was apparent as he put his research on hold to assist in Australia’s response to COVID-19. Rohan is a strong advocate for the impact scholarships can have on the lives of students. For him, the scholarship he received to attend Geelong Grammar School was a gift from someone saying “I know you can do this” – and it made all the difference in setting him on his path to shape a better world. Many members of our community have joined together to support the 2022 Annual Giving campaign in which Rohan features. Our efforts to raise funds to support scholarships will continue across the remainder of this year so if you have not yet had a chance to join with me in supporting the campaign, I encourage you to consider making a gift at www.ggs.vic.edu.au/together. Together, we can make a positive difference. It is my privilege to work with the members of the Geelong Grammar Foundation Board and our committees to bring to life the vision of our School through philanthropy. Thank you to all those members of our community who continue to give so generously to support our School through the Geelong Grammar Foundation. Penny McBain Chair, Geelong Grammar Foundation
Rohan Byrne (Fr’09): scientist, thinker, explorer, communicator, playwright, past scholarship recipient
ScholarshipsMaking
From Rohan’s family home on the Bellarine Peninsula near Drysdale, he could see the School’s clock tower on the horizon. When Rohan’s sister Tamzin (Fr’02) started studying at GGS, he recalls being fascinated by all the things she was learning – “literature, the rise and fall of empires, and ancient poetry”. “I wanted to find out where that came from,” he said. “I wanted to be closer to the source of all that knowledge.”
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Rohan’s work on modelling COVID-19 mobility data using code he created for computer simulations of planets helped inform The University of Melbourne’s entry into the Trinity Challenge, an international coalition which aims to fortify societies against future health emergencies using new, data-driven approaches. The University’s proposal was awarded an honourable mention in the Challenge’s highly competitive first funding round and is now moving into formal development.
Rohan is back focused on his own research. He spends his spare time writing, fiction and non-fiction, to inform, intrigue and amuse his readers. He is ambitious, enthusiastic and passionate. He describes himself as a proud Old Geelong Grammarian and a grateful scholarship recipient. “Without a doubt this scholarship changed the path of my life irrevocably,” he said. “There’s only one thing I can say to those people who support scholarships like mine and that is, thank you.”
a positive difference, together.
Rohan applied for a scholarship to attend GGS, but he honestly felt like it was still a vision in the distance. “For me, Geelong Grammar was a place where people went to achieve great things,” he explained. “I never really believed I could do that.” A scholarship changed everything. “When that scholarship came through, that was a gift from someone to me, saying ‘I know that you can do this’. And there was the most ferocious sense of obligation to that moment of Rohanencouragement.”excelledat GGS, receiving both the Gordon Moffatt Prize for Contribution to School Life and the Juan José Garcia Prize for Drama. Inspired by Physics classes with Mr Rob Wingad, he studied Science at The University of Melbourne. He is now a computational geophysicist studying planets on the largest scale and tackling the mystery of how worlds are brought to life and why they eventually die. In 2020, Rohan put his PhD studies on hold to apply his skills and expertise in Australia’s scientific response to COVID-19. “I felt a certain sense of obligation, and when I trace that back, that instinct to jump in and help, it began at Geelong Grammar. The School’s attitude towards service is one of those things you don’t realise is seeded somewhere deep inside of you.”
When 11-year-old Bill Mackie came to Corio in 1933, many of the buildings we now think of as old did not yet exist. The Junior School (now The Hermitage House), the Art and Music schools, and Francis Brown House would all be built while Bill was at school, and the Dining Hall extended. The Chapel had only recently been completed, and the Cloisters and War Memorial were but a few years old. A fresh-faced James Darling was only three years into his 32-year headmastership. Bill’s schooldays were the years described by Michael Thwaites AO (Cu’33) as “that heady spring… a pulse and pain of growth set the blood coursing, and the earth was young”. Corio was a much bigger world than the small rural primary school Bill came from, to which he rode a pony three miles there and back. His mother’s brother, Bill Bates (GGS’10), had attended Geelong Grammar in 190910, and so it was to Geelong Grammar School that Bill and his younger brother Jamie (P’42) were sent after their primary schooling. Both boys were born in Ceylon, where their father William Copland Mackie was the manager of a tea plantation. The family returned to Australia in late 1927. Bill was a diligent Junior House student who had a solid work record, and an art prize, by the time he entered Perry House in 1937. The Art School was built in that year, and Bill was one of the boys who spent Saturdays in the school forge learning metalwork in order to fit out the new building. “Darling had the walls put up and the plastering done, but the rest he left to us!” Bill helped to make the wrought iron bannisters, along with his dorm mate Jimmy Catanach (P’38) – “a very nice fellow” – who a few years later was one of the escapees from Stalag Luft III. These were days of Saturday Parties – excursions by bicycle anywhere they liked within a 25-mile radius, so long as there were three of them – and teachers with nicknames like Cupie Dart, Beaky Ryder and Dangles Derrick. In the Dining Hall, they had competitions to see who could eat the most servings of chocolate blancmange. “Haslow had the record – six refills after quickly gulping each serving down and putting his plate up again for more!” Infectious diseases were rife. Bill had a different illness in each of his school years – influenza, measles, mumps and chicken pox. “But I never had a day’s sickness after that.” He was one of several boys in the Sanatorium with mumps when it came time for their Confirmation. “We were hauled out of bed, and we knelt in front of the Archbishop in our pyjamas and dressing gown!”
Bill Mackie (P’39) –OGG Centenarian
Regular trips to Europe from the 1970s onwards were a highly enjoyable part of these working and early retirement years, especially following the trail of his paternal great uncle, the renowned Scottish artist Charles H Mackie (his grandfather’s brother), and other antecedents.
1. Centenarian members of the Biddlecombe Society, Barb Parsons, Bill Mackie (P’39) and Boz Parsons (M’36)
2. Bill Mackie (P’39) attending the Biddlecombe Society luncheon with daughter, Fiona Saunders 1 2
He sat his Leaving Certificate in 1938 and followed up with Leaving Honours in Maths and Physics in 1939. “A very good boy – with some brains,” noted his school record card. He went up to Trinity College at The University of Melbourne to study Agricultural Science, but the war intervened and, like most of his friends, Bill interrupted his studies to answer the call of duty. He enlisted in the RAAF – the technology and relative comfort of the air arm of the military appealed –and after several months training as a bomb-aimer he was commissioned as an Air Observer (navigator/bomb aimer). He was posted to Bundaberg where his crew operated anti-submarine patrols above the waters off Fraser Island where convoys of ships came in, and later joined 66 Squadron at Laverton, flying in Avro Ansons monitoring Bass Strait for submarines. He then learnt to use the bombsight in the big B-24 Liberators based out of Tocumwal and was posted to Darwin to fly with an American squadron to gain combat experience around Sulawesi in Indonesia. In these duties, he was “completely dependable and successful” noted his record. Fortunately, Bill’s war ended with him having had only one brush with danger when a Japanese Zero put a bullet through the Liberator’s fuselage. Bill returned to his Agricultural Science studies, graduating in 1947. He worked for four years for the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE) doing farm management surveys relating to the sheep industry. He then worked briefly for Heinz, and from 1953 to 1983 he was with Commonwealth Fertilizers, which merged with ICI in 1961, a job which took him all over Australia. He was Field Research Manager at Merrindale Research Station in Croydon, supervising crop protection research and overseeing the work of John Landy (M’48), who was the then Research and Technology Manager. By this time, Bill had two sons, Bill junior (FB’71) and Alistair (FB’82), and two daughters, Fiona and Merran, with his wife Kathleen, who he had met during their university years.
It is humbling to understand that a gesture that made a difference to someone so long ago will pay dividends to Geelong Grammarians of the future. Bill celebrated his 100th birthday on 25 January this year at a happy family lunch, at which his many cards of congratulation and well wishes –including, of course, one from Her Majesty The Queen – were proudly displayed. Perhaps in 2122 there will be another OGG celebrating their 100th birthday – someone who only received a GGS education because of the generosity of bequests left by people like Bill Mackie. Thank you Bill, and hearty congratulations on your centenary.
A long life bestows the benefit of vast perspective, and Bill is well-placed to assess the effect of his Geelong Grammar School education on his life. “It gave me a broader understanding of what goes on in the world – it was a very good general education,” he said. He has never taken the privilege of his education for granted. In 1934, during the Depression, the pastoral company that Bill’s father used to sell his wool and livestock went bust. “He was very afraid he would not be able to pay the school fees,” recalled Bill. “He drove to Corio and went to see James Darling. Darling said, ‘Don’t worry about it, do the best you can, and we’ll keep Bill going at Geelong’.” This kindness has never been forgotten by Bill, who made the decision many years ago to leave a bequest to the School in his Will. “I felt I owed the school something in return for what Darling did in 1934.”
The late Lorie Lie (FB’44) had previously been President of the Old Geelong Grammarians Association (1976-78) and it was felt that he was the perfect choice to be the inaugural Chairman. A name was chosen –the Biddlecombe Society.
The Biddlecombe Society membership remains strong as awareness of the bequest programme increases across the wider GGS community.
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This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Biddlecombe Society, which was formally established in 2002. The Foundation Board wanted to thank and recognise, during their lifetime, the kindness of those who had decided to provide a bequest in their Will to the Geelong Grammar Foundation as an enduring way of supporting the future of the School.
20 Years and a New Look
The name reflected the significant gifts made by Janet Biddlecombe (née Russell) and her husband John. Between 1920 and 1925, when the School was severely under-resourced, the Biddlecombes donated six masters’ residences to help attract high quality educators to Corio despite the meagre wage on offer. Their munificent generosity was recognised in the naming of Biddlecombe Avenue, the main artery along which the houses were built. Later, in 1938, Janet and her nephews and niece, Max (GGS’04), Alan (GGS’10) and Gladys Bell, donated the Music School in memory of the Bell siblings’ mother, Janet’s sister, Anne Carstairs Bell. For 20 years now, the Biddlecombe name has acknowledged the pivotal role that people who provide a bequest in their Will play in supporting our School, now and into the future. To recognise the significance of this milestone, as well as the increasing membership and growing popularity of the bequest programme, the Biddlecombe Society has introduced its own visual identity. Research was undertaken to identify what lay at the heart of the bequest programme and the importance of the Biddlecombe name, which led to the association with the avenue of plane trees that intersect Corio Campus. The symbolism of the leaf – of hope, renewal and growth – resonated most strongly and the imagery of a leaf formed the basis of the Biddlecombe Society’s new visual identity.
There are two specific design features worth noting. First, the central area of the leaf motif has been subtly turned and curved, almost like a cupped hand, which symbolises the fact that the Biddlecombe Society supports the School and Foundation through the hundreds of commitments and intentions that make up the membership. Second, the circle surrounding the leaf is incomplete – this is purposeful, and represents that our Society will never be complete; that it will continue to grow in the years ahead.
