Light Blue – August 2024

Wise choices

JAMES R. DARLING Medal for Service Oration TO SOCIETY

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 abuse.

Principal, 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”.

Rebecca 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.

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 0414 299 142 or by email: renee@sustainingconversations.com

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.

Healing & Hope

Healing & Hope is a unique initiative which has been established to endeavour to relieve the suffering and to provide practical comfort, assistance and support to survivors of child sexual abuse and victims of trauma within our Geelong Grammar School community, both past and present. To find out more please visit www.healingandhope.org.au, call or text 0438 561 747 or email: contact@healingandhope.org.au

Editor

Brendan McAloon

Design

Chloe Flemming

Claire Robson

Photographers

Mark Bond

Georgie Browne (A’17)

Claudine Collins (Timbertop ‘91)

Stef Driscoll

Mike Dugdale (FB’71)

Henry Huang (Yr11 M)

Brendan McAloon

Photographer London

Drew Ryan

Nick Sculley

Mary Thompson

Naomi Tobiasson

Contributors

Sophie Church

Nick Sculley

Elissa Gale

Alex Hocking (He’99)

Darren Watson

Website www.ggs.vic.edu.au

Email lightblue@ggs.vic.edu.au

Principal’s Perspective

WISE CHOICES: OUR LIGHT BLUE FOUNDATIONS

As Semester 1 2024 drew to a close, it was energising to reflect on the progress made in Terms 1 and 2. At our Corio campus, this time is marked by Founders’ Day and the opportunity to express gratitude for the vision and faith which inspired the pioneering establishment of Geelong Grammar School (GGS). The Sentences of Commemoration that are read during the Middle School luncheon and Senior School dinner place in sharp focus our School’s ongoing commitment to innovation. I recently invited our students to imagine that they had the opportunity to speak to our founders about the School’s progression from 1855 to now; specifically, what might those original clerical founders ask about our School today?

There is little doubt that in so many ways, such as the influence of technology and expansion of facilities, our students’ description of GGS would be wildly different to what our founders envisioned; however, there would be a very significant and recognisable through-line worth celebrating – the through-line of wisdom. Our founders gave us the gift of that aspiration and direction through the motto, Christus Nobis Factus Sapientia, that “Christ for us became wisdom”. Since the launch of our Strategic Framework in 2019, our contemporary interpretation has been expressed as Enabling Wisdom

Every day through the wise choices that we strive to make, for ourselves and for other people, we honour this foundational gift. In and of itself education is a gift for any young person, yet for our students this opportunity is grounded in the wise understanding that “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself” (John Dewey).

At our School, there is a distinct difference between schooling and education. We all need to be schooled: to be capable and demonstrate progress in the essentials of academic foundations, such as literacy and numeracy, yet at GGS we seek much more for the students in our care. As Australia’s largest co-educational boarding school, the education on offer is a 24/7 experience. We are learning formally in the classroom, and informally in so many ways – on Unit hikes and community service at Timbertop, in boarding houses and sporting fields at Corio, in the playground and art room at Bostock House, on the stage or in the Children’s Garden at Toorak Campus.

Adventurous, positive and creative learning and teaching at our School stretches far beyond a course and a curriculum. It is ultimately an education about citizenship. It is an education about character. We are learning and teaching for every aspect of life, including cognitive capacity, emotional regulation, social skills, faith and spiritual development, and so on – through our philosophy, educational model, beliefs and strategic horizon, we are honouring holistic growth and enabling wisdom in our lives.

With life as the overall education, strong families and learning communities endeavour to continually review, refresh and renew. Consequently, at GGS we are committed to a rigorous improvement agenda that prioritises contemporary, age-appropriate practices, as outlined in our Strategic Framework. Indeed, we have a moral and an ethical responsibility to progress our practices, thereby enabling our young people to be well supported to flourish and to navigate the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly complex world.

In a world that can feel highly volatile, we all have choices; even if at times of gross conflict, including war, the only choice remaining might be the shaping of our own mindset. Within the context of basic human rights being removed, the struggle must be profound. The proliferation of access to mass media means these struggles are visible to our young people and as such, conversations and modelling of coping mechanisms for processing confronting images and concepts become far more important. For their wellbeing and overall development, our students deserve to know that we prize people and their dignity; we extend the hopeful and compassionate hand of civic friendship.

“WE ARE ACUTELY AWARE THAT WE HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF AN EXCEPTIONAL EDUCATION AND WITH SUCH PRIVILEGE COMES TREMENDOUS RESPONSIBILITY”

Through the choices we make, our ultimate aspiration is to make a positive difference: at our School, it’s not only a positive difference for ourselves, it’s a positive difference for the entire community (locally, nationally, and internationally); indeed, we are acutely aware that we have the privilege of an exceptional education and with such privilege comes tremendous responsibility. Individually and collectively, we’ve been given many gifts as a community, and it is incumbent upon us to share those gifts liberally with the young people that we help to prosper.

The sharing of such gifts was at the heart of the Geelong Grammar School and Geelong Grammar Foundation Black Tie Dinner, held at the State Library of Victoria in Term 2. This biennial event is a celebration of our community – of who we are and who we aspire to be. As a respectful tribute to our founders, GGS continues to provide all students with the knowledge, faith and wisdom to create purposeful and meaningful lives: lives that look beyond self and answer the call of service to others. The Dinner recognised that ambition through awarding our fifth Geelong Grammar School Medal for Service to Society to long-serving UNICEF child protection and human rights campaigner, Amanda Bissex (A’87). The special celebration also recognised the gift of education through the 11th James R Darling Oration, offered masterfully by another Old Geelong Grammarian, the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Tasmania, Professor Rufus Black (Glamorgan ’81). It truly was a stellar occasion for our light blue

Mindful of our overarching 2024 student theme – wise choices – we thank Rufus and Amanda for their example; we are grateful for the reminder that our School is well placed to continue to uphold and model, kindly and humbly, what it means to aspire to be better and do better, for ourselves and for other people. Wise choices in the education of life connect us directly to our better selves and highest aspirations. Underpinning this is a clarion call to nourish our common humanity; it is no accident that our School Prayer places emphasis on perhaps the wisest choices of all –through deeds, love God and thy neighbour.

Creator of Heaven and Earth

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

Send upon us Your Holy Spirit

That we may learn to be wise

By loving you and our neighbour

In this school of the Lord’s Service.

Amen

Rebecca Cody Principal

Antony Baillieu (M’67) and Rebecca Cody supporting the 1st XVIII Football vs Melbourne Grammar

Chair of Council

WISE CHOICES

CHAIR OF COUNCIL

We all face choices in our everyday lives: big and small, difficult, challenging, fortuitous or unfortunate. These variously affect other choices already made and yet to come – and everything in between – just as much as we have the need to breathe. Formal definitions of wise choices generally express them logically as “having or showing the ability to make good judgments, based on a deep understanding and experience”. There is a particular episode of wise choices that I regard as worthy of recall.

GGS alumnus Anson Cameron (M’78), a novelist and fortnightly columnist for the Spectrum section of The Age newspaper, recently wrote a humble but telling acclamation to his former Manifold housemaster, the late Boz Parsons (M’36, Staff 1962-80), whose obituary is published on page 56 of this issue of Light Blue. Anson’s story is paraphrased here.

In 1941, during World War Two, Boz was co-pilot of a Halifax bomber flying across the North Sea to the Baltic to a target where the German marine forces were constructing a U-Boat bunker. Under heavy enemy flak and searchlights, the pilot had to fiercely zigzag his Halifax when the aircraft abruptly dropped a wing, stalled, and began to dive towards the icy Baltic Sea. The pilot had lost personal and mechanical control of the plane and began to call “bale out”.

“WERE WE ALL (YOUNG AND OLD) INSTILLED WITH UNBRIDLED WISDOM WE WOULD SELDOM MAKE UNWISE CHOICES.”

Boz realised that the pilot was struggling and “in a mess”, and that baling out would lead to the certain demise of the crew. Boz made the decision to take control and fly the plane to avert disaster. After Boz had pulled the bomber out of its dive and turned the plane for home, the now more-composed pilot resumed intercom connection with his crew. There was no reply from the rear gunner. He had disappeared. It soon transpired that the gunner had followed orders and baled out over the night sea. On the homeward leg to England the crew discussed their near miss and agreed with the pilot that what he had called over the intercom was “prepare to bale out”, which would have been a normal command in such circumstances. A collective choice was made to adhere to this stand.

Boz didn’t tell this story until long after the war. Anson wrote: “I think the crew made a good, brave decision”. Anson and his schoolmates under Boz’s charge tried to get him to talk of his war experiences, but without luck. Anson’s conclusion: “There was so much to admire about the man. And with the years I’ve come to fully appreciate his willingness to assent to that white lie formulated in the troposphere over the North Sea – and his quick ability to see and accept the frailties and failures that inhabit and inhibit us all. He acted in loco parentis over my friends and I for some years and saw and accepted a multitude of ours.”

While current day students are unlikely to undergo such an extraordinary ordeal in their lifetimes, it nonetheless serves to stress the importance of assessing and executing wise choices. Were we all (young and old) instilled with unbridled wisdom, we would seldom make unwise choices. The everyday world, of course, doesn’t operate in this way. But we are all blessed with the capacity to assess our options that drive our decisions and subsequent actions and outcomes. We are also fortunate to have the capacity to understand the reasons behind success or failure.

Most important of all is to accept the challenge to step up and, in common vernacular, ‘have a go’. This means being confident enough to make the wise choices that you regard as important, understanding what they may lead to – successful or otherwise – and accepting the outcomes and consequences. Some of us are ditherers who fret about what to do next, others are hotheads who make overly quick judgements and hold fast to their stance regardless of the outcomes. Standing still, doing nothing gets us nowhere; to appropriate from Lord Alfred Tennyson’s line that “it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”, I proffer that it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.

Remember, too, that opportunity always knocks. It’s not always at an inopportune time, but often equally fortuitously. It’s one of life’s lotteries. Think of your decision this way: a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity while an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. Or consider the so-called law of the instrument (variously attributed to several authors) that “if all you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail”.

This article is not intended as a lecture, but as a reflection on my personal stance on making choices and, perhaps, a helpful guide. I’ve made some shocking decisions over time, but I’ve made a raft of good ones too. And I’d like to (quietly) think that I made a wise choice in penning this! Over to you, wise decision makers of the future.

Paddy Handbury (M’72) Chair of Council

OPPORTUNITIES MISSED

OR IN OUR MIDST?

Have you ever felt like you missed out? Some have a fear of it, a fear of missing out, abbreviated to FOMO. I have to say that I have a list of missed opportunities in my life; opportunities I could have taken but for various reasons decided that I had other priorities, or that it would cost me too much in terms of time, energy and money, or because I was simply too distracted. For example, when Mrs Chappy and I go for a walk, which we do with our dogs every day, she will often point something out, like a particular bird, a cloud formation, a flower or the colours in the bay. I tend to be lost in thought, thinking about what’s coming up in the day, or something that happened yesterday that’s on my mind. A phrase in Matthew’s Gospel struck me, where Jesus says: “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.” (Matthew 6:34)

It is easier said than done, isn’t it? We often become stuck in a certain focus, so much so that we forget, as it says in the passage, to: “Walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers.” (Matthew 6:29) There are so many opportunities that we miss because we are worried, anxious, distracted, or moving too fast. To illustrate, I look to the story of a busker playing the violin in L’Enfant Plaza in Washington. A typical busker, wearing a baseball cap and t-shirt, was playing during rush hour, hopeful for some coins to fall into his plate. Three minutes went by before something happened. Dozens of people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-aged man altered his walk for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something. A half-minute later, the violinist got his first donation. A woman threw in a dollar and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone stood against a wall and listened.

Things never got much better for the busker. In the three-quarters of an hour that he played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. That left hundreds of people who hurried by, many only a few feet away, without even turning to look. 27 people gave money, most of them on the run, for a total of $32 and some change. 26 of those who gave, among the hundreds of commuters who passed by, gave $12, mostly in loose coins. $20 of that $32 was from the one person who recognised the violinist as Joshua Bell, considered one of the greatest violin virtuosos of this era and voted the best classical musician in America, playing a $3.5 million Stradivarius violin from 1713.

This was a social experiment to see if passers-by would recognise genius and talent or just walk by? How much money would he make? Could beautiful music beautifully played cause people to stop a while and listen? Once the story of the experiment got out, millions viewed the story (which was secretly recorded) on YouTube. Someone commented that you could have put the Mona Lisa painting on a street corner and just as many people would have walked by it. The six people who stopped to listen to Bell just thought he was good, but when interviewed later they admitted that they didn’t realise how good, they just liked it.

Lots of people waited in a queue nearby to buy lottery tickets and did not even glance his way, and of course the music fans with their headphones missed everything. Would you have noticed?

I WONDER HOW MANY OPPORTUNITIES WE HAVE MISSED TO CONNECT WITH GOD, HOW MANY “BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE”, SIMPLY BECAUSE WE HAVE A NAILED DOWN, EXCLUSIVE MINDSET, OR AN IMMOVABLE OPINION.

In 1778, at the age of 22, Mozart wrote about playing piano at a party for the Duchesse de Chabot during his first trip to Paris: “After an hour’s wait in the cold I began to play upon a miserable and wretched pianoforte. The most annoying thing about it was that Madame and all the gentlemen never for one moment interrupted their occupations, but continued the whole time, so… it was to the chairs and the table that I was playing.” For Joshua Bell, it must have been strange to have people walk on by. Usually, they would pay high prices to see him in concert halls, completely focussed, completely absorbed, transported for a moment into a different world.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus walked the earth and yet not everyone recognised Him. Even his followers were often confused. Ironically, it was the religious leaders who rejected Him. Yet those who listened intently were changed

by His words, His presence, and His actions. They would never be the same – like the people who stopped to listen to Joshua Bell, who stopped their rushing, who reigned in their prejudice, experienced something unique and, for that moment at least, life changing.

God is always with us. God is in our midst, easily seen in nature, and in those sat next to us. We are made in God’s image. There is something of the DNA of God in each of us. We are God’s creation. Whoever we are, whatever gender, race, faith and creed. I wonder how many opportunities we have missed to connect with God, how many “blessings in disguise”, simply because we have a nailed down, exclusive mindset, or an immovable opinion. Perhaps you may have experienced representatives of God who have not represented God in the manner you would have liked. You’ve been turned off. Perhaps you have had amazing experiences that seemed supernaturally divine, but you explained them away as coincidences, when really it was a God incidence. God is always looking for opportunities to connect with His children. God is waiting, hoping, patiently prompting through the Holy Spirit in naturally supernatural ways that touch mind, body and spirit. All we have to do is stop a while, listen, and be thankful. We can do this in lots of ways: taking time out from a walk to just sit and look; stopping and talking with someone that we may not know too well to listen, ask questions, and find out more about them; writing someone an encouraging note; being kind and putting others above yourself; or checking in on people. In all these simple ways, we follow the example of Jesus, who looked for opportunities to be a good human being rather than a human doing all the time. Try it. There is no need to let anyone know – it can just between you and God – and remember: God is with you.

Rev’d Gordon Lingard Senior Chaplain

Our community was treated to a joyous celebration of music on Friday 24 May at our annual Winter Concert. 18 ensembles featuring more than 200 students from our Corio Campus brought the David Darling Play House to life, performing classics by Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi, along with some modern-day favourites from Lin-Manuel Miranda and Harry Styles. One of the highlights of the evening was provided by two of our outstanding Middle School musicians, Daniel Chen (Yr8 Ot) and Makayla Lin (Yr7 Hi), performing Bach’s “Concerto for Two Violins in D minor” accompanied by Jingyang Huang (Yr12 A) on piano. “The GGS Music School is a magical place,” according to one of our 2024 Music Captains, Trieste Doumani (Yr12 He), and it was wonderful to see our students and staff share that magic with the wider community.

AN ADVENTUROUS SPIRIT

Adventure Education is being energised across the School, providing opportunities for all students to be exposed to the wild outdoors; facilitating personal growth and a connection with the natural world. Head of Adventure Education, Laura Kearley, emphasised that an adventurous spirit has always been at the heart of GGS. “It has been part of us for a really long time,” Laura said. “It’s what we want to spark and continue to foster, from our youngest learners through to Year 12 and beyond.” Whilst Timbertop remains the leading example of Adventure Education, experiential learning through and with nature is not confined to Year 9. “We know that engaging students meaningfully in the natural world, in situations outside their comfort zone, practising communication, teamwork, resilience, flexibility and adaptability, helps them to become the best versions of themselves.”

At Corio Campus, the re-imagination of Adventure Education begins at Middle School with the Year 5 Adventure to Camp Jungai in the Rubicon Valley and continues all the way into Year 12. This includes weekend adventures where boarding and day students across all year levels participate in activities like rock climbing, scuba diving, surfing, trail running and mountain biking. There also adventurous expeditions such as the Senior School Bogong XC Ski Adventure, Year 7 Surf Coast Adventure and the Great Victorian Bike Ride in Year 8. “Our students will have access to adventurous experiences just as readily as they would sign up for sports, music or debating,” Deputy Head of Adventure Education, Mel Ridley, explained. “We are making adventure accessible for all and bringing it to the forefront of our students' minds. This allows students to discover who they are; how they react to stress, how they feel when overcoming a challenge, how they connect to one another, how they problem solve when plans need adapting. These are deep, personal experiences that cannot be replicated in other ways.”

Significant challenge and choice are embedded in the Year 10 Adventure Education programme, which offers experiences such as sea kayaking around Tasmania’s Freycinet Peninsula, white water rafting on the Snowy River, mountain biking the Blue Derby trails in Tasmania’s north-east, rock climbing at Mt Arapiles, surfing on King Island, hiking Tasmania’s Walls of Jerusalem National Park or the Three Capes Track on the Tasman Peninsula, and backcountry skiing on Mt Twynam and the Main Range. “Our students return from Timbertop with an extraordinary level of internal strength, allowing us to think more broadly about where we should go, what sort of activities we can do, and what leadership opportunities we put on students from a much younger age,” Laura explained. The programme also caters for Senior School students who have not attended Timbertop. “We provide all students with something that is exceptional for their experience, including the opportunity to have a Timbertop-like adventure, such as the Mt Bogong ski trip.”

Laura and Mel hope that when students complete their GGS journey, they continue to embark upon an adventurous life beyond school. “By the time our students leave us, we will have given them a sense of what it’s like to really test themselves and to have the feeling of achievement, accomplishment and confidence to go further,” Laura said. “By engaging meaningfully in the natural world, our students will also hopefully develop a sense of custodianship for the planet and a sense of responsibility for ensuring its security and working towards living a more sustainable life.”

Our Battle of the Bands was turned up to 11 in Term 1, with students and staff from each of our four campuses taking to the stage to rock the Equestrian Centre. From our youngest performers belting out their solo or duet in front of the “big kids” at Corio, right through to the staff bands, who brought the house down at the end of the night, the range and quality of music was a joy to experience.

CORIOBALD PRIZE

The 18th Coriobald Prize portrait exhibition featured more than 150 portraits of members of our GGS community in Term 3. Our annual homage to the Archibald Prize celebrates students, staff and community members who make our School special. Senior School students were encouraged to work in an artform they had not already explored, and to ‘borrow’ from the distinctive style of their ‘Artists of Inspiration’. Entries were accompanied by a submission statement outlining how the subject had contributed to our community. At the official opening on Thursday 8 August, our community was on hand to celebrate the work of their peers while an expert judging panel led by our Term 3 Artist in Residence, Cat Rabbit, ran their eyes over the exhibition.

EXPRESS YOURSELF

“Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known.” – Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia approach

In Term 3, the Unit of Inquiry at Toorak Campus set about exploring the transdisciplinary theme, ‘How we express ourselves’. The focus of this unit is on relationships and how they activate creativity. Our ELC educators guided our youngest learners to reflect on their relationships and connections; not only with people, but with their environment, materials and objects. Learning spaces were designed and curated to spark our students’ interests and challenge the way they interacted with an object or a material. Drawing on research from their last Unit of Inquiry, ‘Sharing the Planet’, students worked collaboratively to investigate and manipulate a range of media and materials, supported and

SCHOOLS TREE DAY

Bostock House students converged on Corio Campus on Friday 26 July for Planet Ark’s Schools Tree Day, joining thousands of schools participating in environmental activities around Australia. Our youngest learners were assisted by our student-led Environmental Action Team (EAT) at Corio, planting species indigenous to the Geelong area sourced from local native plant supplier, Wild Places. The School is committed to increasing the amount of indigenous flora at Corio, creating habitat, saving water and reducing the spread of environmental weeds, as outlined in the School’s Sustainability Policy. We are also committed to working with local nurseries, Landcare groups and our students to increase biodiversity.

In 1870, the newly formed Barwon Rowing Club celebrated its opening with a scratch fours race. This was the first occasion in which a Geelong Grammar School (GGS) crew is known to have rowed competitively. The stroke was mathematics master Richard Chater, whose technique, described as one of the prettiest on the river, marked him as an experienced rower. In a promising performance, the GGS crew won their first heat by a length and a half but lost the next after a poor start in an unfamiliar boat.

Over the next few years GGS crews continued to practice with and use the boats and facilities of the Barwon Rowing Club, but their participation in competitive events was rare. Further advancement needed the independence a boat of their own would bring. This was achieved in mid-1874 when headmaster John Bracebridge Wilson had a fine cedar

racing gig built for the School by local craftsman Clem Blunt. The GGS Boat Club was formed around the same time. Spurred by a burst of incipient energy, the new club immediately chose to test itself against Wesley College on the Yarra course, and to the surprise of many, won the race by three lengths.

The year 1875 marked the arrival on staff of classics master James Lister Cuthbertson, whose almost spiritual attitude towards rowing was largely responsible for embedding the sport within the cultural fabric of the School. As the first master-in-charge of rowing and coach of the School’s crews almost continuously until 1896, Cuthbertson imbued the Boat Club with his passion and sense of sportsmanship. His arrival coincided with GGS competing for the first time in the Head of the River regatta, and Cuthbertson went on to coach 11 winning crews, the first in 1878.

The Boat Club’s fleet soon expanded to accommodate the increasing popularity of rowing. A second racing boat, the Alexandra, was donated in 1877 by Robert Hood of Hexham, on condition of the erection of a boatshed. Three years later, the Boat Club boasted nine craft, including the eight-seater Dart and two pleasure boats. The latter were in demand for the ‘Saturday Parties’ that saw groups of boys embarking on leisurely weekend expeditions to favoured spots along the Barwon such as ‘The Willows’ and Barwon Heads. These pleasure boats and a single practice boat were the sole survivors of a catastrophic flood which struck in 1880; the decimation of the fleet and destruction of the boatshed jeopardised the very existence of rowing at the School. Funds were quickly raised from benefactors, however, and a new boatshed was built and boats acquired by the end of the year.

1874 First crew: C. Hensley (Bow), D. R. Moffatt (2), R. H. Cole (3), C. Fairbairn (Stroke)

1889 Head of the River-winning First crew

School crew training in front of the rebuilt Barwon boat shed, circa 1882

Barwon Rowing Club offers free membership to students.

J. L. Cuthbertson made first Master in Charge of Rowing. GGS first competes in Head of the River.

GGS wins Head of the River for the first time.

Boys from GGS compete in Barwon Club scratch Fours event. School’s Rowing Club established and first boat bought. GGS challenges and beats Wesley.

First Barwon boatshed built. Swimming test indroduced as precondition to Boat Club membership. Head of the River is rowed on the Barwon for the first time.

Flood destroys boatshed and most of School’s fleet. Both replaced through donations.

First Inter-Colonial Boat Race held.

First School (House) Regatta Boatshed enlarged

A.F. Garrard appointed Master in Charge of Rowing.

First eightoar school boat race in Australia between GGS and MGS.

1889 Head of the River-winning First crew

Students rescuing boats from a flooded boatshed on the Barwon River, circa 1909

A Racing Eight by J.L. Cuthbertson (Barwon Ballads)

Saturday Party in 1889, with J. L. Cuthbertson

Geelong Grammar boats on the Barwon in 1904

J. L. Cuthbertson, master-in-charge of rowing, 1875 to 1896

The School baths, boatshed and motor launch in 1917

Below: 1924 Head of the River-winning First Eight

House Challenge Cup for Rowing

1935 Head of the River

Last minute barley sugar at the 1935 Head of the River

The year 1901 was momentous for a change in format of inter-school rowing. Clinker outrigged eights displaced four-oared boats for the first time in the Head of the River regatta, a change long advocated by Cuthbertson and finally assented to by the headmasters of APS schools the year before. Cuthbertson penned an exuberant poem, ‘A Racing Eight’, to celebrate the occasion.