Biddlecombe Society luncheons, together with interstate trips and regional visits, are popular with members and those interested to learn more about the bequest programme and how it makes a positive difference to our School. Please contact Garry Pierson, Associate Director, if you wish to discuss the bequest programme or learn more about the Biddlecombe Society on (03) 52739316 or via email: garryp@ggs.vic.edu.au
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1. The Biddlecombe Society luncheon at Barwon Heads Golf Club, hosted by Bill Ranken (M'72) and featuring Margie Gillett (Cordner, Clyde '71) and Lilli Cowan (He'21) as guest speakers 2. Guests at the Barwon Heads luncheon in March 2022 3. Jo Peters (P’70), Judith Little and Alister Haigh (Cu’72) enjoying the opportunity to connect at the Biddlecombe Society luncheon at the Adelaide Oval 4. Chair of the Biddlecombe Society Committee, Charlie Sutherland (P’86), shares the new Biddlecombe Society Membership Book with guests at the Adelaide luncheon.
The wreath also honours the memory of the uncle of Peter’s wife Anne Latreille (Dalrymple, Clyde ’63), Flying Officer Henry Hume ‘Boomer’ Turnbull (Cu’40), who enlisted in 1942 and trained as a navigator. Flying Officer Turnbull was posted to 461 Squadron, which hunted German submarines in the Bay of Biscay. He was reported missing in air operations off Bergen on 1 October 1944. His cousins, brothers Flying Officer John Turnbull (Cu’35) and Lieutenant William ‘Mack’ Turnbull (Cu’38), were also killed on active service. Lest we forget. Peter Latreille (Cu’62) laid a wreath in honour of his father, Major Henry Robert ‘Bob’ Latreille (Cu’33), at our Anzac Day Service at Corio on Friday 29 April. Major Latreille died on active service in New Guinea when Peter was only a few months old. He enlisted in 1940, initially as a Lieutenant with the 2/2 Anti Aircraft Regiment, serving in the Middle East. After his return to Australia in March 1942 he was put in charge of No 235 Anti Aircraft Battery at Milne Bay. He was promoted to Major and transferred to the Intelligence Section, serving in Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin. Major Latreille was reported missing on 28 October 1944 when a Liberator bomber on which he was on board experienced engine failure and ditched into the sea. No trace of the aircraft was found. The plane’s co-pilot was also an OGG, Warrant Officer Stuart Davidson (Cu’39). Anzac Day
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Peter’s mother, Joan Latreille (née Leitch), also suffered the loss of her brother, Flying Officer James Westwood Leitch DFC (M’32) in the war. Flying Officer Leitch enlisted in 1941 and commenced operational flying in 1943 as a Lancaster bomber pilot. He completed 33 raids and was killed in air operations over Germany on 20 October 1943. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his ‘determination to complete attacks no matter how hazardous or perilous the situation’.
1943Sidney Baillieu ‘Bails’ Myer AC (FB’43), who was born on 11 January 1926 and died on 22 January 2022, was a prominent businessman, philanthropist and patron of the arts. The son of Sidney and Merlyn (née Baillieu) Myer, Bails was destined to enter the family retail business established by his Russian émigré father in Bendigo in 1900.
Known for his warm manner, his bow ties and sense of humour, Bails made a significant contribution to the Australian wine industry through his establishment of the Mornington Peninsula’s first vineyard, Elgee Park, in 1972. He also established an Australian branch of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin (the notable Burgundian wine fraternity), becoming the inaugural Grand Pilier in 1967. His contribution to Australian–French relations was acknowledged with the awarding of the French Légion d’honneur in 1976. He was also awarded the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun in 2018 for promoting mutual understanding between Japan and Australia. Bails Myer was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1990 and received honorary doctorates from the University of Melbourne in 1993 and from Monash University in 2021. He is survived by Sarah and their three children Sidney (Glamorgan’66), Rupert (Glamorgan’67) and Samantha, 12 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
The solemn moment at the end of each evensong when Headmaster James Darling read out the names of those killed or missing in action made an impression on the young Lorie.
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Philanthropy was an important motivation for the Myer family, originating with the generous bequest left by Sidney Myer senior for the benefit of the community. In 1959, Bails and Ken established The Myer Foundation, of which Bails remained a board member until 1995 and an active Life Governor until his death. Among its many acts of munificence during this period, the Foundation created the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health (in partnership with The Ian Potter Foundation) in 1971, Asialink (in partnership with the Federal Government) in 1990, and the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership in 1993. Bails served in leadership roles on numerous not-for-profit boards and committees, including among others the Sidney Myer Fund, CSIRO, Salvation Army, National Gallery of Victoria, Victorian College of the Arts, Australia–Japan Foundation, Australia–China Council, Commonwealth Research Centre for Excellence, Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal, and Art Foundation of Victoria.
Bails entered Geelong Grammar School in 1936 at the age of 10, two years after the untimely death of his father. During his Junior School years, he took a minor part in The Pickwick Papers in 1938, sang in the choir and rowed. He entered Francis Brown House in 1940, and played first violin in the school orchestra, served as an assistant librarian, and rowed in stroke seat in numerous regattas. He matriculated with nine subjects in 1943 but deferred further studies to enlist in the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve in August 1944, serving as an ordinary seaman on the corvette HMAS Pirie as part of the British Pacific Fleet. On board Pirie, Bails was among the first Australians to enter Tokyo Bay after the Japanese surrender and was present in the harbour for the signing of the Armistice on board the USS Missouri, which was moored nearby. Bails later recalled that about 1,000 Allied bombers flew over the ships at low altitude: “The exercise was no doubt designed to scare the Japanese. Whether it did so or not I do not know, but it certainly scared me.”
1944Leif Lorie Lie (FB’44), known as Lorie, who was born on 17 November 1926 and died on 1 April 2022, was a successful businessman. Lorie was the second of three sons born to Sverre Lie, a Norwegian paper and pulp mill agent, and his South African wife, Sybil. Lorie and his elder brother Harvey (FB’42) came to Geelong Grammar School from Scotch College in 1937 when their parents started travelling regularly in Europe for business. Younger brother Rolf (FB’52) followed in 1943. Lorie’s school years coincided with World War 2.
After his discharge with the rank of sub-lieutenant in April 1946, Bails studied commerce at The University of Melbourne before going up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1947, from which he graduated Master of Arts in economics in 1949. Before returning permanently to Australia in 1951, Bails prepared for his future trade by taking a course at Harrods in London and at Macy’s in New York where he “investigated the use of synthetic fibres” (Corian May 51). During a visit to Sweden, he observed the Co-op Movement and was “most impressed” by the NK department store, and especially Swedish interior decoration and functionalism (Corian Dec. 48). Bails became an executive director of the family’s Myer Emporium in 1955, and married Sarah Hordern in December of the same year. Following the death in 1956 of his cousin Sir Norman Myer, who had been at the helm of the public company, Bails and his elder brother Ken (FB’38) pursued an ambitious expansion of the business, notably establishing a Myer store in Chadstone in 1960, based on the belief that suburban expansion demanded retail shopping in the heart of the suburbs. The success of this venture led to the opening of further stores in both Melbourne and Sydney, and the acquisition of the retail chain Lindsay’s, later renamed Target.
Bails stepped down as executive director in 1972 but remained on Myer’s board, serving as executive chairman during the major recession of the 1980s and overseeing the acquisition of Grace Bros in 1983. He steered the company through the merger with GJ Coles before retiring from the board in 1994.
Ian re-joined the thoracic unit of The Alfred and took on the vascular surgery work. The load of arterial surgery progressively increased, and it became evident that a separate unit was needed. The vascular surgery unit at The Alfred, the first in Australia, was formed in 1974, with Ian as head surgeon. The unit developed a reputation for pioneering new procedures with much success, including femorotibial bypass surgery – Ian was one of the first, if not the first, surgeon in the world to successfully undertake this procedure to bypass a narrowed or blocked artery in the leg. The unit also had success performing carotid surgery to prevent strokes and preventing and repairing ruptured aortic aneurysms. The Ian Ferguson Vascular Laboratory commemorates his pioneering work at the hospital. Ian had many hobbies he pursued with passion. He was a keen fly fisherman who loved going camping and trout fishing. He loved fast cars, owning Bristols, Bugattis and Ferraris, and was an inaugural member of both the Australian Bugatti Register and the Ferrari Owners Association. Flying was a lifelong passion. From the late 1960s, Ian became involved in gliding, competing in state and national championships. Later, he obtained a general aviation licence and bought a Chipmunk in which he did aerobatics and used for towing gliders. His next plane was a SIAI Marchetti, which Ian used to commute between Melbourne and hospitals in regional Victoria where he was a visiting specialist. Subsequently, he became interested in building and flying ultralights. In 1988, he established the Yabba North Flying Association, which used his farm in the Goulburn Valley as a base for enthusiasts to fly and learn to fly ultralights. The club farewelled Ian “as a great teacher, inspiration and font of knowledge for the many fledgling and advanced aviators in the district”.
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In Junior School, Lorie was captain of cricket, being a notable batsman, and tennis champion, interests that continued into Senior School. He obtained his Leaving Certificate in 1944 and subsequently enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy, although the war ended before he could be sent on active service. He joined his father’s successful paper business, which he ran from Sydney for the next 15 years. He married his first wife, Ailsa, during this period and the couple had two sons and two daughters. They returned to Victoria and settled in Mount Macedon.
After he was widowed, Lorie married Ann Hawkes (Cl’54), widow of Michael Irvine (Cu’48). The couple supported many charities, including the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and the Geelong Grammar Foundation, inspired in part by Darling’s views on the importance of giving back to society. Notably, Lorie was the inaugural chairman of the Biddlecombe Society, founded in 2002. He also served the School as president of the Old Geelong Grammarians from 1976-78, remaining a committee member until 1985. Lorie is survived by Ann, his four children Catherine (Cl’70), Michael (FB’71), Richard (FB’76) and Petrina (Cl’80), four step-children, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
1945Ian Allan le Gay Ferguson (P’45), who was born on 2 June 1927 and died on 14 April 2022, was one of Australia’s leading vascular surgeons. Ian was born in Longreach in central western Queensland and spent his early years at the Westbourne Wool Scour at Barcaldine. At the age of nine he lost an eye in a farm stockwhip accident. This dashed his dream of becoming an air force pilot but did not limit any other aspiration. Ian missed some years of school and was educated intermittently at home while working on the family properties. Ian and elder brother Neil (P’43) both joined Geelong Grammar School in 1938, with Ian leaving Junior School at the end of 1940 and re-joining GGS in Perry House in 1944. Ian was a house prefect and a sergeant in the Cadet Corps. He was the School’s champion shot in 1945 and led Perry to win that year’s House Shooting Competition. He was awarded School Colours for Athletics, winning the weight putt on Sports Day and finishing fifth at the Combined Public Schools Sports. Ian went on to study medicine at The University of Melbourne, graduating in 1951. After his residency year, he served a year in Korea. On his return to Australia, he was a registrar at The Alfred Hospital in the professorial surgical unit. During this time, he developed an excellent oxygenator pump that worked well in the laboratory, and in 1957 he operated the pump used by Ken Morris in the first successful open-heart surgical operation in Australia.