When Cuthbertson died nine years later there was even greater change in the wind for GGS, with the Council well advanced in its plans to relocate to a new site. They eventually settled upon Cowie (Corio) on the shores of Limeburners Bay. The move elicited initial alarm from rowers, but the Boat Club was soon persuaded of the advantages of the lagoon, which seemingly offered first rate rowing in all weathers, although experience soon showed that waves could rise unpleasantly high in heavy winds. The relocation also presented the opportunity for boatsheds to be conveniently located almost at the front door of the School. First and second crews continued to travel to Geelong to train on the Barwon. In 1914, the stark new school buildings, and the nearby school jetty with its boatsheds, formed a backdrop to the first of many House regattas to be held on the lagoon.

The early years of GGS rowing were marked by the personalities of several long-serving coaches. Succeeding

Cuthbertson, Albert Garrard was coach of the first crew for almost 20 years. In 1923 another outstanding figure arrived on the scene in William Harwood Pincott (GGS’94). A former school captain, ‘Pinny’ had acquired experience coaching crews from Barwon Rowing Club, The University of Melbourne and The Geelong College. His crews, described as ‘workmanlike’, won the Head of the River on four occasions, but his true contribution to the Boat Club was his character, defined by sincerity, sportsmanship, and a simplicity of approach. He served as coach until 1944, but his involvement continued for many years after.

Pinny’s qualities were greatly needed by the Boat Club in the face of the difficulties experienced during World War Two. Timber and metal were very difficult to obtain for repairing and replacing boats and oars, and the Club’s fleet descended into a state of disrepair. The salt water of the lagoon was particularly hard on boats and equipment, and the lagoon itself was diminishing in depth through silting, resulting in a greater propensity for rough water and unsuitable rowing conditions. As a possible corollary to these difficulties, and despite success in the 1943 Head of the River regatta, it was noted in 1945 that outside of the first and second crews there was a noticeable flagging in the spirit of engagement within the Boat Club.

Race against St Peter’s lapses when Head of the River moved to Term 1. Cricket made optional on Thursdays so boys can row. E.J. Curnow appointed First Crew Coach and Master in Charge of Rowing.

Barwon boatshed rebuilt on present site.

New boatshed built on Lagoon, Corio. First House Regatta on Lagoon.

L. C. Robson appointed Master in Charge of Rowing.

W.H. Pincott made coach of First Crew.

St Peter’s Boatrace revived

The first Head of the Lagoon

J. E. L. Barber appointed Master in Charge of Rowing.

Boatshed built at Barwon Heads for Saturday Parties. Charles Fairbairn donates the Fairbairn Challenge Cup.

Rowing on the lagoon in 1935

School Fourth Eight at the lagoon landing stage in 1935

The Willows, circa 1935

W. H. Pincott, Coach of First Eight 1923 to 1944

The Boat Club recovered slowly from wartime constraints. In 1947, it was reported that the spirit amongst the junior crews was “almost nonexistent”, but by 1950 hard work by successive captains of boats and club secretaries throughout the preceding years had begun to pay off. Resources remained scanty, but the old boats had at least been methodically repaired and refurbished by master-in-charge of rowing John Barber and coach Roger Blomfield, aided by Boat Club members and boys participating in the School’s National Service program. The occasional donation of new boats, like the racing shell Spry in 1948, also helped matters, and aided the club in staying true to its policy of allowing every boy to row who wished to in the face of resurgent membership numbers. The 1952 season saw the largest participation for many years, with 14 eights crewed, and numbers continued to climb. By 1957 it was admitted that the club could no longer boat everyone as efficiently or for as long as preferred.

At the close of 1962 master-in-charge of rowing Hubert Ward laid out the position of the Boat Club in The

Corian. The active membership was over 200, but much of the club’s fleet – particularly the Corio boats – was beyond further patching and repair. Ward therefore intended replacing the entire Corio fleet. To aid in financing this, and to ensure future funding, he proposed the formation of a rowing support club from amongst past members of the Boat Club. Responding to the call, in 1963 a committee under the chairmanship of John Bell (P’24), a Cambridge Rowing Blue, was formed with the intention of founding such a club. Later that year the first dinner and annual general meeting of the WH Pincott Club was held, its aim being “to further the interests of rowing at Geelong Grammar School in any and every way possible”.

Support from the WH Pincott Club soon delivered benefits for the Boat Club. In addition to regular financial contributions, a boat maintenance fund was established allowing for a regular program for the renewal of practice boats. The new support club also assisted in acquiring new boats, and equipment like a boat trailer and an ergometer loaned from Repco to help crews train. The ultimate symbol of

renewal, however, was the construction of a new boatshed on the Barwon, which was funded by the 1969 School Building Fund and opened in 1971. This replaced the existing 1911 boatshed, and was a considerable improvement in terms of size, changing facilities, and overall structural solidity.

Girls were gradually introduced into the GGS student body from 1972 and were soon showing an interest in rowing as their activity, initially in sculls but in 1975 ten girls rowed in fours in the House regatta. The following year, the number of girls rowing had leapt to 32. Dubbing themselves ‘The Amazons’, they commenced in the customary manner by rowing the training barge Corio on the lagoon, before graduating to fours under the supervision of Ian Edwards. Strong wins in both the Barwon and the Junior regattas that year held the promise of greater successes to come. In 1981 a girls’ four represented the School at the Head of the River for the first time, and from thenceforth GGS girls quickly achieved near dominance in the event, winning on 13 occasions over the ensuing 20 years. Female sculls and fours events were a feature of the House regatta from 1977.

Above: Presentation of the new ‘Allan Spowers’ coaching launch in 1969

Right: 1974 Head of the River-winning First Eight (Coach Frank Covill on right)

New Barwon boatshed in 1971

appointed Master in Charge of Rowing.

Fours being progressively converted to sliding seats. W. H. Pincott Club founded.

House Regatta moves to Barwon River.

of Rowing.

GGS Girls win Heads of the River.

GGS Girls first compete in Heads of the River. P. R. McGann appointed the first Director of Rowing. Head of the Schoolgirls Regatta introduced.

Opening of Fairbairn Rowing Centre at Corio.

R. J. Wakefield appointed Master in Charge of Rowing.

First kevlar shell boat acquired, the W. H. Pincott.

Thain appointed Director of Rowing. GGS Girls win Head of the

of Rowing.

H. Ward

F. C. Covill appointed Master in Charge

D. J.

River.

G. J. Hunter appointed Director

Opening of new Barwon boatshed

Coach Frank Covill watches on as students train with an ergometer in 1973

Girls’ First and Second Fours, 1981

1978 Boys’ First Eight in action

Garth Manton (P’48), W. H. Pincott Club President 19771992, with Bill Searle (Coach)

Frank Covill, Master in Charge of Rowing 1965 - 1983 and First Eight Coach 1970 - 1983.

Above: 1991 Heads of the River-winning crews and coaches with their trophies

Right: 2008 GGS House Regatta

Senior School boys rigging a boat in 2018

Tony Green, Director of Rowing 2005 - 2010, with daughter Kirstie (A ‘15)

Our Girls' First Eight won their second straight Heads of the River title in March 2024. The girls have dominated on Lake Nagambie in recent years, winning eight of the past 10 HotR titles.

The year 1991 proved to be the most successful one in the Boat Club’s history to date. In a demonstration of the depth of talent then existing within the Club the boys’ First VIII won championship races at the Barwon Regatta and the Banks Regatta, and the girls’ fours made a clean sweep at the Head of the Schoolgirls regatta. At the Head of the River regatta the boys and girls Firsts, Seconds and Thirds crews all took first place in their respective events, and each set new course records on the Barwon.

From 1868, the Head of the River race had been staged variously between the Barwon River and several Yarra courses. After 1945 it settled, with the occasional exception, at GGS’s home on the Barwon. In 2001, this tradition was ruptured, and in a quest to achieve the best conditions possible and to row the desired 2,000 metres, the race was relocated to the man-made course at Lake Nagambie. The Boat Club had to meet the new circumstances; no longer were crews able to lift their boats off the rack and onto the course. Boats needed to be derigged and transported to Nagambie then offloaded and rigged, while crews had to be up early to reach the course. The distance also impacted spectator numbers. None-the-less, the GGS girls’ crews achieved instant success at the new venue. The 2015 girls’ First VIII was especially outstanding, winning the Head of the River, the Head of the Schoolgirls, and two national titles at the Australian Rowing Championships.

The 2019/2020 rowing season introduced a period like no other experienced by the club in the challenges it presented to coaches and crews. After the first day of heats at the Head of the Schoolgirls in 2020, the rest of the regatta was cancelled due to the rapidly

escalating COVID-19 crisis. The first lockdown of the pandemic was imposed in Victoria less than two weeks later. Crews undertook winter training at home via Zoom and trained at school between lockdowns within stringent COVID-19 regulations. During the 2020/2021 season, both the Head of the River and the Head of the Schoolgirls regattas were staged with restricted spectator numbers. Director of Rowing Toby Lister, aided by benefactors and the W H Pincott Club, had worked hard since 2016 at improving the Boat Club’s fleet, revitalising Middle School rowing on the Lagoon, and lifting overall performance, and now witnessed much of this hard work derailed and a large drop in student participation. From 2023 numbers slowly began to recover under new Director of Rowing, Salvador Henricus.

As it celebrates its 150th year in 2024, the GGS Boat Club can pause and reflect upon an exceptional history, encompassing inspiring personalities, great challenges, and remarkable successes. Throughout, it has been borne forward by a spirit shaped by the vision, dedication, and generosity of an enormous number of members and supporters. But most of all, it has been sustained by the simple virtues of rowing itself, as expressed by 2009 Captain of Boats and future Olympian, Charlotte Sutherland (Cl’09): “Our friends wonder why we get up at dawn and struggle down to the boat shed while they snuggle down in bed. But they don’t understand the thrill of pulling away from the bank, rowing in a crew where you know that everyone is trying just as hard as one another and being able to achieve goals as a whole and not as an individual.”

Richard Bartlett appointed Director of Rowing.

Salvador Henricus appointed Director of Rowing.

Celebrating 150 Years

Darren Watson Archivist

First Girls’ Heads of the River rowed in eight-oared racing shells.

P. A. Green appointed Director of Rowing.

G. J. Hunter appointed Director of Rowing.

of the GGS Boat Club.

Heads of the River moved to Lake Nagambie.

Toby Lister appointed Director of Rowing.

Toby Lister, Director of Rowing 2016 to 2022

Phil Gardiner (Coach) christening the new boat named in his honour in 2019

Rob England and Debbie Clingeleffer-Woodford, winners of multiple Heads of the River titles coaching the Girls’ First Eight

PEAKE PERFORMANCE

Ollie Peake (Yr12 Fr) spent the summer of 2023/24 making runs. He made runs for the School; he made runs for the Geelong Cricket Club at senior level; he made runs for Victoria at Under 17 level; he made runs for Victoria at Under 19 level; he made runs for Australia at Under 19 level, winning the Under 19 World Cup in South Africa; finally, he returned to make MORE runs for the School, guiding the 1st XI to its second consecutive APS premiership.

After leading the team to equal-top of the APS ladder at the end of Term 4, Ollie commenced his push for a place in the Australian Under 19 team, earning team of the tournament honours for his performances with the Victoria Country team at

the under 19 national championships. As a bottom-age player who will be eligible for the Under 19 World Cup team in 2026, Ollie was initially named as a non-travelling reserve player for this year’s World Cup in South Africa. Not to be disheartened, he captained the Under 17 Victoria Country team at their national championships in early January, making two centuries on his way to an average of more than 70 for the tournament. When misfortune struck one of Australia’s top-order batsmen in the first World Cup fixture, Ollie was called up to the squad and was on the plane to South Africa.

“I had a few ‘pinch yourself’ moments in South Africa,” Ollie said. “We were police escorted every time we left the hotel to attend training sessions or games. When it came to the actual cricket, the big sightscreens, music in between overs, live broadcasting, and school kids filling out the stadiums were all highlights. But my absolute favourite moment from the experience was after the semi final win against Pakistan, I was sitting in an ice bath and received a call from Sam Lalor (Yr12 FB) and Andy Wills (Yr12 FB) at 4-5am Australia time. That was pretty special and support from back home was something I will never forget.”