After qualifying as fellow of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons in 1957, Ian travelled to England where he worked at Guys Hospital in London, achieving fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons before returning to Australia in 1961. In 1966, Ian led a surgical team from The Alfred to Bien Hoa in Vietnam operating on Vietnamese civilians. In between war casualties, the team repaired many cleft palates in children. He hosted prime minister Harold Holt on a tour of the hospital during a visit to the troops.
Ian had many memorable aviation experiences, flying a single-engine light aircraft to Italy and back, flying to New Guinea to collect his second wife Juliet from a remote village where she had been working as a doctor, and flying to New Zealand in a wooden aircraft he built from a kit. On his 90th birthday, Ian took an ultralight for a final flight. Ian’s first wife Kath predeceased him. He is survived by his wife Juliet, three children, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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At The University of Melbourne, while studying agricultural science, John continued to develop his athletic ability while running for the Melbourne University Athletic Club. In 1952 he was selected to represent Australia at the Olympic Games in Helsinki where he did not progress beyond his heats in the 1500 and 5000 metres but, influenced by the training methods of the Czech long-distance runner Emil Zatopek, he soon achieved the fastest mile times in the world. Swept up in the mythical battle to break the four-minute mile, a feat that was considered by some to be beyond human capability, John achieved his objective in Finland on 21 June 1954. His time of 3 minutes 57.9 seconds was 1.4 seconds faster than the Englishman Roger Bannister who, six weeks earlier, had been the first to run a sub-four-minute mile.
1948John Michael Landy AC CVO MBE (M’48), who was born on 12 April 1930 and died on 24 February 2022, was an athlete, educator, environmentalist, and vice-regal representative. Destined to achieve fame for his athletic ability and sportsmanship, he was revered equally for his deep interest in the natural world, and for his humanity.
John had qualified for the Olympics at the Australian Track and Field Championships in Melbourne by winning a race that entered sporting folklore, but which elevated him to levels of fame that brought discomfort. Mid-race, competitor Ron Clarke tripped in front of John, who leapt over him but caught Ron’s arm with his spikes. What happened next is immortalised in a statue of the two men situated opposite Melbourne’s Olympic Park: John stopped, ran back to Ron, apologised, helped him up, and then finished and won the race. In 1999, this selfless act was voted Australia’s finest sporting moment of the century. The race was the
Margaret married Jim Winchester (P’47) in the Chapel of All Saints on 9 May 1953. They moved to Malaysia where they lived for the next 25 years, with Jim pursuing a business career with a large, multi-national company and Margaret often hosting GGS visitors. Their three sons, Richard, Simon (FB’74) and Michael (P’77), were born in Malaysia. On returning to Geelong in 1972, Jim became bursar and secretary to the School Council until 1988, then secretary of the OGGs from 1988-96, whilst Margaret was Music School secretary from 1972-84. She sang as a member of the choir of All Saints’ Anglican Church in Newtown for 20 years. Playing bridge with the Geelong Bridge Club was a passion until the end of her life.
By this time, John was a household name with a worldwide following, and his exploits were enthusiastically recorded in the Corian. In response to a congratulatory telegram from the School, John replied self-deprecatingly, “All that I had to do was run four laps. The speed of those laps was a little unexpected.” Excitement was at fever-pitch in August 1954 at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, which pitted John against Roger Bannister in a contest dubbed “the race of the century”. Before a crowd of 35,000 people, and millions listening on the radio, both men broke the sub-four-minute mile, but Roger swept past John on the final stretch to take the gold. John, it turned out, had run with an injured foot. After graduating with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science in 1954, John took up the offer of a teaching position at the newly opened Timbertop campus, where he soon astonished everyone with his knowledge of the surrounding mountains obtained on training runs in preparation for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games; his sprint finish was perfected on the Howqua Track. Lesson preparation was completed late at night by candlelight (there was no electricity after 10pm) after he had finished his training sessions. His colleague, Paul McKeown, recalled that “it did not take the boys long to discover he was about three chapters ahead of them, so they asked questions from the fourth chapter”.
1947MargaretWinchester (née Rees, Staff 1949-52, 1972-86), who was born on 17 July 1929 and died on 21 February 2022, was a staff member at Corio in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s. She was born in Cowra and moved to Geelong as a young child, attending Newtown Primary School and then Morongo Girls College from 1941-46. In the early 1950s, she became secretary to Doug Fraser, Master of Junior School, and also assisted with secretarial work for Sir James Darling.
The eldest of five siblings, including Tony (M’53), Richard (M’63), Patricia and Susan, John was born in Melbourne to accountant Gordon Landy and his wife Elva. He attended Malvern Memorial Grammar School before entering Geelong Grammar School as a boarder in 1945. He later recalled cold showers on winter mornings and food with names like ‘Yarra mud’, ‘fingernails’ and ‘sinker’ but the spartan existence developed in John a self-reliance that brought its own rewards. Speaking in 1996 he said, “Whatever I did was very much due to attending this school, and I say that unequivocally. Other than my parents, the greatest influence on my career was Geelong Grammar School, and for that I am very grateful.” School competition enabled John to develop his skills and interest in sport, especially football, for which he was awarded Colours in 1947, and athletics. In 1945, he was runner-up in the under 16 athletics championship and by 1948 “because of his perfect condition”, as the Corian described, he won the 440 and 880 yards as well as the mile (in a time of 4 minutes 46.5 seconds) at the GGS Open Championships. A studious worker, he matriculated with second class honours in English Expression and Modern History in 1948, and was a prefect, captain of Manifold House and vice-captain of Athletics.
Ian was the author, co-author or editor of several books on mining and nuclear energy, sustainability and Christianity, most notably the comprehensive and accessible Nuclear
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1951BrianCorkeMitchell (FB’51), who was born on 13 May 1933 and died on 29 December 2021, was a civil engineer. After graduating with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering from the University of Melbourne in 1955, Brian worked for six years on the Snowy Mountains Scheme. For most of 1961, Brian and his new wife, who had also been employed on the Snowy Mountains Scheme, travelled through Europe on an extended honeymoon. They settled in London where Brian worked for the engineering firm Rendel, Palmer & Tritton until June 1962. After returning to Australia later that year, they moved to Khancoban for Brian to work again for the Snowy Mountains Scheme. They lived subsequently in Sydney and Melbourne, with Brian working on various engineering projects until 1970. In that year he joined PA Management Consultants and worked on various projects in Australia and New Zealand until 1976 when he joined McLachlan Consultants. He retired in 1993, having married Judith (Judy) Walker in 1990 after his first marriage was dissolved. Brian and Judy moved to a rural retreat in the Strathbogie Ranges near Euroa and subsequently built their own home at Warrandyte. At the time of his death, Brian was living in a retirement village in Doncaster. He is survived by Judy and three children from his first marriage.
denouement to John’s astonishing athletic career, which culminated with the honour of reading the athletes’ oath at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and a bronze medal in the 1500 metres. He retired from athletics in 1957 and later served on several boards and committees related to sport, including as president of Athletics International.
Timbertop was also the ideal place for John to indulge his interest in beetles and particularly butterflies, which had emerged in childhood and continued throughout his life. Many early Timbertop students benefitted from his extensive knowledge and enthusiasm, developing their own collections. John’s junior entomologists identified a Tailed Emperor butterfly, a species previously unseen in Victoria, as well as several rare moths and beetles. John left Timbertop at the end of 1958 to work first for the National Parks Authority of Victoria, and then for a period of 21 years as a scientist and senior manager for ICI. He later chaired the Meat Research, and Wool and Research Development corporations, helped to establish the Land Conservation Council, served on the boards of the Australian National Insect Collection and Clean-up Australia, and as president of Greening Australia. His passionate interest in conservation resulted in two books, Close to Nature (1985) and A Coastal Diary (1993). In 2018, he donated his significant collection of thousands of butterfly specimens, accumulated over 75 years, to the Australian Museum. From 2001 to 2006, John Landy served as Governor of Victoria, a position he was initially reluctant to accept. He acquiesced, in part, because he was mindful of the philosophy of his former headmaster, Sir James Darling, who had taught his pupils that public service was a duty to which all should aspire. He found the role fulfilling and rewarding. In his last month in office, he returned to the track to carry the Queen’s Baton around the Melbourne Cricket Ground at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
John Landy married Lynne Fisher, a journalist, in 1971. She survives him, along with their two children Matthew and Alison, and grandchildren Isla, Neve and Maya.
1958IanHore-LacyLeslie (P’58), who was born on 27 March 1940 and died on 2 December 2021, was a global expert on nuclear power, an author and lay theologian. Ian was the youngest son of Commander Dyson Hore-Lacy (GGS’09), a naval officer who served with distinction in both world wars, and his wife Evelyn (née Corbould). The couple had three older sons, John, Michael and David. Sadly, Michael died from peritonitis aged 11 and David died at birth. Dyson later married Mardie Haggard, mother of Geoffrey Haggard (M’44). Ian came to GGS in 1951. His year at Timbertop in 1956 awakened an interest in the Australian bush. His article on bird photography in the 1956 Timbertop Magazine provided detailed instructions on building a unipod for use in close-up bird photography, and especially advocated photographing nesting birds, and leaving their eggs alone. At Corio, he was secretary of the Camera Club and Natural History Society, and was also involved with the school museum and school press. He was awarded the Garrard Prize for Natural History in 1957 and 1958. He matriculated in 1958 with first-class honours in chemistry and physics, and a Commonwealth AfterScholarship.graduating from the University of New England with a Bachelor of Science with honours, followed by a Master of Science at the University of Melbourne, for three years Ian was senior biology master at The Geelong College. He became an environmental scientist with CRA Ltd (later Rio Tinto) in 1974. During this period, he developed a particular interest in uranium mining and nuclear energy. From 1995 to 2001, he was general manager of the Uranium Information Centre in Melbourne, in which role he provided expert information on nuclear power to uranium miners and explorers. His next role was with the World Nuclear Association (WNA) based in London, where he was director for public communications, senior research analyst and latterly senior advisor. He retired in 2017.
The Corian records that Richard won School Colours for Rugby (he was a member of the 1964 Rugby premiership team and was selected in in the APS XV) and secured a Commonwealth Scholarship in his matriculation year. In an interview with Light Blue at the time he was guest speaker at the 2015 Tower Luncheon, Richard said he benefited particularly from the history and English teaching of Bill Lester (P’43), Michael Persse, Tim Murray (P’53), and Graeme Renney. Richard was among a cohort of students who valued insights provided by Graeme Renney on issues related to South East Asia on the cusp of the Vietnam war. “We assumed Graeme’s own politics were on the ‘pinkish’ side –like the colour of his Holden car,” Tony Walker said.
In retirement, Ian enjoyed 4WD expeditions in the Australian outback, mentoring young people, involvement with his church, and spending time with his family. He died, tragically, during a camping trip to the Snowy Mountains. He is survived by his wife Libby, children Anna, William, Fiona and David, and five grandchildren.