Fresh off the plane, Ollie came in at number seven in Australia’s fourth match of the World Cup against England. In a sign of things to come, Ollie made 25 off 28 deliveries and remained unbeaten at the end of the innings. A scratchy three-ball duck vs the West Indies proved to be an outlier, with Ollie saving his two best innings for the semi final and final. Coming to the crease with Australia in deep trouble at 59-4, chasing 181 for victory against Pakistan, Ollie compiled a mature 49 off 100 balls to help guide Australia to victory. “I enjoyed having the opportunity to bat for longer periods of time in the semi final and final as I feel as though that suits my game better at this stage of my career.” Facing India in the final – the most successful team in the history of the Under 19 World Cup – Australia won the toss and opted to bat first. Coming to the crease with the team in a strong, albeit precarious, position at 165-4, Ollie showed tremendous poise to guide the team to an imposing total of 253-7. Carrying his bat, Ollie hit 46 off 43 deliveries, including a delightful switch-hit six over backward point in the penultimate over. The result was never really in doubt, with Australia striking early and often with the ball, dismissing India for 174 to win Australia’s first Under-19 World Cup since 2010.

The final was played on Sunday 11 February and, by the time Ollie returned to Corio, the 1st XI sat three points off top spot. “The team was well looked after in my absence by Sam, ensuring we were still eyeing off the premiership.” GGS reeled off four consecutive wins (including scores of 157 and 154 for Ollie) to finish the season to sit on top of the ladder at 2pm on the final day with only the remote prospect of an outright victory for Melbourne Grammar against The Geelong College standing between them and a second-straight premiership. GGS tried to secure an outright of their own, but it quickly became apparent that Caulfield Grammar weren't going to oblige, relishing their final innings of the season and charging to 163-2. With hours left to play and no result in sight, it was the opportune time to throw the ball to our Year 12 students one last time; many of whom had never bowled an over with the 1st XI. George Lithgow (Yr12 M), Sam de Steiger (Yr12 Cu) and Charlie Calvert (Yr12 Cu) bowled the final overs before the teams agreed to call time, and all they could do was wait for 6pm or for Melbourne Grammar to concede their outright pursuit.

“The wait after our last game was something I think most of us will cherish for a long time. It was really nice to sit out in the middle of the ground that we had made our fortress these past couple of years and reflect on some of our favourite memories representing the baggy blue.” Another favourite memory was made that afternoon, with The Geelong College – led by Nick Dixon (A’14) as coach – digging in and surviving seven wickets down, securing the premiership for our 1st XI.

“I AM SO GRATEFUL TO HAVE BEEN A PART OF THE CRICKET PROGRAMME IN MY THREE YEARS AT GEELONG GRAMMAR AND AM SO HAPPY THAT WE HAVE CREATED A LEGACY FOR THE UP-AND-COMING KIDS TO FOLLOW WELL INTO THE FUTURE.”

“THERE ARE THREE WAYS OF TRYING TO WIN THE YOUNG. THERE IS PERSUASION, THERE IS COMPULSION, AND THERE IS ATTRACTION. YOU CAN PREACH AT THEM: THAT IS A HOOK WITHOUT A WORM. YOU CAN SAY, YOU MUST VOLUNTEER, AND THAT IS OF THE DEVIL. YOU CAN TELL THEM, YOU ARE NEEDED. THAT APPEAL HARDLY EVER FAILS.”

– KURT HAHN

Community Service at Timbertop

Our students begin Term 2 with confidence in their ability to navigate life at Timbertop; they understand the rhythms of a Timbertop week, they know what it means to be on ‘Slush’, they know what to wear to be comfortable living in an alpine environment, they can chop wood, light a boiler, sweep and mop the floor, pack for hike, and run a ‘Crossie’. With the necessary skills and knowledge well-established, the theme for Term 2 explicitly asks students to look within, and then beyond themselves, to consider how their capabilities can be used to be ‘of service’ to others. Developing a sense of compassion through service is one of the central pillars of Kurt Hahn’s educational philosophy, and it is this philosophy that guides the Timbertop programme.

There are countless opportunities to be ‘of service’ at Timbertop and in Term 2 the philosophy is formalised through our Community Service programme. Students camp on the land of local families, many of whom rely on this annual programme to complete necessary work around their homes and properties. Our students complete a range of tasks, including collecting, chopping and stacking wood, planting trees, raking, weeding, and even some spring cleaning when the weather is less conducive to outdoor work. The feedback from host families and student groups reinforces the value and effectiveness of this programme. Our 2024 host families were effusive in their praise of our “kind and caring” students who have “wonderful manners and a great work ethic” and “are a credit to the School and their families”. Many hosts were exhausted from trying to keep up with the work rate of our strong and determined students and had to have a lie down! Despite how hard they were working, students reported that it was “the best [Timbertop] weekend ever”, that they “didn’t want to leave” and that “we made Anzac cookies”.

I suspect, however, that it is not just the reward of biscuits or a home-cooked meal that explains our students’ enthusiasm for Community Service. I would like to think that participation in this programme allows students to experience being ‘of service’ not just because it is a required part of the Timbertop programme, as is the case with Slush, Essentials, Long Jobs or Unit Inspections. Rather, that they are ‘of service’ because their skills, strengths and drive are genuinely useful and valued by others beyond the boundaries of Timbertop. To paraphrase Kurt Hahn, the students begin to feel that “they are needed”.

Brad Bolden Acting Head of Timbertop

Community Service is about being ‘of service’ to the community around Mansfield and Merrijig. After a rushed Sunday inspection (a clean-up of the Unit) we all got on big buses and were shipped off to our host families. For the first day, there was usually not much work to be done as we arrived late in the afternoon. We set up our tents and made dinner for the night or, if you were lucky enough, had it made for you by kind host families. The second day was when the bulk of the jobs got done, which could’ve been raking, collecting wood, splitting wood, painting, shovelling or gardening. You knew you had done a good job when you were exhausted afterwards and earned a relaxed afternoon, cooking over Trangia stoves and chatting with friends. It was definitely a rewarding feeling leaving your hosts and being able to see all the big improvements that were made. Overall, Community Service was really fun, and we both enjoyed it.

Milla Cohen (M Unit) and Jock Mitchell (F Unit)

“YOU KNEW YOU HAD DONE A GOOD JOB WHEN YOU WERE EXHAUSTED AFTERWARDS...”

Amanda Bissex receives Medal for Service to Society

Long-serving UNICEF child protection and human rights campaigner, Amanda Bissex (A’87), became the fifth recipient of the Geelong Grammar School Medal for Service to Society. Amanda received the award at the Geelong Grammar School & Geelong Grammar Foundation Black Tie Dinner, which was held at the State Library of Victoria on Friday 17 May and incorporated the 11th James R. Darling Oration, presented by Professor Rufus Black (Glamorgan ’81).

Amanda has dedicated her career to child protection and providing humanitarian and developmental aid to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children, working in approximately 30 countries across Asia, Africa and the Pacific. She is currently UNICEF Deputy Representative in China, having previously served as UNICEF’s Chief of Child Protection in Laos, Thailand, Zambia, the Pacific and Indonesia, and as Regional Advisor on Child Protection at UNICEF’s Regional Office for South Asia in Nepal. Amanda began her career with CARE Australia and then worked with Australian Volunteers

Abroad on landmine clearance programs in Cambodia, Laos and Kosovo before joining UNICEF, with an initial focus on combating child sex trafficking in Thailand and the use of child soldiers in Myanmar. “It just started from an initial curiosity and interest working for CARE Australia in Canberra, where I was inspired by the work of colleagues who were deployed to different countries overseas, and it just took on a life of its own,” Amanda said. “You know, I didn’t plan any of it. It just kind of happened. When you get to know and work with the communities and the governments and you get to see the impact of the work, then that’s really inspiring, that you can have that influence and can have an impact on individual children who otherwise don't have a voice.”

Amanda is continually inspired by the potential of children and motivated to expand access to opportunities for children everywhere. “Children wherever you go are inspiring. They are full of hope. They are full of wonder. They are full of curiosity. Last year I spent eight weeks in Afghanistan. I met a girl there who was about 8 years old. I asked her, ‘what do you want to do when you grow up?’ And she said, ‘I want to be a maths teacher because I love studying maths’. Under the Taliban, she only has probably another two years of education left, and then she's not going to have access to education after that. When you hear those stories or you talk to the kids and you know that kids are the same everywhere; they have the same dreams and ambitions and the same potential, whether it is a girl in Afghanistan or a kid living in Papua in Indonesia. These kids have so much potential, and they should have the same opportunities that the kids in Australia have. I came from a very fortunate background in terms of my

access to education and opportunity, and if I can play a small part through my role at UNICEF in opening up opportunities for those kids to fulfill their potential, that’s what motivates me and gives me joy.”

Amanda believes any recognition of her work is also a recognition of the work of UNICEF, which was established in 1946 as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund to provide relief to children and mothers affected by World War 2 and is now present in 191 countries and territories around the world. “Individually, I couldn’t make the same impact as I can being within an organisation like UNICEF, which has always kept its focus on protecting and promoting child rights and is very brave, I think in many situations, in taking this focus forward. Unfortunately, not all children have had the same privilege and opportunities that I have had. They don’t have access to education – more than 100 million children are currently out of school. They don’t have access to basic immunisation, and millions of children die every year from preventable diseases. So many children are trapped in the cycle of war and conflict, not of their making or choosing. At the moment, UNICEF is in Gaza and on the front lines, trying to provide food and medicine to children. We’re in

Ukraine. We’re in all these difficult countries, working with the most disadvantaged children, and I just have huge admiration and respect for my colleagues.”

“I was reflecting on the impact of Geelong Grammar on me and my education, and it really has been a privilege. It has helped shape my values, but it’s also given me opportunities – opportunities created by the expectation that those who go to Geelong Grammar can and will go on to do good things.”

Amanda said that it was “very humbling” to be awarded the Geelong Grammar School Medal for Service to Society, joining an eminent group of past recipients, comprising Thai health and education activist Mechai Viravaidya (P’59), human rights lawyer and refugee advocate Dr Eve Lester (Fr’81), legendary Papua New Guinea obstetrician and maternal health advocate Professor Glen Liddell-Mola (P’64), and leading Australian philanthropist Tim Fairfax AC (M’64). “It is really a great honour and a great surprise,” she said. “I was reflecting on the impact of Geelong Grammar on me and my education, and it really has been a privilege. It has helped shape my values, but it’s also given me opportunities – opportunities created by the expectation that those who go to Geelong Grammar can and will go on to do good things. I reflect upon teachers like John Marsden (Staff 1984-90). The values that were taught in those classrooms were about challenging yourself, challenging your way of thinking and looking at things from a different perspective – all skills that I think are incredibly important.”

James R. Darling Oration

Professor Rufus Black (Glamorgan ’81) presented the 11th James R. Darling Oration at the Geelong Grammar School & Geelong Grammar Foundation Black Tie Dinner, which was held at the State Library of Victoria on Friday 17 May. Sir James Darling was the School's headmaster from 19301961 and is regarded as one of Australia’s most inspiring and influential educators. The Oration and the James R. Darling Scholarship Fund were established in 1997 to reflect Sir James’s wishes that he be remembered by actions that help others rather than in bricks and mortar.

Rufus has been the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Tasmania since 2018. He was previously Master of Ormond College at Melbourne University, where he co-led the creation of a Master of Entrepreneurship and taught as an Enterprise Professor in the Department of Management and Marketing. He was also a Principal Fellow in the Department of Philosophy and taught as lead faculty at the Centre for Ethical Leadership. He holds degrees in law, politics, economics, ethics, and theology from The University of Melbourne and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. His experience includes being a partner at McKinsey and Company, the President of Museums Victoria, the Deputy Chancellor of Victoria University, and the founding Chair of Teach for Australia. Rufus has deep interdisciplinary interests, publishing in the fields of both ethics and economics.

This oration won’t be a linear journey. It will orbit around a story about echidnas and ants on Bruny Island. It is a story born of the education I got at Glamorgan – one that in many ways is a tribute to the educational legacy of James Darling. Let me start by saying I don’t remember much of what I learned in class at Glamorgan. I am dyslexic so I left primary school without knowing my times tables and with virtually no maths skills. I couldn’t spell – I really couldn’t. I could read – slowly. Life would have been a lot easier if I’d had those skills. What I did learn made me who I am.

I fell in love with the bush, with hiking in the high country. I came to feel safe and connected in wild places. I learnt that caring for country mattered in the deepest of ways. That love shapes my values and my passions to this day.

I learnt to live in an intentional community as a periodic boarder and loved it. I would spend most of my adult life living in and, at times, leading university college communities. I discovered that education was all about nurturing in yourself an unquenchable curiosity about the world. Growing up, I had the huge privilege to travel with my parents, which meant I missed some school. Instead of getting me to do the classroom work I was missing, the teachers at Glamorgan asked me to do a project about what I discovered. I can still recall the details of the great projects I did on the Roman Empire and Venice. That foundational experience of projectbased, passion-oriented education profoundly shaped how I think about education to this day.