Richard first visited Indonesia in 1969. That was the year, he said, he fell in love with the country and his wife Janet. He graduated Master of Arts in 1970 from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He completed his PhD thesis in 1984 at Sydney University on the Ambonese separatist movement. He was a much-loved teacher at Universitas Indonesia (1987-1992) among students who offered a doa bersama, a joint prayer for him, a few days before his death. In Jakarta, he taught history and politics, and also directed the Centre for Australian Studies. In Australia, Richard tutored Indonesian studies at his alma mater Sydney University, and later lectured at Victoria University in Melbourne, where he was Head of the Department of Asian and International Studies (1998-2001), and Associate Professor and Director the Australia Asia Pacific Institute (2002-04). His last years were spent happily at the Asia Institute at Melbourne University.
As Jan, his wife of nearly 50 years, put it, “Richard worked hard as a professional historian to facilitate an understanding of shared, different and contested histories in Indonesia’s Eastern Provinces”. GGS classmate, journalist Tony Walker AM (FB’64), said, “Richard was helpful to me when I bothered him on occasions about developments in Papua. He was careful not to impose a view, but in his own quiet way led a witness.” Fellow academic Edward Aspinall, Professor of Politics at the Australian National University (ANU), noted Richard had left a “lasting legacy, not only in his important works of historical and political analysis, but in the impact he had on numerous students and colleagues”.
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1960 Frankie (Fairbairn,Beggs Clyde ’60) received a National Emergency Medal for her volunteer service to the communities of Mallacoota and Corryong during the Black Summer bushfires of 201920. The medal, which was established by Her Majesty the Queen in 2011, is an award of the Australian Honours System given for sustained service during a nationally significant emergency. Frankie has been a member of the Red Cross for more than 40 years and part of their emergency response team for much of that time. She was part of the first Red Cross team deployed to the relief centre in Corryong in late December 2019. “We were responsible for registering those evacuating, or returning, for the Register.Find.Reunite database, assisting them to apply for Red Cross grants, and administering psychological first aid,” Frankie said. “Which is really just listening to people; allowing them to pour it all out.” The importance of psychological first aid was emphasised by the lack of power and communications during the immediate aftermath of the fires. “Power in Corryong was supplied by a solitary generator, so residents couldn’t return until power was restored, while there was internet and phone outages, which made things a bit difficult when it came to data entry.” Frankie travelled more than 650km from her home in Nareeb in Western Victoria to Corryong in North East Victoria and, later, to Mallacoota in Gippsland to help the recovery, a large portion of which as part of an SES convoy due to the volume of road closures in the region. “I find it rewarding... giving support to people who are going through a terrible time,” Frankie said. “I’m lucky enough to be able to do that.”
1964Richard Harry Chauvel (M ’64), who was born on 11 October 1946 and died on 1 April 2022, brought a sense of history and purpose to a lifelong career as an Indonesia specialist with a particular interest in the separatist movements of the Moluccas and Papua. In pursuit of those topics in particular, and in his writings more generally about Indonesia, he was pre-eminent in his field.
Energy in the 21st Century, first published in 2006 and subsequently republished 10 times. Responsible Dominion: a Christian approach to sustainable development was also published in 2006. Ian created the Information Library, consisting of over 180 papers and considered the most authoritative online resource on nuclear energy in the world. In 2006, he was awarded the WNA Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Peaceful Worldwide Use of Nuclear Technology. He was a Fellow of ISCAST (Christians in Science and Technology) and was dedicated to Christian mission through organisations such as the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students and Zadok.
Chris conceived of Australians Studying Abroad (ASA) while teaching Art History at La Trobe and Melbourne universities in 1977. He envisaged ASA as an inexpensive means to explore the cultural capitals of the world with like-minded students. The venture grew into a strong business with expert tour leaders, ahead of its time. Chris was a quirky, charming lecturer and an exceptional photographer, his work published in Australia and internationally. In 1990, at St Michael’s Church in Collins Street, Chris married Kristen Hellstrom, who also became a director of ASA. Although the two separated in 1999, the business partnership endured, and Chris continued to lead tours regularly for ASA. His own informal tally exceeded 160 tours to 45 countries in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Kristen writes that Christopher “shared his passion for travel and his profound knowledge of art, history and architecture to thousands of ASA travellers for over forty years. In addition to his extraordinary teaching skills he was known for his sense of humour, and his kind and generous personality. His extraordinary understanding of world history saw him pioneer cultural tours throughout Europe, along the Silk Route and Central Asia, the Middle East and Iran. He developed close friendships and provided inspiration to people involved in cultural tourism around the globe.”
Richard is remembered by his friends as someone with a wry sense of humor, a self-deprecating manner and a certain doggedness in pursuit of his interests, academic and otherwise. He sustained enduring friendships from his days at Corio, including with great friend and skiing partner Hamish Mackay (M’65). Richard was an avid skier and skied until not long before his death. As it happened, his skiing enthusiasm provided a connection with his aunt, Elyne Mitchell OAM, author of many books, including The Silver Brumby, and winner of ski accolades herself. Richard was the grandson of General Sir Henry ‘Harry’ Chauvel GCMG KCB and the son of Edward Chauvel (Cu’25). He is survived by his wife, Jan, children, Hugh (FB’01) and Emily (Cl’03), and grandchildren, Alvie, Jules, Harry and Max.
1976 Ian Chesterman AM (A’76) was elected as president of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) in April, defeating triple Olympic medallist Mark Stockwell 67-26 in a vote of delegates at the AOC Annual General Meeting (AGM). Ian was first elected to the AOC Executive in 2001, becoming vice president in 2016, and was made an AOC Life Member in 2018. He was Chef de Mission for the Australian Winter Olympic Teams at Nagano 1998, Salt Lake City 2002, Torino 2006, Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014 and Pyeong Chang 2018. In 2021, Ian was Chef de Mission of the Australian Team at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, becoming the first Australian to head both a summer and winter Olympic Team, and the first to lead a total of seven Olympic teams. Ian becomes the seventh AOC president, succeeding John Coates, who stepped down after 32 years. “My vision for the Olympic movement is about making sure we continue to create opportunities for young Australians,” Ian said. “We really want to use this opportunity going forward to Brisbane, having built a fantastic platform in Tokyo, to drive our Olympic sports, to encourage kids to dream, not about becoming an AFL player or an NRL player, but becoming an Olympian.” Ian was the executive director of the Australian Ski Federation before founding communications and events company Sportcom in 1988, working with AFL Tasmania, Targa Tasmania and the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. Ian was an outstanding athlete at GGS. He was Captain of Athletics, winning the Open triple jump at the combined APS Athletics in 1977 and setting an APS record. He was the Open Boys’ Champion at the GGS Athletics Carnival, winning the long jump, triple jump and discus, finishing second in shotput, and third in the high jump and 100m sprint. He was also a member of the 1st XI Cricket team and Captain of the 2nd XVIII Football team. Ian was the inaugural president of the Sir James Darling Debating Society and received the Myrna Brown Prize for Commercial Studies.
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Chris credited his family with fostering his own cultural education. After five years at Bostock House, he accompanied his parents for a year in England with side excursions to Europe – a formative experience. He returned to Corio for Senior School, gaining matriculation honours in art and history, before completing his BA at The University of Melbourne. His brother David attended Bostock for Years 5 and 6 and then The Geelong College after earlier schooling at St Andrew’s Private School, founded by his artistic great aunts and now the home of Bostock House in Noble Street.
1967Christopher Graham Wood (Ge’67), who was born on 26 June 1950 and died on 2 March 2022, was founding director of international cultural travel company Australians Studying Abroad (ASA). Chris was the elder son of maritime architect John Graham Wood and librarian Patricia Wood, growing up in Shannon Street, Geelong, with his younger brother David (now Emeritus Professor and former Deputy Vice Chancellor at Curtin University). His mother occupied a special place in the history of The Geelong College as the first female member of its Senior School teaching staff, from 1959 until her retirement in 1981, overseeing the modernisation of the George Morrison Memorial Library. Pat’s earliest childhood years were spent at Corio. Her father Charles Ripley Bull (Staff 1927-39) was the senior English master, librarian and master in charge of the Corian. In 1939 he joined the education section of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (now the ABC), becoming its Director of Education. Weston Bate in Light Blue Down Under writes extensively of Charles Bull’s contribution to the life of the School in an era of cultural renaissance at Corio.
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8. The reunion groups catching up over a meal in the dining hall 9. Mark Horridge (Cu’72), Peter Sanbrook (Timbertop’72) and Louise Officer (Li’74)
10.Jeremy Russell-Smith (Cu’72), Neil Bird (Cu’72) and Alister Haigh (Cu’72)
1. Jim Darby (A’74), Alistair Ogilvie (FB’74), Rod Edwards (FB’74) and Rob de Fegely (FB’74)
6. Exploring the campus 7. Boyd Carter (Cu’72), Robert Latham (Cu’72), Finn Koren (FB’72) and Andy Collins (M’72)
2. Finn Koren (FB’72), Peter Marriott (FB’73), Robert Latham (Cu’72), Tim Simmons (FB’72), Andy Collins (M’72), Boyd Carter (Cu’72), Nigel Officer (FB’72), Mac Connell (M’72), Alister Haigh (Cu’72) and Jim Lowe (M’73)
3. Manson Ignace (P’74), High Dixson (Cu’74), Malcolm McPhee (Cu’74) and Anne Schnittler (Taylor, Li’74) 4. Ross Hopkins, acting Head of Timbertop, addressing the reunion groups
5. Andy Collins (M’72), Tim Simmons (FB’72), Nigel Officer (FB’72), Peter Clarke (FB’72), Mac Connell (M’72), Boyd Carter (Cu’72) and Finn Koren (FB’72)
11.Susan and David Sleigh (M’73) and Paddy Handbury (M’72)
12.Neil Bird (Cu’72), Will Jones (Cu’72) and Kyu Wan Choi 13.Ross Manning (P’73), Colin Cameron (P’73), Nick Buchdahl (Cu’73) and Bill Fazio (P’73)
14.Caroline Woods (Cl’81), David Lam (FB’81) and Rob Stewart (FB’81)
51 6 7 2 3 4 118 129 14 15 101613
3. Caroline Pescott (Mackenzie, Cl’81), Clea Efstathiadis (Lewis, Cl’81) and Edwina Sinclair (Kinnear, Cl’81)
1. Julian Twigg (FB’81) and Martin Clydesdale (Fr’81)
7. Georgie Crozier (Je’81), Tim Hegarty (A’81), Rob Walton (FB’81) and Simon Perry (P’81)
8. Jack Stoney (FB’81), Patrick Southey (FB’81), Michael Coke (Cu’81) and Nic Kentish (Cu’81)
9. Heather Cook-Gearon (Cl’80), Robert Oliphant (A’80) and Dean Margaritis (FB’81)
2. Derek Weigall (Fr’81) and Will McKenzie (Fr’81)
4. Miff Shelton (Bowen, A’81), Erina Officer (Je’81) and Deborah Maddison (Lempriere Hogg, A’80)
11.Andrew Burgess (FB’81) and Ed Calvert (FB’81)
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5. Fiona Purnell (Highton’77), Jacqui Cato (Scott, Cl’81) and Lisa Hayes (Landy, Cl’81)
6. Frank Cirillo (Cu’79), Liza Hurley (Montague, Je’81) and Fiona Stanway (Thomson, Je’80)
15.Andrew Byron (Fr’81), Andrew Carter (A’81) and Howard Miles (M’81) Peter Roper (M’81) and George Jordan (A’81)
12.Charlie Gubbins (M’81) and Steve Mitchell (FB’81)
10.David Ritchie (P’80), Eve Lester (Fr’81), Debra Winfield (A’81) and Amanda McFadden (Woods, Je’81)
13.Charles de Nanteuil (M’81), Edwina Sinclair (Kinnear, Cl’81) and Patrick Southey (FB’81)
16.
Richard has been the deputy leader of the Labor Party since 2019 and previously served as deputy leader of the Opposition. He was a Parliamentary Secretary from 2009 to 2013 and served as Minister for Trade in the second Rudd Government in 2013. He was a member of the Shadow Cabinet from Labor’s defeat at the 2013 election to their victory at the 2022 election. His appointments included Shadow Minister for National Reconstruction, Employment, Skills and Small Business, Shadow Minister for Science, Shadow Minister for Defence, and Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection.
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1989Simon Holmes à Court (P’89) was another OGG active during the election campaign as the founder of Climate 200, a crowd-funding initiative that financially supported 23 independent political candidates, including Kylea Tink in North Sydney, Allegra Spender in Wentworth, Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, Dr Monique Ryan in Kooyong, and Dr Sophie Scamps in Mackellar.
After graduating from GGS, Simon studied computer science at Dartmouth College in the USA and began his career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley. He returned to Australia in 2001, working for his family’s Heytesbury Group, which owns a number of large cattle stations in northern Australia, including the famous Victoria River Downs (referred to as ‘The Big Run’). Simon spent more than a decade in water management/precision agriculture, establishing a company (Observant) to develop remote water monitoring systems. He was a driving force behind the country’s first communityowned wind farm, Hepburn Wind, near Daylesford in Central Victoria, and became an energy analyst, investor and philanthropist. Simon is a director of the Smart Energy Council and is a senior advisor to the Climate and Energy College at the Energy Transition Hub at Melbourne University, which is a joint project between Melbourne University, the Australian National University (ANU) and three major German universities.
Whilst most sources trace the beginning of Richard’s political journey back to when he joined the Melbourne University Labor Club in his first week at university (where he went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Laws with Honours), others recall his active role in debating at GGS. He reflected on his schooldays in a pre-election interview with the Sunday Herald Sun. “I loved my time at Geelong Grammar. I had a unique experience in that my father taught there, so it’s not just where I went to school, it is where I grew up. It had a wonderful sense of community. It had an incredible ability to find a place for every kid.”
1984Richard Marles (P’84) was sworn in as Australia’s 19th Deputy Prime Minister following the 2022 Australian federal election. Richard will also serve as the Minister for Defence in the new Labor Government, led by Australia’s 31st Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Richard was almost immediately thrust into the role of Acting Prime Minister when Albanese flew to Tokyo for a meeting of the quadrilateral security dialogue (Quad) with the US, India and Japan. Richard said that being sworn in as Deputy PM was one of the highlights of his political life, “up there with the moment of entering the parliament” in 2007. “I feel very lucky to have been able to have the opportunity that I have,” he said. “The starting point of that is being able to represent the people of Geelong. Whatever else we do, the most significant thing for me is being the member for Corio. It’s particularly the case given this is the place where I’ve spent most of my life and where I grew up.”
Simon established Climate 200 in the lead up to the 2019 election, frustrated by a perceived lack of meaningful government action on climate change, which he outlined in a 2018 article for The Guardian website about why the Liddell coal-fired power station in New South Wales should close. Climate 200 super-charged its fundraising and advocacy ahead of the 2022 election, raising more than $9 million from more than 11,000 donors from across all 151 electorates. Simon addressed the National Press Club in February to discuss the three criteria (action on climate, integrity, and gender diversity) for candidates to receive funding and support from Climate 200. He weathered a storm of media attention throughout the election campaign and said the subsequent result (six independent candidates supported by Climate 200 were elected to the lower house) was “a moment to celebrate the success of these community independents and the support they have received across the country”. Simon has since indicated that Climate 200 will support candidates in Victoria’s November 2022 election and NSW’s election in March 2023. “Climate 200 didn’t start the movement and we are only a small piece of the tapestry. But where we can help it along, we’ll be there.”
Richard’s time in student politics culminated with his election as the general secretary of the National Union of Students in 1989. After a brief period as an industrial lawyer, he became legal officer for the Transport Workers Union (TWU) in 1994 and was elected TWU national assistant secretary four years later. In 2000, he joined Australia’s peak national union body, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), as assistant secretary, remaining in the position until 2007, when he was elected to the Australian Parliament as the Member for Corio.
2010Charlie VickersWillis (FB’10) will portray Halbrand in Amazon Studios’ highly anticipated TV series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power scheduled to premiere on Amazon Prime Video in September. The series is based on the fantasy world created by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings and is set in the Second Age of Middleearth, thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
. Filming for the first eight-episode season took place in New Zealand across 2020-2021 and the five-season production is predicted to be the most expensive television series ever made. Charlie was School Captain in 2010 and received the Juan José Garcia Prize for Drama, with then Head of Drama, Michelle Badior, hailing his “spirit and courage”. “Charlie made a unique and gifted contribution to the life of theatre in our School as a cast member of seven major productions – playing major roles in six of them, the first when he was in Year 6,” Michelle wrote in the Corian. “His resourcefulness, audacity and humility have provided great leadership and given joy to many audiences.”
2012Emily Mannix (Fr’12) was vice captain of the Melbourne Vixens team that won the minor premiership in the 2022 Super Netball season, before losing the grand final to West Coast Fever in front of a record crowd at RAC Arena in Perth on Sunday 3 July. Emily was the hero of the Vixens’ thrilling 5554 preliminary final win against the Giants (Greater Western Sydney) with a match-winning intercept (her third of the game) in the dying seconds.
Vixens squad member Ruby Barkmeyer (Ga’18), elevated as a replacement player for the preliminary final, also played a crucial role in the win. Ruby was rewarded with the Coaches’ Award at the Vixens’ end of year awards, which is presented to a player deemed to have shown significant improvement in competition and training and played a valuable role for the team throughout the season, as selected by the coaching staff. The Vixens had a strong GGS presence in 2022, with long-serving 1st Netball Coach (2006-21), Di Honey, taking on a full-time role as Assistant Coach at the Vixens for the 2022 season.
2005James Crawley (P’05) has written and directed a feature-length documentary, Volcano Man, that will premiere at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival in August. The film is about James’s father, Englishborn photographer Richard Crawley, who lives at Tower Hill, an inactive volcano on Victoria’s south-west coast. The film was funded by the MIFF Premiere Fund and VicScreen and is a co-production with GoodThing Productions (Nitram, Off Country, The Australian Dream). James is the founder and creative director of Sydney-based communications and advertising agency, Common Ventures, and has directed several award-winning advertisements, including Mumbrella's 2019 TV Ad of the Year for the Australian Federal Police’s Missing Persons Week, as well as campaigns for Tourism NT, Coca-Cola, American Express and Qantas.
Charlie went on to perform in various productions with the Queen’s College Music and Drama Society (MADS) whilst at Melbourne University before studying at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London from 2014-2017. He appeared in Netflix’s Medici: Masters of Florence opposite Sean Bean in 2018 and had a role in the 2019 Australian feature film Palm Beach, opposite Greta Scaachi, Richard E. Grant and Sam Neill.
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1994Penny Whitehead (Agar, A’94) was a panellist at the Geelong Young Professionals’ networking event in March that discussed the tourism and culture industry in the Geelong region. Penny is the Deputy Director - Development and Commercial Operations at the Geelong Gallery. The Geelong Gallery won the Cultural Tourism category at the Victorian Tourism Awards in February. Penny joined the Geelong Gallery in 2017 and manages four key business units: Development (partnerships and sponsorships), Commercial Operations, Marketing & Communications, and front-of-house Visitor Services functions. Penny had previously worked as a consultant to the Gallery through her marketing and PR company, Provincial Wisdom, which also provided marketing, sponsorship, social media and PR services to the Lorne Business & Tourism Association (Love Lorne), Austin’s Wines, Zeally Bay Sourdough and the Barrabool Hills Brewery. More recently, Penny was selected to participate in the ACMI CEO Digital Mentoring Program.
2. Fiona Richardson (Cl’91), Nikki Lewis (Anderson, Cl’91), Chloe White (Lewisohn, Cl’91) and Eda Williamson (Hindhaugh, Cl’91)
4. Lucy Plowman (Cl’91) and Sarah Plowman (Je’90)
6. Tom Watson (M’91), Lynn Clark (Robbins, Je’91) and Fiona Luth (Ingram, Cl’91)
3. James Hamilton (Cu’91), Marcus Duckett (M’91), Sam a’Beckett (M’91) and Andrew Beacham (M’91)
5. Georgie Allen (Cl’91), Bindi Whitehead (Sheahan, Ga’91), John Richmond (M’91), Peter McKendrick (M’91) and Kirsty Rudge (Stansmore, Cl’91)
7. Sophia Legoe (Cl’91), Lucy Plowman (Cl’91), Kirsty Rudge (nee Stansmore, Cl’91) and Fiona Luth (Ingram, Cl’91) 8. Eloise Kinnear (Je’91), Sarah Plowman (Je’90) and Barnie Bouchaud (P’91) 9. Hugh Bowman (P’91) and Sophia Legoe (Cl’91)
12.Lucy Hayes (Fr’91), Georgie Allen (Cl’91), Geneen Corroy (nee Heathcote, Je’91) and Annie Exell (Cl’91)
13. Peter McKendrick (M’91), John Richmond (M’91), Tom Watson (M’91), Richard Circuitt (M’91)
1. Ali Hamson (Je’91) and Lynn Clark (Robbins, Je’91)
14. Sarah Benson (Je’91), Ali Hamson (Je’91) and Quimby Oddie (Mills, Je’91)
11. John Pettit (Fr’91), Eda Williamson (Hindhaugh, Cl’91) and Ben Stewart (A’91)
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10. Simon Schwarz (FB’91), Nick Renyard (FB’91) and Roland Crocker (Fr’91)
15. Andrea McKay (A’90), Rohan Gordon (Cu’90) and Annabelle Brown (Cl’91) 16. Bindi Whitehead (Sheahan, Ga’91) and Eloise Kinnear (Je’91)
2. Oscar Philip (P’17), Jarrod Walters (P’17) and Julian Musco (FB’17)
7. Millie Heeran (A’17), Harry Wyatt (A’17) and Stephanie Brook (EM’15)
1. Nic Jarvis (FB’15), Lucy Elsworth (Timbertop’14), Abbie Whitton (EM’17) and Lochie Kimpton (Fr’17)
9. Grace Beasley (He’15) and Serena Brookes (Cl’17)
10. Jack Wilson (Cu’17), Olivia Devilee (Cl’17), Rosie Allen (Ga’17), James Verheggen (M’17) and Jamima Jamieson (Cl’17)
17. Millie Fischer (Cl’17), Lucia Morris (Cl’17) and Anna van de Merwe (Cl’17)
3. Broughton Underwood (Cu’17) and James Mentha (M’17)
15. Cecilia Lowrey (He’17), Lucy Needle (Cl’17), Issy Mackey (Fr’17), Genevieve Brand (Cl’17) and Emily Richards (He’17)
6. Eliza Byrne (Cl’17), Piper Kelly (He’17), Scarlett Frith (He’17) and Omar Sella (Cu’17)
16. Al Bates (FB’17), Daniel Ewing (FB’17), Molly Duff (Ga’17), Isaac Mahlab (FB’17) and Zac Patel (Fr’17)
11. Toby Frielink (M’17), Oscar Fowles (M’17) and Sam Landale (M’17)
12. Lloyd Russell (M’17), Lionel Eisenbruch (Toorak’11) and Jinbo Yu (M’17)
4. Tarryn Love (A’17), Ellie Mackey (Fr’17), Daniel Ewing (FB’17), Finn Orford (A’17) and Lochie Radcliffe (P’17)
8. Ole Royston (EM’17), Soph George (Ga’17) and Mani Kubendran (Ga’17)
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14. Xanthe Barr-Smith (Ga’17) and Laura Perry (Ga’17)
5. Andrew Ang (FB’17), Dev Batra (Cu’17) and Al Bates (FB’17)
13. Tom Eisner (Cu’17), Ben Leckie (P’17), Daniel White (P’17) and Lewis Martin (A’17)
Henley Regatta
50 LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
Fred and the UC Berkeley Student Men’s 4+ progressed through three heats – including a narrow victory against PAC-12 collegiate rival the University of Washington – to reach the final against Oxford Brookes University over the gruelling 2,100m course. The UC Berkeley crew led at the halfway point of the race but were gradually overhauled by the Oxford Brookes University; the final margin was one length.