I learnt to debate, and it taught me to think. It gave me the opportunity to think and be seen for who I was even when I couldn’t write. I would learn more from debating throughout secondary school than in any classes there as well. In the end, I would go on to represent Victoria, Australia, and finally Oxford University in multiple world championship finals and lead their team to their first ever win in the British and All Ireland Championships. That all started at Glamorgan.

I learnt not to see the world in binaries, of either/ors but of ‘ands’. I learnt a lot about art in after school art classes and, more importantly, I learnt you could be a thinker and a maker, analytic and creative, rational and emotional.

Reading Darling’s work, I realise that much of what I did and learnt at Glamorgan he would celebrate as a true education. But as I read his work, there was another tone in it which struck me. There are points where complementing his quest to ground education in a deep, wide, and enduring sense of what our humanity is, he then recognised that the future might see the world very differently to the way we do and that what served us today might not serve us tomorrow.

As an educator I am very conscious of that warning. It speaks directly to the task of educators today because the world we are educating for is a world fundamentally different to the one we are from. I want to talk about that very different world and what it could mean for education.

The world of yesterday

The world of yesterday, which is the era from the end of the second world war through to the global financial crisis, was the most extraordinary era of progress in human history. Life spans nearly doubled, absolute poverty fell from 54% to 10%, illiteracy declined from 58% to 14%, inequality narrowed, average global incomes rose by over 350%, and democracies grew. It was an era driven by a unique conjunction of forces: The demographic dividend of the baby boom and dramatically increased participation by women in the workforce, resource abundance, an extraordinary level of productivity, and ever greater global connectivity.

It was a world that for many characterised progress, prosperity, hope, and opportunity. In this era incomes were doubling roughly every 25 years. Every generation was almost twice as well off as the one that preceded them. There were global tensions to be sure until the Cold War ended. But for those in the West and rising East, the premise of education was that children could expect a life that would get progressively better with growing opportunities. The deferred life model of working hard today for the rewards of tomorrow made good sense.

The period lasted so long that we anchored on it as normal – and Francis Fukuyama could plausibly declare the end of history. Actually, it was the least normal period in the entirety of human history and before long the inevitable reversion to the mean of history began.

The world of today

Our world is very different today. A globally ageing population, resource scarcity, low productivity, and an era of growing global competition mean everywhere there were tailwinds there are now headwinds. We are educating a generation

for a much tougher time. Not one of abundance but of scarcity. Not one of certainty but of volatility. The premise for education in this tougher world is very different. We need children to learn to take joy in what they have today not what they might expect to have tomorrow. Resilience is more important than ever because the rising prosperity of the future won’t save you from the disasters of today anymore.

The world of tomorrow

It is not just the tailwinds of progress that have turned to headwinds. We are at a moment when the model of progress that got us here is no longer sustainable – environmentally or socially. We are at a point of choice.

Our model of economic progress is one built on a linear process from extraction to emissions. We have become much more aware of the consequence of the emissions- end of that process as we grasp the earth-changing impact of extracting fossil fuels, using them and then emitting their greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere. But that basic cycle applies to just about everything we do that creates economic wealth.

Here is the challenge: The wealthier we get, the more we extract and emit per person. With just the level of wealth we already have, that is totally unsustainable. We extract renewable resources from the environment as though they were non-renewable ones. We are strip mining our soils, emptying our seas of fish, draining our aquifers and rivers, and clearing our precious forests and grasslands at nonrenewable rates. The essential problem is that if the billions of people on low incomes around the world become wealthy through this model of ever-growing resource consumption and emissions per capita, it will put impossible pressures on the planet. Those people, of course, have a right to similar levels of prosperity to the developed world so we will all need to change.

When I make these observations, I am not doing that as someone from the green far left. I am doing it as someone who did economics as an undergraduate, worked for one of the world’s leading consulting companies advising large global corporations and governments, and has subsequently provided policy advice on economic matters to state and federal governments. With that training and experience, it is very clear to me that the facts are telling us we are passing the tipping point for our planet environmentally and socially. The canaries in the coal mine have long been dead.

The world needs to evolve very dramatically in a very short period of time. We already understand that by 2050 we need to have a zero-carbon economy if we are not to see very significant environmental and social disruption on the planet.

The deep task that transition points to is the need to decouple economic growth from environmental impact. The only way that happens is to transition from our linear extraction to emissions model of economic growth to a circular one. That is a world where we use less, share it more, reuse it often, and then recycle it completely. That involves a radical reworking of the way we currently produce and consume material goods, the design of those products, and the very business models we use. In Australia and places like the US that could sound radical. In Europe it is already set in policy, with continent-wide commitments to create a circular economy by 2050.

Even if we do make that transition, we will need to work hard at the large-scale regeneration of the natural world to restore lost functions, which are vital to the health of local and planetary ecosystems. That has already begun, and the world has committed to doing far more. In 2022, 188 countries signed the Kunming- Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which committed those countries to raising the protected area of the planet from 17% to 30% by 2030 and to have restoration work underway for another 30% of our planet.

The point of noting these major global or continental commitments to a zero-carbon, circular, regenerative economy is to make clear that the world I am describing is a mainstream idea not a radical one. This is the world for which we need to be educating children and young people.

We also need to do that with the realism that the world won’t make all of these changes in time to avoid disruptive times. Working in a University, which is the number 1 in the world for climate action, I can tell you the greater consensus of our scientists and of their colleagues around the world is that we won’t make it to zero-carbon by 2050 and that the consequences will be considerable.

That means we are educating a generation with three vital overall capabilities. First, they need to be able to live and thrive in a very different world to the one of today. Second, they will need to help the world adapt more rapidly than any generation before them. Third, they will also need to live with high levels of resilience and adaptive capacity to get through a very difficult second half of this century when the consequences of today’s failures will be fully present. Education should always be grounded on hope and optimism but it also needs to be anchored firmly in a bedrock of realism.

If we are to fulfill this task successfully, the deep premises upon which our education system is based will need to be re-thought because we need to educate people for a way of life we don’t currently live, for a way of thinking about reality we don’t currently have, and for a relationship to technology we have lost.

A different conception of life

The first of those deep shifts is educating people for a different conception of our way of life to the one we currently have. That is no easy task, but it is essential. To live sustainably in a low-carbon, circular, regenerative, inclusive society we will travel differently, eat differently and more locally, live in smaller spaces, share far more, repair what we have, and reuse and recycle everything.

That task will be experiential even more than it is cognitive. There could be nothing more important than giving students the opportunity to experience living that way as an integral part of school and university. Maybe you are already doing this with your boarding experience. How much further could you go? As we go to the lengths required, we will need to skilfully manage the intergenerational tensions in beliefs and values. For not all parents, alumni, or even teachers will be ready for the future to arrive in the lives of the children. Having run a residential community I know what that can be like as a challenge. I also know that it is doable.

A different understanding of reality

If we are to make this journey to the future, we will need not just a different conception of our lives but a different understanding of reality. The unsustainable world we have created is born of a post-medieval conception of reality, which we sometimes call Western but is more accurately a fusion of ideas from across cultures whose epicentre was in Europe. That kind of thinking starts with the separateness of elements, with substances and the properties they have, and sees them changed by causal chains of events. While there are sceptics and critics of this tradition, they still work within it.

By contrast, the environmentally sustainable world of First Nations people has a very different conception of reality where understanding starts with how elements are related, and change happens because relationships evolve.

I can explain the difference with an experience I have just had, born of learning at Glamorgan to attend very closely to nature. We have a place on Bruny Island where I engage in working to regenerate the ecology of our land. I have been watching closely how land that was cleared near our house is regenerating. With western eyes I noticed the echidnas were the agents of change. They dug holes, which caught the leaves and then some water. That made the very sandy soil more fertile so when seeds settled there they started to grow. It looked like a clear subject – object – chain of causation.

After time spent with Aboriginal friends on country, I started to see this very differently. The regeneration of the land was born of the relationships between echidnas, the ants they ate, the soil, the leaves, and the rain. The ants are every bit as important in this story as the echidnas. Renewal of the soil is born of their relationship not of a causal sequence. Disrupt any part of that relationship and regeneration slows down or may not happen at all. So, I stopped looking for the echidnas and I started looking for the relationships and everywhere I found them the land was being healed. I used to be annoyed by the jack jumper and bull ants the echidnas feed on – their sting is notoriously painful, and even fatal to some people – and more than once I tried to flood them out of a nest too near the house. Where I did that, the soil never improved. My relationship with the ants and the environment has fundamentally changed. Now I love those ants because together with the echidnas they are re-greening all the soil around the house.

What I know as well though is that this is just the first step to a truly relational form of knowledge. When I told this story to my Aboriginal friends they said imagine the power of that understanding if it was embedded in people you know having a kinship relationship to these creatures, to the law of the land and stories your community told.

The knowledge we create is neither First Nations or western. We can’t and wouldn’t want to unlearn the power of either type of understanding. It is a new form of understanding. Over the next generation we will need to create that understanding together. I don’t know exactly what that will look like but my journey with echidnas and ants tells me it will be a very powerful reconceptualisation of reality that will change our world. It will be that special sort of knowledge where teachers and students learn together, and they will need to do that with community and, wherever possible, on country.

I also know that educational traditions that haven’t entirely abandoned the spiritual will be far better placed than those who have for this task of new knowledge creation. That’s

because they will be naturally grounded in that deeply spiritual premise that all elements are connected and there is a depth to reality we need to respect, not seek to master.

As that new knowledge develops, students, teachers and the community will need to become system thinkers because what needs to change in such a short time are our economic and social systems. If we are going to create a low-carbon, circular, regenerative economy and society we need to reimagine and redesign how businesses, cities, power systems, and transport networks all operate and how they work together. Even if we are not doing the redesigning, if we can’t see the complexity of the system change, then change is likely to come as a threat rather than an opportunity. We need to build our curriculum around this vital cognitive skill from schools through to higher education.

If this is to be the generation who redesign the world out of a different understanding of reality, they will need to be entrepreneurs, designers, and creatives far more than they will need to be managers. Today we still largely educate people to run the world they inherited rather than to disrupt and recreate it. This generation needs in the best sense to have a disruptive instinct. In schools and universities regularity, structures, and boundaries set the architecture of education. While developmentally important at an early stage, we need to educate people not so much to break the structures and boundaries as to completely remake them.

When you make statements like that, people say what about the traditional skills of literacy, numeracy, and subjects that need sustained educational scaffolding like music, languages, physics and chemistry? In a world where future jobs will require high levels of education, we will need to redouble our efforts in all of these areas and deploy well-established evidence-based strategies to lift these results, which are on the whole flat or declining in Australia.

Of course, the task of teaching these skills can’t be disconnected from the broader educational project. Indeed, I think the only way to re-engage students with these subject areas is to give them a compelling relevancy – the sort of relevancy that comes when they experience how these cognitive capabilities can empower them to change the future they fear and to live well in a world they currently worry about.

A different relationship to technology

It will not be enough just to change those deep premises of education. We will also need to tackle our relationship to technology. Being involved with a university where the future of technology is not just being used but invented, I truly grasp its power to make our world a better place. Equally, I have long been troubled by what our chosen way to relate to technology has done to our humanity.

We used to relate to technology as a tool. Increasingly, our primary relationship with technology is as a place, and one very different from the actual world in which we live. Technology has created a parallel world. From the social media sphere through to the gaming world, many people, especially young people, live a great deal of their life in this digital universe.

Precisely because it is digital, it defies what it is to be human. The virtual world abstracts us from place, physical community, the time bound nature of life, and from the limits

of the physical world. It is doing that at the very moment when we most need to embrace all those elements of what it is to be human if we are to live sustainably on the planet.

More than ever, we need to learn to live locally in our place with the people around us and within the limits of life and the planet. If you like, we need to be rewilding people not just places. It is about a lot more than leaving smart phones at the classroom door.

Having lived in university colleges with young adults from the time before social media right through that period of change, I have watched the tension between the physical and virtual play out. To some very real degree, strong intentional communities with powerful social rituals like regular dining as a community and spaces designed to anchor human connectivity can create a space to resist these forces. It shows that all hope is not lost to make a change. However, the ubiquity and use of these technologies from the earliest years means we are going to need courage and conviction to design that true reconnecting and rewilding of young people to the world in which they actually live.