2016LaurenRyan(Cl’16) represented Australia at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, in March. Lauren was one of two Australians to qualify for the Women’s 3000m event, having recorded the fastest time (8:47.88) in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) this season (and the fourth fastest 3000m of all-time in NCAA competition) representing Florida State University (FSU). Lauren was an outstanding long-distance runner during her time at GGS and she still holds the Open Girls’ 1500m and 3000m School Records. She has already represented Australia at underage level at the World Junior Athletics Championships in 2016 and World Cross Country Championships in 2017. Lauren spent two years studying and competing for Villanova, in Pennsylvania, before transferring to FSU. After a successful first season at FSU in 2019, in which she qualified for the NCAA Championships, Lauren experienced a knee injury at the end of the year before returning home to Australia in 2020 due to the pandemic; a move that proved to reignite Lauren’s passion for running. “When I went back home, it kind of put me back in the moment of where it all started,” she told the FSU website. “I was training right outside my doorstep, at the same location where I’ve been training at since I was young. My success started in the 10th grade when I was out there by myself, running because I wanted to run. Being back home where it all began, it was just a reality check at the time.” Lauren returned to FSU ahead of the 2021-22 season and, in the space of three months, she set a new school record (indoor) in both the 3000m (8:47.88) and 5000m (15:40.40) events. She warmed up for the World Indoor Championships by finishing fourth in the 3000m at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Alabama.
2020AngusO’Brien (Fr’20) completed his first season of collegiate golf at Seton Hall University by contesting the NCAA Regional Finals at Yale University in May. With the top five schools advancing to the NCAA Finals, Seton Hall settled for an eighth-place finish in their season finale. The highlight of Angus’s season came at the Big East championships in late April. Seton Hall won the Big East title – contested by the 10 Big East member schools – for the first time in 22 years, with Angus finishing in a tie for sixth individually after shooting 2-under across three rounds. Zoe Walters (Ga’20) made her professional stage debut as Mavis Moreton in the Queensland Theatre Company’s production of The Sunshine Club at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) from July 9-30. Set in Brisbane in 1946, the musical centres around Frank Doyle, an Aboriginal serviceman who has come home from World War 2 to find that although the wider world may have changed, attitudes back home are just the same. Filled with a defiant energy and ambition for a better life, Frank starts The Sunshine Club, a place where black and white can meet and, most importantly, dance. “It’s a beautiful musical about racial equality and interracial love post World War 2, written and directed by the wonderful Wesley Enoch,” Zoe explained. “It’s been just as fun and eye opening as it has been hectic and stressful.” Zoe was Captain of Drama at GGS and received the Juan José Garcia Prize for Drama. She is currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting) at QUT and featured in the Off Country documentary, which was re-edited as a 4-part TV series and broadcast on SBS in July. This year’s Henley Regatta, contested on the River Thames across six days in June-July, played host to a record-breaking 419 crews from across the globe; among them, competing in front of thousands of spectators, were four Old Geelong Grammarians.
Jane Perrignon (EM’17), Fred Roper (M’17) and Sophie Ward (Cl’20) represented the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in the Student Women’s 4+, Student Men’s 4+ and Student Women’s 8+ respectively, while Star Rose Miller (He’21) represented the Sydney Rowing Club in the Club Women’s 8+ division. Jane, Sophie and Star Rose each reached the quarter finals in their event, while Fred’s crew finished second in the final of the Prince Albert Challenge Cup.
2. Mark Leslie (M’99), Nick Bayne (FB’97), Jimmy Legoe (M’97), Tim Bayles (FB’99)
4. Jock Mitchell (FB’18), Howie Japp (OSC), Noah Lever (OGC), Charlie Sprague (OGC) 5. Mark Avery (FB’97) 6. Henry Mackinnon (M’09)
7. Mark Leslie (M’99) 5
OGG Sport
The APS Golf Day is an annual event and women players are warmly invited to join the team next year to keep the Cup with the OGGs.
51LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL
The Old Geelong Grammarians were the overall winners of the annual APS Golf Day at Royal Melbourne on Friday 6 May, taking home the coveted Arthur Robinson Cup. Past students from 11 schools competed in the annual event, with the OGGs topping the overall leaderboard (average of top 8 scores) on -0.75, well ahead of runners-up Old Xaverians on -2.38 and St Kevin’s on -3.00. The OGGs’ top 8 players were Ben Couch (P’97) and Jock Mitchell (FB’18) on -4, Tom Cohen (M’09) on -3, Hamish Cole (M’94) on -1, Henry Mackinnon (M’09) on 0, Jimmy Legoe (M’97) on +1, Nick Bayne (FB’97) on +2, and Ben Grodski (FB’91) on +3.
2
OGGs win APS Golf
The OGGs collected several other prizes, led by Ben Couch winning the prestigious George E Dickinson Cup for best scratch par score for -4 off a handicap of 2. Jimmy Legoe and Nick Bayne combined to win the JS Campbell-RR Buxton Shield (best 4BBB par score) with a score of +10, while Ben Grodski won the President’s Trophy (winning score by school) and was edged for the Murray Buxton Perpetual Trophy (best par score) on countback. Harry Smiles (FB’02) was nearest to the pin on the 14th hole, Hamish Cole was nearest to the pin on the 16th hole, while Ben Couch logged the longest drive on the 17th hole and Tom Cohen was longest on the 18th.
1. The winning OGG team – Jock Mitchell (FB’18), Tom Cohen (M’09), Henry Mackinnon (M’09), Jimmy Legoe (M’97), Nick Bayne (FB’97), Hamish Cole (M’94), Ben Couch (P’97), Ben Grodski (FB’91)
3. Henry Mackinnon (M’09), Tom Cohen (M’09), Harry Smiles (FB’02), Christian Frost (Fr’06)
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Attendance at reunions remains healthy. Most recently, the 2017 5-year Reunion was held at South Wharf in Melbourne with more than 130 OGGs in attendance.
Reunions We continue to navigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and have been fortunate to host several reunions in 2022 following two years of restrictions that hampered our ability to conduct many of our normal activities. In particular, decade reunions, a milestone that many OGGs look forward to as a great opportunity to reconnect with former classmates, had to be cancelled or postponed in 2020 and 2021. After an OGG Committee discussion in November 2021, a reunion strategy was agreed to deal with the backlog of reunions. Staff resourcing in the OGG Office was a critical factor to consider. Consequently, some reunion committees were asked to consider delaying their reunions so that the backlog could be spread across a number of years, allowing the OGG Office to provide administrative assistance to all reunions. Due to the restricted access at the Timbertop campus, Timbertop reunions are being held in a different format for 2022 as the backlog is caught up. A combined 1970, 1971 and 1972 50-year Timbertop reunion was held at Timbertop in April with a morning tea, lunch and a tour of the campus, with reunion committees making their own arrangements for other activities. This was graciously and enthusiastically adopted by reunion committees, who organised separate Friday night and Saturday night meals at local pubs and restaurants for their respective year groups. The same format will take place for the three 40-year Timbertop reunions scheduled for September.
OGG President – Andrew Burgess I am honoured to have been elected as President of the Old Geelong Grammarians Association. I have a strong and long connection to the School, dating back to when my great uncle, James Catanach (P’38), arrived at Corio in 1932. Since then, my father Reece (FB’56), siblings Matthew (FB’82), Simon (FB’84) and Edwina (Ga’88), and more recently my two daughters, Ella (Cl’15) and Zoe (Cl’17), have all attended GGS. Spending time back at Corio as a parent and dropping children at Timbertop reminded me just how special our School and our wider school community is. For many of us, the past few years have demonstrated how very important belonging to a community is and how lucky we are to be part of the OGG community. Over the next few years, the OGG Committee will work to engage, bring together and connect with as many of you as possible. So, if you see an OGG event in your area, we’d love to see or hear from you.
1. OGG President, Andrew Burgess (FB’81) (middle), presented long-serving staff Geoff Carlisle and Marina Oman (Levy, Je’76), with Honorary Life Membership at the OGG AGM.
2. Timbertop Catering Manager, Gerald Losa, was presented with his Honorary Life Membership at the combined 1970, 1971 and 1972 50-Year Timbertop reunion in April.
It is hard to imagine another OGG who had devoted such a large amount of time to supporting the School, and it was in the light of this extraordinary contribution that the OGG Committee had no hesitation in awarding Jeremy an OGG Fellowship. Other notable OGG Fellows include Jo Breadmore (FB’55), Michael Collins Persse, John Court AM (Cu’47), Frank Covill, John Fairfax AO (M’60), Garth Manton (P’48), John McInnes OAM (Cu’58), Dame Elisabeth Murdoch AC DBE (Clyde’26), Boz (Cecil) Parsons DFC (M’36), John Landy (M’48) and Peter Lemon (FB’64).
Established in 1954, the Old Geelong Football Club has long been popular with young OGGs looking for a sporting outlet on leaving school. It is also a magnet for other OGGs, those less interested in football or other sporting pursuits, who simply want to meet up with former school friends, and older OGGs (former players or not) happy to barrack from the sidelines and connect with old friends. While members of the football club include Old Geelong Collegians and a large number of players from elsewhere, the OGG Association has long supported the Old Geelong Football Club, recognising the support it provides young OGGs in particular. The OGG Committee was therefore proud to become a Benefactor of a Future Fund established by the football club to help secure the club’s financial future and to support young players across its four men’s (Seniors, Reserves, Thirds, U23s) and two women’s (Seniors, Reserves) teams. To this end, the OGG Association has donated $100,000 to the Future Fund, which will be paid in $25,000 instalments over four years.
I’d also like to thank those involved in the various OGG Branches and their committees throughout Australia and overseas, and those who have contributed their time to organise and assist with various OGG events and initiatives. We hope to support many more events in the future.
Upcoming OGG Events
OGG Website During 2021, we launched a new and greatly improved OGG website. The new website allows the OGG Association to offer a lot more in the way of connection between OGGs, including a streamlined OGG Mentoring Directory, a Business Directory and Search for Classmates tool, as well as a simplified login process. The OGG Committee will continue to look at ways of engaging with OGGs online. I encourage OGGs to go online and explore our new website: www.ogg.org.au
It is anticipated that the very popular Tower Luncheon will proceed this year on Saturday 5 November. This year will be the 21st Tower Luncheon, which is for people who have left school (GGS, Clyde and The Hermitage) 50 years ago or more. The OGG Association continues to look at additional opportunities to unite our alumni. Following the success of our online speakers’ series during COVID, we are developing an ongoing list of speakers to continue this program. We hope to roll out further lunchtime presentations in the coming year. As we move into a more stable post-COVID environment, we are also planning to re-introduce the OGG Business Lunch, which proved extremely popular in previous years. The committee is also investigating the possibility of a cocktail event with a focus on the arts.
OGG Fellow
The Rules of Incorporation of the OGG Association provide for the Committee to appoint as a Fellow of the Association any OGG, Honorary Life Member of the OGGs or member of School staff, who has in the opinion of the Committee provided “superlative service to the School or the Association”. Jeremy Kirkwood (FB’79) served on the School Council from 1996 until 2019, including 15 years as Chair (2004-19).
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OGG Committee I’d like to thank Ian Coltman (A’77, OGG President 2019-22, OGG Committee 2014-22) for his service and leadership over the past few years, which have been particularly difficult to navigate. Thanks also to our other retiring committee members, Annabel Bainger (Southey, Cl’02, OGG Vice President 2019-21, OGG Committee 2016-21) and Simon Kemp (Cu’70, OGG Vice President 2019-22, OGG Committee 2014-22), for their contributions to the OGG Association. Thanks also to the ongoing involvement of our current OGG Committee, Vice Presidents, Bill Ferguson (P’72) and James Robinson (FB’77), Treasurer, Rob Perry (A’83), COGA representative, Margie Gillett (Cordner, Clyde ’71), HOGA representative, Susie Donald (The Hermitage ’75), as well as Tristan Dwyer (Fr’01), Elly Grace (Siperki, Cl’94), Sandy Mackenzie (FB’59), Sophie Marsden-Smith (McQuillan, Fr’09) and Will Richardson (M’02). As many of you will know, our Honorary Secretary and Alumni Manager, Katie Rafferty (Spry, Ga’84), is currently away on well-earned long service leave. Arrangements have been made to fill her role while she is away.
Andrew Burgess (FB’81) OGG President 1 2
Old Geelong Future Fund
Australia Day
John Wilson (P’62) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to social welfare organisations.
John is a former board member and interim executive director of the Brotherhood of St Laurence. He was the inaugural CEO of Anglicare Victoria and also served as acting CEO of Sacred Heart Mission. John is a warden of St Stephen’s Richmond and a former warden of St Martin’s Hawksburn. Tony Walker (FB’64) was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to the media as a journalist, and to the community. After graduating with a BA in politics and international relations from the Australian National University (ANU) in 1968, Tony began his career as an ABC specialist trainee, working for Radio Australia, making programs and broadcasting from its Melbourne headquarters before relocating to Canberra, where he served as Radio Australia’s first Canberra correspondent. Tony transferred to The Age in 1976 and served in various posts, including defence and foreign affairs correspondent and chief of staff, before being posted to China in 1979 for Fairfax newspapers. There began a long career as a foreign correspondent for both Fairfax and the Financial Times of London, including postings to Beijing (1979-83), Cairo (1984-93), Beijing again (1993-98), and New York (1998-99). He returned to Australia as political editor for The Australian Financial Review (200004) before being posted to Washington as the AFR’s North American editor. He has been a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University since 2017 and continues to write regular columns for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, as well as The Conversation website. Tony has won two Walkley awards for commentary, was awarded the Centenary Medal for contributions to journalism in 2001 and won the Paul Lyneham Award for excellence in press gallery journalism in 2003. He wrote a biography of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, Arafat: The Biography (Virgin, 1994) and a tribute to the golfer Peter Thomson, The Peter Thomson Five (MUP, 2016). Tony is a board member of The Conversation and the CEW Bean Foundation. He is also a member of Monash University’s Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership and has been a director at the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education since 2013.
Victoria Marles (The Hermitage ’70) was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to conservation and the environment, and to the community. Since 2009, Victoria has served as CEO of Trust for Nature (the Victorian Conservation Trust), which helps restore, protect and manage biodiversity on private land in collaboration with private landholders, government, businesses and Aboriginal Victorians – around 100,000 hectares of privately owned land is protected via covenants or through Trust for Nature reserves. She is on the steering committee of the International Land Conservation Network (ILCN) and the Australian Business Biodiversity Initiative (ABBI). She is a board member of the Australian Land Conservation Alliance (ALCA), Australia’s first national organisation that brings together key participants in the private land conservation sector. Victoria is also a director of the Yarra Valley Water PriorCorporation.toassuming her role at Trust for Nature, Victoria was Victoria’s Legal Services Commissioner and CEO of the Legal Services Board. As a lawyer, Victoria specialised in media and communications law and policy. She was the Deputy Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and, prior to that, the deputy director of the Communications Law Centre. Victoria is currently a board member of the Consumer Action Law Centre and a director of the Australian Advertising Standards Council.
Victoria has a background in the arts, having graduated in drama from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). She is currently the chair of the Abbotsford Convent Foundation, was chair of the Circus Oz Board for 14 years, and has held board positions with various arts organisations, including the Victorian Arts Centre, Victorian Women’s Trust and Melbourne Writers Festival. Ian Sauer OAM (P’75) was awarded the Australian Fire Service Medal (AFSM). Ian has been a long-serving and committed volunteer firefighter with the Tasmania Fire Service in his local community of Pipers Brook, where he was Brigade Chief from 1983-98. Since 2014, Ian has been chair of the State Fire Management Council and a member of the Fuel Reduction Program Steering Committee, overseeing a strategic risk based program aimed at reducing bushfire risk across public and private land in Tasmania. He provides advice to the Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Management and the State Fire Commission on vegetation fire management in Tasmania and has successfully implemented numerous programs to improve fire safety in rural and farming areas of Tasmania.
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The late Beverley Pepper (Britten, The Hermitage ’49) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the local community of Coleraine.
Joe Crosbie (FB’61) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the community of Geelong.
Joe is treasurer of the Geelong Hockey Association (GHA) and has held a variety of roles with the GHA through the years. He has also been a long-serving local Lifeline volunteer, serving on the Geelong and South West board from 1997-2019, including nine years as chair (2011-19) and four years on Lifeline Australia’s board (2004-08). Geelong’s newly refurbished Lifeline call centre, which is now the largest in Australia, was recently named in Joe’s honour.
Jonathan is the author of approximately 30 books about Australian history, most recently Palestine Diaries: The Light Horsemen’s Own Story, Battle by Battle (Scribe, 2017). He organised the First Fleet Re-enactment Voyage to commemorate the Australian Bicentenary in 1988.
Jeremy Cox (Cu’89) was awarded the Public Service Medal (PSM) for outstanding public service to the people of New South Wales. Jeremy recently stepped down after six years as NSW Registrar General and Executive Director of the NSW Department of Customer Service having previously worked in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Tasmania’s Department of Treasury and Finance, and Victoria’s Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Rory Treweeke (P’60) was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to the rural community of New South Wales. Rory has owned Angledool Station, 40 kilometres north of Lightning Ridge near the NSWQueensland border, for more than 40 years. He has served in many industry and community roles, including as chair of the Murray-Darling Basin Community Committee, the Lower Balonne Floodplain Association, and the Western Catchment Management Authority. He was a member of the Great Artesian Basin Advisory Group, NSW Farmers Association, Local Land Services, Walgett Rural Counselling Service Advisory Committee and Rotary Club of Lightning Ridge. Rory is a life member of the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association (ICPA), having served in a variety of roles from 1973-88, including as federal president and NSW president, as well as serving as a member of the Board of Management of the National Centre for Research on Rural Education at The University of Western Australia (UWA) and a board member of AUSSAT, Australia’s national communications satellite company. Dr Jonathan King (M’60) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to community history.
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Queen’s Birthday Dr Peter Heysen (C’57) was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to general medicine, and to the community. Peter has been a general practitioner, founder and principal of Adelaide’s first multidisciplinary medical clinic, and clinical lecturer at both Flinders University and The University of Adelaide. He has served as vice chairman, treasurer and editor of the South Australian branch of the Royal Australian College of General Practice (RACGP), chair of the RACPG National Practice Management Committee, Chair of MedicAlert Australia and a member of the Medical Tribunal (SA). His community service includes St John Ambulance (42 years), the Rotary Club of Glenelg (45 years) and as an elected member of the City of Holdfast Bay council.
Garry Spry (FB’57) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the community of Queenscliffe. Garry served in local government on the Borough of Queenscliffe Council from 1974-80 and was the elected Member for Bellarine in the Victorian Parliament from 1992-2002.
The grandson of German-born Australian artist Sir Hans Heysen OBE, Peter was founder of both the Hans Heysen Foundation and the Nora Heysen Foundation (Peter’s aunt). He is focussed on ensuring that the Heysen contribution to art and culture is remembered for future generations of Australians. This has included transforming the historic Heysen family home and studio at Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills, known as The Cedars, into a museum and gallery.
Will was captain and later coach of the Australian bobsled team. Inspired by the 1993 film Cool Runnings, based on the true story of the Jamaica national bobsleigh team’s debut in competition during the 1988 Winter Olympics, Will and his team (nicknamed the ‘Aussie Bobs’) started out in November 1998, travelling to Canada with a coach to ride in a sled for the first time. Back in Melbourne, they trained on a makeshift 90-metre push track constructed inside an empty warehouse and competed in European and World Cup competitions, gaining enough points to qualify for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, while the team met the International Olympic Committee (IOC) requirements, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) did not select them to compete.
The Honourable Edvard (Will) Alstergren QC (M’78) was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to the judiciary and to the law, and to sport as an administrator, coach and athlete. Will is the Chief Justice of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia and is also Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. He practised as a barrister in Melbourne from 1991 and took silk in 2012. He was the Chairman of the Victorian Bar in 2013 and President of the Australian Bar Association in 2017. Will was appointed Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia in October 2017, held a dual appointment as Deputy Chief Justice of the Family Court from December 2017 and has presided over the Appeals Division of the Family Court since March 2018.