A different relationship to each other

For all the reconceptualisation of education that we need, it will fail to help us live sustainably if that education does not also reverse the growing divides in our society. At present, we are growing ever further apart. By every category you choose to measure it – income, wealth between countries, within countries, or between places – the gaps are widening and the inequality is growing.

Those divides are deeply troubling. If you walk from our university campus in Sandy Bay, where life expectancy is 87 years, just 20 kilometres to Bridgewater, life expectancy plummets to just 67 years. If we were on the globe that is like travelling between the wealthy principality of Monaco and Eritrea. This is one of our capital cities. In Geelong, a 10-kilometre walk will see life expectancy drop a decade. Of the compounding forms of disadvantage in these communities that cause that shocking disparity, the one most addressable lever for change is education.

It is a lever we have to find wholly new ways to pull, or these communities will be left even further behind. The recent report to the Government, ‘The Higher Education Accord’, which maps the future of Higher Education is centred on the fact that by 2050, 80% of all jobs will require tertiary education, which means that 90% of all school students will need to go from school to university or TAFE. We are a long way from that world today. In my home state of Tasmania only 55% of Year 12s even obtain their Certificate of Education at the end of school.

That means we are in an era where the next great educational task is to create a universal higher education system. It is a change as profound as the one when societies decided that all children needed to complete secondary not just primary school. It has implications for the schools’ system that are at least as great as they are for the university system. Without profound change, an ever-growing number of people will be even further excluded from economic opportunities.

We have seen around the world what happens when communities are economically left behind. They vote for Trump, Brexit, the Alternative for Deutschland, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orban, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and so it goes on. Both sides of politics have failed them. Since those tailwinds of progress turned to headwinds back in the first decade of this century, life hasn’t improved and often it has gone backwards.

That very pivot point means what is common to all these forms of popularism is that they are built on a nostalgia to go back to that post-war world and to resist deep changes to our ways of life - changes we need to make precisely because the world can’t proceed on that basis anymore.

For Australia, this is a profound challenge because we have a two-speed education system. Many of our private schools and a select number of government schools deliver an education as good as you can find anywhere in the world, and our universities are full of people who went through them. But there is a second tier. The result of which is that the overall performance of our system has been flat or declining for years now.

In an era before we needed a universal higher education system to ensure social cohesion and the possibility of adapting to a rapidly changing world, perhaps those in the first-tier schools could largely live without the consequences of that division visiting them. That is no longer true. In other countries they are learning the cost to everyone if you leave the majority of people behind. If you went to the best private schools in Britain, you still live outside the European Union, with the handbrake on economic progress firmly on. We need to see those experiences as a wake-up call for us all to work together in new ways to see our entire system lift its performance. What are the new partnerships, sharing of facilities, and capabilities we can harness to help the whole system rise? We can’t operate alone anymore, there are profound changes needed.

In such a time, perhaps the greatest danger of our era is nostalgia. I look back with great fondness on my days in the Glamorgan playground and in the Colleges of Melbourne and Oxford. Those were great experiences of the final days of that unprecedented era of progress in all of human history. They were times where globally, a fortunate few were able to have an experience that was still grounded in the best of the past but made comfortable by the remarkable progress of the present.

I don’t want to lose the rich humanity, sense of community or connection with the environment I found in those times, but I recognise that for those values to shape tomorrow, our world, our schools, and our universities need to be very different places.

What I need to do is to trust the next generation to make the world very different to the one I was comfortable in and loved. Having lived closely with the next generation for nearly 20 years, I do deeply trust and believe in them. We can far too easily see the next generation as somehow more troubled, anxious, eager to have it before they have earnt it, or directionless and less capable than we were. I think the reverse is true. They are capable and extraordinary. They know our world needs to be different. They are a testament to their educators, and they honour the educational legacy of James Darling. Our task is to join them. Perhaps the best way we can start to do that is to reconnect with those parts of our education that help us to see the echidnas and the ants.

REFLECTION ON SEMESTER 1, 2024: A CULTURE OF GIVING

As the new Chair of the Geelong Grammar Foundation, Semester 1, 2024 has been a period of immense pride. Witnessing the impact of scholarships on deserving students, a remarkable number of 183 in 2024, has solidified my belief in the transformative power of philanthropy.

Scholarships are the cornerstone of the Foundation's mission. They are more than just financial assistance; scholarships are an investment in potential. They represent a belief in a student and a commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive learning environment at GGS. They open doors for talented individuals who might otherwise face barriers to pursuing their educational aspirations. Scholarship recipients often become leaders within the student body, inspiring their peers and demonstrating the value of hard work and dedication. Witnessing a student flourish thanks to a scholarship is a powerful reminder of the impact we can have.

Our annual event to welcome new scholars provided this opportunity again this year. A standout in the School calendar, the new scholars event provides an opportunity to both acknowledge the support of our generous donors and to recognise the talents and achievements of the beneficiaries of this support, our scholars. We hope all scholars take pride in their achievements and feel appropriately inspired by the opportunity made possible through the generosity of our community.

This semester, we also connected with past scholar Sam Parsons (P’14), who shared his inspiring story for the benefit of our community. A recipient of the Nicholas Pierce Scholarship, Sam spoke of how scholarship funding empowered him to pursue his passions, now studying for his doctoral degree at Harvard Law School. Sam’s story showcases the tangible difference scholarships make in shaping young lives, allowing students to chase their dreams and reach their full potential.

These opportunities would not be possible without our committed community of donors. Donors like Toni Armstrong and her family deliver new scholarship opportunities each year to deserving GGS students. Toni’s family scholarship, the Nicholas Pierce Scholarship, celebrates the life of her brother and OGG Nicholas (FB’60), who was tragically killed in a car accident.

Both Sam and Toni’s stories provided considerable inspiration for further support from our community through our Annual Appeal. To date, $563,507 has been contributed to the appeal, with 87% going directly towards our scholarship programme.

To find out more about the appeal and lend your support please visit www.ggs.vic.edu.au/give2024

Our valued Biddlecombe Society programme continues to support our engagement with those who have generously committed to a gift in their Will for the School. With seven new members joining the programme in 2024, we now have a community of 274 bequestors. We are sincerely grateful for your beneficence.

The ongoing support of our community sends a powerful message. It demonstrates that we, as a collective, believe in the transformative power of education and are committed to shaping the next generation of leaders. This fosters a culture of philanthropy, enabling the School to continue delivering a truly exceptional education.

As we enter Semester 2, our focus remains on fostering a culture of philanthropy within the GGS community. We will continue our focus on advancing the School through partnerships with our community, particularly in support of our wide reaching and leading scholarship programme.

Your continued support is essential to ensuring every GGS student has the opportunity to thrive.

To our incredible donors, thank you for your generosity. Your contributions directly impact the lives of our students, shaping their futures and empowering them to make a positive impact on the world. Together, we are ensuring a prosperous future for Geelong Grammar School and all students who learn within our gates.

Vanessa Mahon Chair, Geelong Grammar Foundation

1. Paddy Handbury (M’72), Chair of Council, and Vanessa Mahon, Chair of Geelong Grammar Foundation

2. Charlie Sutherland (P’86) interviewing Tash Wilson (Yr12 Cl) and Troy Selwood

3. Charles and Margie Gillett (Cordner, Clyde’71)

4. Elissa Gale and Nathalie Gash (Adamson, The Hermitage ‘64)

5. Nick (Cu’82) and Christine Heath

6. Robert Sutherland, Helene Gibson, Susie Sutherland (Hopkins, Fr’76) and Susie Donald (The Hermitage ‘ 75)

7. Elizabeth Bennett (McDonald, The Hermitage ‘66), Jill Nicholls (Holmes, The Hermitage ‘68), Noelene Leek (The Hermitage ‘62) and Jenny Sargeant

9.

10. Paul (Cu’86) and Kristie

11. Tony Poolman (FB’60), Jennifer Poolman, Tash Wilson (Yr12 Cl) and Troy Selwood

Keryn Levick, Jon Apted (Ge’67), Mary Brandy and Ron Brandy

William Caldwell (P’83) and Rob Perry (A’83)

Dowie

EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE EXCEPTIONAL PLACES EXCEPTIONAL EDUCATION

Geelong Grammar School is more than just classrooms and playing fields. It's a vibrant community where exceptional education flourishes. But what truly sets GGS apart are the people and places that foster a love of learning, personal growth, and a commitment to making a difference.

This exceptional education relies on ongoing support from our dedicated community. Just as the School's very foundation was built on the generosity of others, ongoing gifts from our community allows us to continue delivering and furthering this transformative learning experience for current and future generations.

“BEING A SCHOLARSHIP STUDENT CREATED A SENSE OF INSPIRATION. SOMEBODY HAD CHOSEN TO BELIEVE IN ME, TO GIVE ME THAT OPPORTUNITY, AND I WANTED TO HONOUR THAT FROM DAY ONE.”

Past scholar Sam Parsons (P’14), recipient of the Nicholas Pierce Scholarship, returned to campus in May this year and articulated it plainly.

“GGS is really a dichotomy in a sense between people and place,” Sam said. “The people come and go; some stay for longer than others. The place largely remains the same, but what the place can do for the people really depends on what the people over time are willing to invest in the place.”

Together, we can achieve so much more. The greatest impact comes through collective action. By joining forces, we ensure GGS remains at the forefront of educational innovation, offering students unparalleled opportunities to develop their minds, talents and leadership potential. Now completing his second year of a doctorate at Harvard Law School, Sam says “I think we all have the capacity within ourselves to realise our ambitions. Sometimes it takes two things: resources and inspiration. Geelong Grammar provided both of those in droves. Being a scholarship student created a sense of inspiration. Somebody had chosen to believe in me, to give me that opportunity, and I wanted to honour that from day one.”

Ours is a tradition of giving back. Parents, past students and staff – all united by their GGS experience – understand the power of a quality education. They are the ones stepping forward, giving generously to ensure that others have access to the same life-changing opportunities they received, and we are immensely grateful for this support.

The donor of Sam’s scholarship is Toni Armstrong. Her family established the Nicholas Pierce Scholarship in memory of her brother. Toni says “I think it’s pretty powerful to know that by giving to a scholarship you can change the trajectory of somebody’s life.”

This year's Annual Appeal invites our community to be a part of this legacy. All contributions, big or small, empower GGS to continue nurturing bright young minds, inspiring them to become confident, compassionate leaders. It's an investment in the future, one that shapes not only individual lives but also the world around us.

We hope you will join us and become part of the GGS story – a story of exceptional education nurtured by a community that believes in the power of giving back.

www.ggs.vic.edu.au/give2024

$564,267 TOTAL INCOME FOR SCHOLARSHIPS 87% TOTAL DONORS 219 AVERAGE GIFT $2,351

OGG PRESIDENT

The OGG activities, reunions and events continue to gather pace, both in Australia and overseas, with the support of the Community Engagement team. The 1974 Timbertop, 1984- and 1994-year groups gathered across April to kick-off a busy programme of reunions for 2024. In May, the 2014 and 2011 leavers celebrated their 10-year reunions, with the 2011 reunion held over from 2021 due to COVID-19. It’s very gratifying to be back into the rhythm of reunions. They are a core objective of the OGG Association (OGGA) and it is important that each year group has the opportunity to formally connect and reflect with their peers. I would like to thank those cohorts whose gatherings have been delayed due to COVID-19 for their patience and attendance as we navigate re-scheduling these events. As always, a special thank you to the peer group coordinators who help bring together these reunions with the Community Engagement team.

In May, our Principal, Rebecca Cody, hosted a Connect event in Singapore and a Principal’s Reception in London, while Dr Luke Mandouit, our newly appointed Vice Principal of Learning, Teaching and Academic Innovation, hosted Connect events in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Rebecca and Luke were joined by Elissa Gale, Head of Advancement, and Chavaune Francis, Admissions Manager, as the overseas engagement programme continues to expand. OGG representation overseas and interstate provide an intangible connection to the School and help thread our vast community together. I would like to thank our OGG Branch Presidents, Randall Lee (P’93) in Singapore, Roland Wu (P’93) in Hong Kong, and James Earl (M’96) in London, for their in-country assistance with planning for these events, some for the first time since the end of the pandemic. I would particularly like to acknowledge Roland, who also assisted with the planning of the Shanghai event, and Rebecca Hossack (Li’73), who hosted the London event at her art gallery in Fitzrovia.