Monday 5 December 2022
The 1971 reunion at Rydges Geelong was well attended, with old girls travelling from South Australia and NSW. There was also a 1952 reunion in Geelong, with those in attendance enjoying a lovely catch up after many years; in some cases of not seeing each other for quite some time. A 1962 reunion is being organised for the Queenscliff Yacht Club in November by Sue Marriott AM (Cantor, The Hermitage ’61) and Susie Austin (Wall, The Hermitage ’61). Please contact Sue Marriott on smarriott@silc.com.au for more information. A 1972 reunion is planned for November 5. Please contact Prue Noble (The Hermitage ’72) and Sarah Tallent (Calvert, The Hermitage ’72) via Hermitage72reunion@gmail.com for more information. A reunion for 1977 leavers (1975 Year 10 girls) will be held at the AGM and Old Girls Day Luncheon on Saturday 3 AnyoneSeptember.who would like to nominate to join The Hermitage Old Girls Committee please email hermitagegirls@gmail.com. You would be most welcome. It is a small committee which achieves a lot.
56 LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL 04SECTION — MAILROOM
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Reunions
Saturday 3 September 2022
HOGA Golf Day, Barwon Heads Golf Club
HOGA Christmas Lunch
1. Autumn Lunch at The Royal South Yarra 2-3. Casual lunch at the Grovedale Hotel
Saturday 3 September 2022
HOGA Women's Interschool Golf Challenge
HOGA AGM and Old Girls' Day Lunch
Adelaide Reunion
HOGA Art Show, Barwon Heads Hall 18-20 November 2022
Calendar Dates
Monday 5 September 2022
Luncheons We held our annual Autumn Lunch at The Royal South Yarra Tennis Club in April. It is such a pleasant venue and everyone that attended had a lovely catch up after the last two years of COVID-19 restrictions. This has become a very popular event and we look forward to seeing many more ladies attend this function in the future. We also held our first Casual Lunch at the Grovedale Hotel in Geelong. We had a wonderful response and many age groups attended – there was a buzz in the air with lots of reminiscing going on. As one girl stated, even if you don’t really know anyone, you always have the common thread of The Hermitage which binds you together.
The Hermitage 1977 Year Leavers1975 Year 10 Girls Reunion
Thursday 6 October 2022
HOGA was well represented at the 93rd Women’s Interschool Golf Challenge Cup (WIGCC) at Commonwealth Golf Club on Monday 21 March. The HOGA team of Sandy Fraser (Bell, The Hermitage ’72), Sarah Tallent (Calvert, The Hermitage ’72), Suzy Hurley (Jones, The Hermitage ’73) and Wendy Speer (Laidlaw, The Hermitage ’73) finished with a middle of the competition score, but the girls all enjoyed their day and Sandy Fraser had the best score in 19 to 36 Handicap and won the Nell Goff Memorial Trophy, which was a very commendable effort. Please note that the date of the Annual Hermitage Golf Day at the Barwon Heads Golf Club has been changed to September 5.
the
COGA
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Women’s Interschool Golf Challenge
the 1942 The
Bottom:
Monday 10 October 2022 1972 50 Year Reunion Saturday 22 October 2022 Top:
The 93rd Women’s Interschool Golf Challenge Cup (WIGCC) was played at Commonwealth Golf Club on a foggy autumn morning on Monday 21 March. The mist finally lifted mid-morning to bathe the course and players in beautiful sunshine. This is always a very happy day where country and city players get together for competitive golf followed by a social time having lunch and catching up on all the news. This year’s Clyde team was Ann ‘Roo’ Rawlins (Hornabrook, Clyde ’59), Kate Robinson (Richardson, Clyde ’75), Deb Calvert (Moore, Clyde ’65) and Anna Tucker (Kimpton, Clyde ’71). As all four scores count in this unique event the pressure was on to get as many stableford points as possible. The Clyde team finished a creditable 10th out of 30 teams. The golf day raised $4,000 for McAuley Community Services for Women, which supports women and children who are victims of domestic violence, providing 24/7 crisis support and temporary accommodation, independent housing and supported community care. Our players are always so supportive of the charity, and we are extremely grateful for the donations of stall produce and raffle prizes. Next year’s WIGCC event will be played at the Yarra Yarra Golf Course – all players most welcome. Fun Cup 2022 After the disappointment of cancelling the Fun Cup due to COVID-19 we are planning to hold this year’s event at Sorrento Golf Club on Monday 10 October. Let’s rally the troops and get together to have some fun and play some golf. The more the merrier. Entry forms will be emailed in mid-August. Looking forward to seeing everyone then. Please contact Anna Tucker (Kimpton, Clyde ’71) via email on annatucker8@outlook.com or 0408540252. Fun Cup Golf, Sorrento Golf Club Drawing from Cluthan Drawing from 1975 Cluthan
The
Heandforcommendationsandhisbiographieshistories.co-authored Poor Souls, They Perished worstaboutPublishing,(Hargreen1986)Australia’sshipwreck(the Cataraqui, off the coast of King Island in 1845), which won the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Wilke Prize. He wrote The Pride of Miss McComas (Geelong Grammar School, 1999) about 111 years of the Toorak Preparatory Grammar School, known universally as Glamorgan (now Toorak Campus), which Andrew attended from 1954 to 1963. His biography of Tommy Garnett (Headmaster 1961-73), The Master Gardener (Hardie Grant, 2018), was long listed for the 2018 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award. In 2012, he was a John Daniels Research Fellow at the National Sporting Library and Museum at Middleburg, Virginia, USA. A past president of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Andrew holds the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Letters from The University of Melbourne.
CORIO BOOK CLUB
Matthew Ricketson (M’75) has co-authored a defence of the national broadcaster, Who Needs the ABC? (Scribe, March 2022). With co-author Patrick Mullins, Matthew provides a comprehensive guide to the ABC (which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year) and all that it does, as well as a warning that our national broadcaster should not be taken for granted. The book is “a compelling explanation of the combination of ideology and commercial self-interest which threatens the ABC and why they must not succeed,” according to Judith Brett, Emeritus Professor of politics at La Trobe University. The book contends that arguments of left-wing bias are largely overplayed, that a publicly funded broadcaster does much to cool down political radicalism by remaining a trusted source of news, and that the ABC remains one of the country’s biggest producers of cultural content. Matthew is currently a Professor of Communication at Deakin University. He was previously the inaugural Professor of Journalism at the University of Canberra (2009-2017) and ran the journalism program at RMIT for 11 years. He is the author of several books, including Upheaval – Disrupted lives in journalism (NewSouth Publishing, 2021) with Andrew Dodd (TT’80), and the biography of Australian children’s author Paul Jennings, The boy in the story is always me (Viking, 2000). Matthew also assisted former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein QC in the Independent Media Inquiry that reported to the Federal Government in 2012. Andrew Lemon AM (FB’67) has published his first novel, The Pebbled Beach at Pentecost: A Novel (Australian Scholarly Publishing, April 2022). Andrew is a multi award-winning historian, best known for his epic three volume History of Australian Thoroughbred Racing (joint winner of the 2009 Australian Society for Sports History biennial book prize). His first novel is based on a true colonial story set in England, Melbourne, Sydney, and the Pacific in the 1870s and 1880s. The book is described as a unique fusion of authentic history and informed invention – a tragic story of colonialism in Australia and the Pacific, told with compassion, humour and a deep understanding of time and place. “(It is) a rich, generous book and its scholarly underpinning is impressive,” according to literary critic, Dr Brenda Niall AO. Andrew tells the story of Vernon Lee Walker, a young Englishman from industrial Wolverhampton, who meets his death on a beach on Pentecost Island in the South Pacific on the eve of ChristmasAndrew1887.has won several awards
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To understand Australia’s complex and varied ecosystems, she worked on revegetation projects in alpine and coastal areas, and designed country gardens and shelter belts on farms in north-eastern Victoria. “This gave me a real insight into harsh conditions and how these plant communities had evolved to deal with them.” Ever since, her consistent values have been to relate the garden to its setting, and to ensure that it is relevant and practical for the owners’ needs. Fiona is renowned for her creative use of indigenous plants, often shaping and sculpting them to create unique forms and spaces rather than short-lived flower colour. Her own garden, Karkalla, on the Mornington Peninsula and adjacent to the national park, is a realisation of her ambition to design and build a garden that sits comfortably within the wider landscape. Photographed by Earl Carter, With Nature promises to surprise and delight with its inspiring ideas and planting styles designed to challenge the norm.
John Somerset (M’61) has been “amazed at the positive responses” to his debut novel, Lasseter’s Truth (Austin Macauley Publishers, May 2022), which he described as “basically a thriller of no literary merit whatsoever”. The novel follows the fortunes of a decorated Vietnam War helicopter pilot and his quest to find the infamous Lasseter’s Reef, a fabulously rich gold deposit in a remote and desolate corner of central Australia.
04SECTION — MAILROOM 59LIGHT BLUE - GEELONG GRAMMAR SCHOOL ↓
The story draws on John’s experience in advertising and 4WD expeditions in the outback, whilst he confessed that the “prestigious public school” featured in the novel is “loosely based on 1950s Geelong Grammar” with some “thinly disguised characters” from his time at the School. “I have dedicated it (Lasseter’s Truth) to my old English teacher Michael Collins Persse, who taught both me and Peter Carey in the same class, way back in 1961,” John said. Adriane Howell (Fr’03) will publish her debut novel, Hydra (Transit Lounge, August 2022), in August. Hydra has been described as a novel of dark suspense and mental disquiet, laced with black humour. Through the voice of her protagonist, a young antiques dealer who leases a derelict beachside cottage at a mysterious naval base, Adriane explores notions of moral culpability, revenge and memory. The novel was described as “a fever dream of a debut” by Australian author, Laura Elizabeth Woollett: “elegant, savage, and delightfully unhinged. From the treacherous auction houses of Melbourne to the sun-struck islands of Greece, Hydra took me places I never expected to go.” Adriane developed the manuscript during a Mudhouse Residency in the ancient village of Agios Ioannis on the Greek island of Crete in 2018. She completed a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing at Melbourne University in 2013 and co-founded the bi-annual literary journal Gargouille in 2014.
Fiona Brockhoff (Je’81) showcases her unique approach to garden and landscape design in her forthcoming book, With Nature (Hardie Grant, July 2022). Fiona is one of Australia’s most acrosssustainableforgaininglandscapecelebrateddesigners,areputationenvironmentallygardendesignthepast35years.
After completing her university studies at Burnley College, earning a degree in Applied Science, she set herself the task of learning how to design gardens that were “uniquely Australian”. “Learning to observe the landscape and nearby gardens teaches us many things about local conditions and what will thrive,” Fiona explained. “This is one of the most important tools we have to work with and has been critical to my approach of creating sustainable gardens and landscapes.”
JAMES R DARLINGOration