Thanks also to the support of OGG Branch Presidents in New South Wales, Will Wilson (P’78), and Western Australia, Andrew McMillian (M’77), for coordinating Connect events in Sydney and Perth, held in March and May respectively. Unfortunately, Will was overseas on the

night of the Sydney gathering and Fiona Ratcliffe (Archer, Je’77), did a superb job representing our Sydney-based OGGs. I was fortunate to attend the Connect in Perth with Rebecca and Chavaune, and thoroughly enjoyed being reacquainted with familiar faces, as well as meeting new ones with whom I exchanged memories and stories of school life from varying eras and discussed the interesting pathways OGGs have taken post their school days.

I encourage all OGGs to attend these events, even if you are passing through rather than living in the city in which they are being held. A list of upcoming events and reunions can be found on the OGG website (ogg.org.au). Connect and Principal’s Reception events are open to all OGGs, current and past GGS parents, and past staff. Attendance at these events is also a wonderful opportunity to meet our new Head of Alumni and Community Relations, Alexandra Hocking (He’99), and new Alumni and Event Coordinator, Rylie Jabornik, who have recently taken over the work of Katie Rafferty (Spry, Ga’84) in the alumni space.

As acknowledged in the Semester 1, 2023 issue of Light Blue, Katie retired after 18 years as Alumni Manager and Honorary Secretary of the OGGA. Having been short staffed for much of 2023 and into 2024, Alex and Rylie are welcome additions to the Community Engagement team. I’ve been delighted to meet with both Alex and Rylie in their new office, which is in the mezzanine level of the Clock Tower and will act as a meeting place of sorts for those OGGs returning to the Corio Campus. I encourage you to reach out to Alex and Rylie if you are at the School or planning on heading down to Corio. To reiterate my remarks at the OGGA Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 28 May, I would also like to acknowledge the terrific work of the Community Engagement team, who continued to coordinate alumni activities, events and reunions during the transition period over the last 12 months, following Katie’s departure.

The AGM was once again held in the Hawker Library, during which Henry Crutchfield (Cu’23), as the 2023 Dux of the School, was formerly acknowledged by the OGGA

and received the OGG Prize. We continue to hold hybrid meetings, which allowed me to attend the meeting virtually from Western Australia, and I would like to thank Bill Ferguson (P’72), co-Vice President, for chairing the AGM in-person at Corio.

I would very much like to thank and acknowledge the considerable contribution over many, many years, not only to the OGGs but to the entire school community, of Sandy Mackenzie AM (FB’59), who retired from the OGG committee at the AGM. Sandy was Director of the Geelong Grammar Foundation (1984-1995), Chief Executive of the Geelong Grammar International Foundation (1994-1998) and has been a member of the OGG Committee since 2016, serving as Branch President of the Riverina and NE Victoria Branch. Over the years, Sandy has continuously championed and strengthened the School’s connection with rural Australia, “the bush” as Sandy would say, and was always able to enrich decisions of the future with experience from the past. Thank you Sandy.

Founders’ Day was marked at Corio on Wednesday 19 June, and Henry Crutchfield gave an eloquent and inspiring speech at the Middle School luncheon on what his Middle School self would want to know about the many opportunities in Middle School, Timbertop, Senior School and beyond, while Bill and Tristan Dwyer (Fr’01) read the School Prayer for the Senior School dinners. It is incredibly pleasing to continue to see OGGs engaging with current students and being involved in school events. This will be carried through in Semester 2 when OGGs will speak to students about their journey post-school at Careers Discovery Day. Thank you to all those who have volunteered their time to attend this important, and sometimes career-changing, event.

As we commence Semester 2, a focus of Alex and Rylie’s will be on engagement with the alumni and assisting with the transition and support of the 2024 peer group to that of OGGs. The calendar of reunions and events will also be no less full, including the 23rd Tower Luncheon on Saturday 9 November. This year, we will welcome the 1974 peer group, marking the 50th anniversary of their leaver’s year. I hope as many as possible of the ’74 cohort can join OGGs, The Hermitage and Clyde old girls at this significant annual luncheon, which is always a highlight of the OGG calendar.

Andrew Burgess (FB’81) OGG President

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CONNECT IN CANBERRA Friday 30 August 2024

CONNECT IN ADELAIDE Tuesday 3 September 2024

CONNECT IN ALBURY Tuesday 17 September 2024 1984 40 YEAR TIMBERTOP REUNION Saturday 21 September 2024

TIMBERTOP OPEN MORNING Saturday 21 September 2024

Michael Wilson (A’75), Andrew Burgess (FB’81) and Arthur Maddever (FB’70) at the 2024 Perth Connect event.

New Head of Amumni and Community Relations, Alexandra Hocking (He’99), and incoming Alumni and Event Coordinator, Rylie Jabornik.

Paddy Handbury (M’72), Amy Crutchfield, Henry Crutchfield (Cu’23), Bill Ferguson (P’72) and Philip Crutchfield at the OGGA AGM.

At the Hong Kong Connect Event:

1. Dr Luke Mandouit, Angus McGeoch and Jeff Emmanuel

2. Roland Wu and Adam Smith

3. Chris Lui (FB’97), Jeffry Ho (M’97), Jacky Shi (FB’97), Gigi Li (Cl’97), William Sie (P’97), Philip Lau and Wilson Siu (Timbertop’94)

At the Shanghai Connect Event:

4. Dr. Luke Mandouit and Jojo Zhou

5. Yao Ban, Dr Luke Mandouit, Yige Ban and Shiwen Lu

6. Cindy Li, Doris Zhang (Ga’19) and Ashley Yang (EM’12)

7. Quan Chen, Yuanteng Jiang and Mr He

8. Vanessa Zhu and Jenny Qin

9. Dr Luke Mandouit, Jojo Zhou, Jenny Qin, Vanessa Zhu, Roland Wu (P’93) and Kevin Chen

10. Jojo Zhou and Chavaune Francis

At the Singapore Connect Event:

11. Lucius Yau (Cu’22), Liam Yau (Cu’23) and Aric Chua (M’19)

12. Richard Hounsell and Karen Hounsell

13. Liam Yau (Cu’23) and Rebecca Cody

14. Matt Richards, Chavaune Francis and Kuan Richards

15. Jeremy Clark and Rebecca Cody

16. Stephan Repkow, Randall Lee (P’93) and Rebecca Cody

17. Malek Ali and Rafiq Saiful Aznir (Cu’09)

At the London Connect Event:

1. Jun Tazawa (Cu’96), Guy Lipman (Cu’95), Will Mawby (Cu’97), Fiona Champion (Glamorgan ‘88) and Shaun McKinlay (FB’96)

2. Andrew Muir and Beau Sholl (P’18)

3. Zarli Dickinson (He’22), Holly Ginnane and Amelia Charleson (He’23)

4. Rebecca Hossack (Li’73) and Rebecca Cody

5. Diana Vernon and Meredith McClements. Painting in background titled Beatrice, 2024, by Nikoleta Sekulovic.

6. Lisa Orlov (Je’80), Rebecca Cody and Andrew Brown (B’57)

7. Ben Leckie (P’17), Henk Verbeek Van Der Sande (P’16), Joseph Verbeek Van Der Sande (P’10) and Zac Melzer (P’18)

8. Mimi Holmes (Cl’18), Will Gorell (Cu’18) and Niccolo Merlatti (M’18)

9. Nic Dillon (Fr’08), Emma Muir, Rebecca Hossack (Li’73) and Michael Brown (Timbertop ‘57)

At the Sydney Connect Event:

10. Mimi Forwood (Osborne, Clyde ‘61), Toby Forwood, Fiona Newman (MacGilllivray, The Hermitage ’65), Annie Baring (MacGillivray, The Hermitage ’68) and Karen (Kit) Farley

11. Caitie Remen (EM’22), Tom Pirenc (Cu’23), Samantha Pirenc (Bright, Cl’89 and Bill Anderson (M’59)

12. Oliver Arbes Du Puy, Isabel Migliore (A’05) and Chelsea Doyle

13. Yarek Kowalik, Ming Zhang, Paula Vass and Andrew Vass

At the Perth Connect Event:

14. Andrew Burgess (FB’81)

15. Anish Weerasooriya (Timbertop’19) and Rebecca Cody

16. Toni Milne, Christine Foulkes-Taylor and Rosemarie Cooper

17. Paul Holmes a’Court (P’90) and Rory Argyle (FB’54)

18. Peter Archer (Ge’57) together with Rebecca Cody hold photos of his time at Timbertop

1973 50 Year

Timbertop Reunion

At their Class of 1973 50 year Timbertop Reunion were:

1. Hugo Langer (P’76), Douglas Campbell (P’76) and Malcolm MacKay (P’76)

2. Tim Gubbins (Fr’76), Mark Langley (Fr’76) and Andrew Simpson (M’76)

3. Greg Hodgson (Cu’76) and Nick Rule (FB’76)

4. Richard Bayley (A’76), Tim Peach (A’76), Greg Hodgson (Cu’76) and Peter Dinsdale (FB’76)

5. Robert Heath (A’76) and Sam Hayward (FB’76).

6. James Johnson (A’76), Tim Gubbins (Fr’76) and Mark Langley (Fr’76)

7. Stephen Cole (P’76) and Tim Peach (A’76)

8. Richard Bayley (A’76) and Past Staff member Roger More

9. Giuseppe Romeo (M’76), James Morrison (P’76) and Max Cameron (P’76)

10. David Webb Ware (M’76) and Nick Rule (FB’76)

1984 40 Year Reunion

At their Class of 1984 40 Year Reunion held at the Mt Erica Hotel in Prahran were:

1. Dugald McLachlan (M’84) and Sally Wright (Ga’84)

2. Simone Knight (Je’84) and Cathy Stott (Ga’84)

Sadie Chrestman (Je’84), Samantha Hogg (Griffin, Je’82) and Katie Rafferty (Spry, Ga’84)

4. Mark Cleary (FB’84), Julian von Bibra (Cu’84), John Parker (P’84), Dugald McLachlan (M’84) and Michael Crowder (M’84)

5. Tim Marwood (FB’84), Charlotte Barber (Ga’84) and Roddy Jamieson (M’84)

6. Jonathon Dumas (Cu’84) and Annabel von Bibra (Robinson, Cl’84)

7. Julie-Anne Gibney (Ross, Cl’82) and Mary Voser (Ewers, Ga’84)

8. Peter Fitzgerald (A’84) and Alison Lindsay (Je’84)

9. Caroline Falkiner (Cl’84), Georgie Cox (Je’84), Juliette Williams (Long, Cl’84) and Gary Fawcett (P’81)

10. Louise Paynter (King, A’83), Gabrial Pennicott (FB’83) and guest, and Roland Heetel (M’84)

11. Sally Stewart (Sutherland, Cl’84), Julie-Anne Gibney (Ross, Cl’82) and Julia Howells (Cuming, Cl’84)

12. Duncan Scudamore (P’84), Peter Dunoon (Cu’84), Andrew Heldon (P’84) and Michael McIntyre (P’84)

13. Kate Mackey (Cl’84), Richard Marles (P’84) and William Reeves (FB’84)

14. Tony Fantella (A’84), Sinan Omer (A’84) and Andrew Howells (A’84)

3.

1994 30 Year Reunion

At their Class of 1994 30 year Reunion were:

1. Andrew Gibson (A’94), Alistair Sawers (M’93) Nick Gubbins (A’94), Kenneth Rees (A’94) and James Wallace Smith (A’94)

2. Charles Mills (M’94), Tom Whitehead (Cu’94), Ben Smith (Fr’94), Matthew Browne (M’94), Edward Bostock (M’94), Alistair Sawers (M’93) and Andrew Gibson (A’94)

3. Jessica Scurry (Ga’94), Georgie Nevile (Ga’94), Jessie Robson (Ga’92) and Chloe O’Loan (Thomas, Fr’94)

4. Claudine Collins (Timbertop ‘91), Pennie Bradford (Lord, Fr’94), Morven Murray (A’94), Susannah Pern (Cl’94), Tania Collinson (Ga’94) and Jessie Robson (Ga’92)

5. Georgie Byrne (Buckley, Cl’94), Nick Armstrong (FB’94) and Ben Ranken (M’94)

6. Pennie Bradford (Lord, Fr’94), Charles Mills (M’94) and Fiona McConachy (Calder, Cl’94)

7. Claudine Collins (Timbertop ‘91), Tarryn Armour (Cl’94), Georgie Nevile (Ga’94), Isabella Gartrell (Earl,Ga’94), Annabel Mills (McPhee, Cl’94) and Marcus Woodhouse (FB’94)

8. Tania Collinson (Ga’94) and Nieve Dee (Jones, A’94)

9. Marcus Woodhouse (FB’94), Khaseem Warren (Je’92), Xanthe Laidlaw (Cl’94), Susannah Pern (Cl’94), Catherine Maple-Brown (Ga’94) and Annabel Mills (McPhee, Cl’94)

10. Morven Murray (A’94), Catherine Larcey (A’94), Khaseem Warren (Je’92) and Ying Stephenson (Gilbert, Cl’94)

11. Tarryn Armour (Cl’94), Edward Bostock (M’94), Nicholas Morrison (Timbertop ‘91), Penny Whitehead (Agar, A’94), Alexander Dobson (Cu’94) and Hamish Cameron (FB’94)

12. Malcolm Reid (Cu’94), Alexander Chiu (P’94) and Angus Coote (FB’94)

13. Fiona McConachy (Calder, Cl’94), Xanthe Laidlaw (Cl’94), Georgie Byrne (Buckley, Cl’94), Jessie Robson (Ga’92) and Jessie Lang (He’94)

14. Heidi Lawson (Nesseler, Ga’94), Kate Fagan (Squire-Wilson, Ga’93) and Tarryn Armour (Cl’94)

15. Lock Rogers (M’92), Hamish Cole (M’94), James Gilham (Cu’93) and Edward Jeffries (M’94)

16. Jo Collins (He’94), Kate Fagan (Squire-Wilson, Ga’93) and Louisa-Jane Cunningham (A’94)

17. Dean Gold (A’94), Andrew Browne (A’94), Malcolm Reid (Cu’94), Angus Coote (FB’94), Edward Bostock (M’94) and Tom Whitehead (Cu’94)

18. Pip Jankowski (Ainsworth, Fr’94) Annabel Mills (McPhee, Cl’94) and Kate McIntyre (Lindblade, Ga’94)

At their Class of 2011 10 year Reunion were:

1. Bayles Abercrombie (P’11), Alex Campbell (FB’11), Raasikh Mahmud (Cu’11), Taa Visudhipol (P’11) and Tom Belford (P’11)

2. Ed Simpson (M’11), Blake Nielson (Fr’11) and Angie You (A’11)

3. Eric Seymour and Candy Kriegler (Ga’11)

4. Blake Nielson (Fr’11) and Tim Vickers-Willis (FB’11)

5. Georgie Clement (He’11), Jack Kincaid (P’11), Portia Atkins (Cl’11), Zoe Blair-Holt (A’11) and Georgia Garnaut (Maddern, He’11)

6. Sophia Grattan-Smith (Ga’11), Bayles Abercrombie (P’11), Iona Robertson (Litchfield, Cl’11) and Kelly Banks (Cl’11)

7. Candy Kriegler (Ga’11) and Lizzie Houghton (Ga’11)

8. Harry Osmond (P’11), Ashleigh Flavel and Sam Forster (P’11)

9. Christopher Beach (Glamorgan ‘05), Jack Kincaid (P’11) and Liv Rayner (O’Hare, Fr’11)

10. Geordie Russell (M’11) and Elle Musgrave (Ga’11)

11. Grace Barnard (Fr’11) and James Calvert-Jones (FB’11)

12. Sarah Howse (EM’11) and Rebecca Breadmore (Ga’11)

Year Reunion

At their Class of 2014 10 year

at the

1. Sophie Batten (EM’14), William Palmer (FB’14) and guest, Alex Eisner (Fr’14) and George Coltman (Fr’14)

2. Caroline Roe (A’14), Edward Gubbins (Cu’14), Harrison Fraser (Cu’14) and Aimee Collopy (Ga’14)

3. Morgan Fisher (Cu’14), Charlotte Byrne (Cl’14), Eda Corr (Fr’12), Nick Anastassiou (FB’14) and Imogen Francis (He’14)

4. Louisa Christie (He’14), Sarah Commins (He’14), Isabella Dawson (He’14) and Angela Zheng (Fr’14)

5. Ruby Hill (Cl’14), John-Louis Irvine (P’14), Emma Szepe (Cl’14), Jessie Sleigh (Cl’14) and Hamish Baylis (M’14)

6. Isabella Greed (Ga’14), Hailey Holloway (He’14) and Bridget Sharp (He’14)

7. Hamish McKillop (Cu’14), Harry Calver (Cu’14) and Owen Kelly (FB’14)

8. Matthew Intziadis (Fr’14), Max Lawrence (M’14) and Hamish Purcell (P’14)

9. Ethan Paterson (Cu’13), Alvin Chan (M’14), Marvin Lai (FB’14) and Harrison Tanti (P’14)

10. Lucy Codyre (Cl’14), Jessica Grills (A’14) and Morgan Salt (Ga’14)

11. Harrison Stewart (FB’14), Tom Hermsen (P’14), Samuel Parsons (P’14) and Ted Strapp (FB’14)

13. Belle McDonald (A’14), Tony Chen (A’14), Amy Graves (Cl’14), Emma Szepe (Cl’14) and Annabel Richardson (Cl’14)

13. Charlotte Byrne (Cl’14), Ally Kirkwood (Cl’14), Hannah Starkins (He’14) and Annabel Richardson (Cl’14)

14. George Coltman (FB’14), Billie Hook (Ga’14), Juliet Bigelow (He’14) and Charlie Calvert (FB’14)

Reunion

Prahran Hotel in Windsor:

Past Parents’ Network Reconnect

Our Past Parents’ Network (PPN) hosted an Autumn Reconnect event in the Hawthorn home of Win Jones, mother of Davey Jones (P’14), on Friday 19 April. The PPN hosted its inaugural event in 2012 and has grown into a vibrant social network enabling past GGS parents to maintain links with the School and each other, hosting more than 20 events before the interruption of COVID-19 lockdowns. The PPN returned with a Spring Afternoon Tea in November 2023, and the recent Autumn Reconnect was a wonderful opportunity to renew connections across our community – the hum of conversation and peals of laughter were constant throughout the night. PPN co-Chair, Markela Sargent-Peck, welcomed guests and past parent Chris Commins (FB’71) spoke about the importance of maintaining community connections. The PPN Committee continues to play an important role in our community in fostering these connections through social gatherings, events and a Hong Kong chapter. If any past parents are interested in joining or participating in the Committee, please contact Support Group Coordinator, Iga Bajer, via supportgroups@ggs.vic.edu.au.

2.

3. Ben Burke, Kim Knights and Julie-Anne Gibney (Ross, Cl’82)

4. Caroline Faulkner, Michael Backwell (P’83), Kelly Nadenbousch, Dimity Millear, Annabel Holmes and Allan Holmes

5. Cathie Kemp, Anna McDonald, Karen Ng, Libby McQuillan, Markela Peck, Sue Lester, Winifred Jones, Julie-Anne Gibney (Ross, Cl’82), Suzy Rayment, Sally Hermsen and Sophie Carnegie (Ga’89)

1. Chris Commins (FB’71)

Simon Kemp (Cu’70), Suzy Rayment, Janie Habla, Gilbert Habla, Gwen Schwarz and Simon Peck

1966 Reunion

2. Rosie Marshall (Dudley), Cecily Hardy, Mary Lou Ashton-Jones

3. Elizabeth McCulloch (Bayne), Susan Triggs (Waters)

4. Jane MacKinnon (Ayers)

WOMEN’S INTERSCHOOL GOLF CHALLENGE CUP 2024

5. Beverley McArthur (Murch), Belinda Mason (Winter-Irving), Margaret Wood (Fogarty), Mary Lou Ashton-Jones (Nielsen), Suzanne Cloke (Grimwade), Anne Hood, Elizabeth McCulloch (Bayne), Marion McPherson, Cecily Hardy, Janie MacKinnon (Ayers), Caroline Consett (Burston), Rosie Marshall (Dudley), Rowena Marshall (Stevenson), Sylvia McLachlan (Clarke), Susie Triggs (Waters), Janet Gordon (Affleck).

ARCHIVES

The Class of 1966 held a reunion lunch at the home of Sylvia McLachlan (Clarke, Clyde ‘67) in Birregurra on Wednesday 17 April. Neighbours, Janet Gordon (Affleck, Clyde ‘64) and Skye Stevens (Mackinnon, Cl'87), daughter of Jane Mackinnon (Ayers, Clyde ‘65), were welcome guests from “down the road”, while Mary Lou Ashton-Jones (Nielsen, Clyde ‘66) provided photos and a report for The Cluthan.

COGA AGM and Old Girls’ Day

The COGA AGM and Old Girls’ Lunch will be held at Royal South Yarra Lawn Tennis Club on Sunday 20 October, with passionate gardener Anna Affleck (Durham, Clyde ‘71) as guest speaker. Anna’s gardening experience stretches from the restoration of the English style garden surrounding the historic Western District homestead of Minjah, to coordinating garden tours and developing a particular interest in drought resistance and climate adaptability. An invitation with more details and reply slip will be included in The Cluthan mail out in September.

GOLF REPORT

THE HISTORY OF THE FUN CUP

by Di Gatehouse (Toorak College)

50 years on

The weather in March had been extremely hot and players were hoping for milder conditions for this year's event. Fortunately, on Monday 18th March, a cool morning with no wind greeted the players at Yarra Yarra Golf Club. By late morning the temperature had reached the low 30s. Players were relieved to be finished, the course was in an amazing condition but the greens were oh so fast!

Golf Report

Eda Ritchie (Beggs), Janet Coombes (Dalrymple), Deb Middleton (Noall) and Ann ‘Roo’ Rawlins (Hornabrook), who are all wonderful supporters of Clyde Golf, did us proud and full marks for effort and camaraderie. So enthusiastic and eager to get the job done but unfortunately not Clyde’s year this year.

COGA ACTIVITIES

With city clubs becoming what they have become, the Fun Cup has tended to find its playing ground on the Mornington and Bellerine Peninsula – meaning the ferry service plays a keen role. Sorrento and Barwon Heads are much loved venues and it is a case of: “Have clubs will travel.”

100 YEARS

A red-letter day on the golfing calendar is the Fun Cup. Now an event that has passed its 50th successful year, it proves that old girls from Clyde, Toorak College and St Catherines love nothing better than a round of golf, a catch up and a bit more than a natter over lunch.

Memories of Clyde

FUN CUP 2024

It’s always a gamble to arrange a date to suit all the golfers from the three schools. This year the coordinators thought we had got it right. Unfortunately, after Easter, the school holidays were still underway and many players had child minding duties!

The event was mooted by Flora ‘Flo’ Grimwade (Whitton), who like so many, had endured the cold, chilblains and the threat of bushfires on the Mount.

The COGA Committee invites the wider Clyde and Geelong Grammar School community to write up your memories of Clyde School for publication in The Cluthan. Ghosts, bracken, fruit tuck, sleep-out, the tower, log cabin, Mem Buildings, the school hop, hockey in the mud, picnics at Hanging Rock… or memories of OGGs rattling up the mountain track in a GGS school bus for the annual Clyde School Dance. Please share your memories and any memorabilia (letters, diaries, photographs, schoolbooks) with Kammy Cordner Hunt (Cordner, Clyde’75, Cl’76): kammycordner4@gmail.com

The old girls’ golf day was beginning to seriously dwindle in numbers as was those of Toorak College and St. Catherines. She floated the idea past myself and Kar MacKinnon (St. Catherines) of starting an event that included the three schools. We were all members of Royal Melbourne, a much smaller club then and a much easier place to enable our committee of three to get the event up and running.

The 95th Women's Interschool Golf Challenge Cup was held in extremely hot conditions at Yarra Yarra Golf Club on 18 March. 29 schools competed in the 18-hole stableford event (including Carey for the first time), which was won by PLC. The Clyde team, pictured below, was well represented by Eda Ritchie (Beggs, Clyde ‘59), Janet Coombes (Dalrymple, Clyde ‘67), Deb Middleton (Noall, Clyde ‘71) and Roo Rawlins (Hornabrook, Clyde ‘59). Clyde finished in third place at the Fun Cup at Sorrento Golf Club during the Easter school holidays, with Toorak College winning on a count back from St Catherine’s. Clyde was proudly represented by Kate Robinson (Richardson, Clyde ‘75), Eda Ritchie (Beggs, Clyde ‘59), Ros Bromell (Gardner, Clyde ‘59) and Anna Tucker (Kimpton, Clyde ‘71). The 2025 Fun Cup will be held at 13th Beach Golf Links at Barwon Heads on Monday 12 May. For all golf enquires please contact COGA Golf Coordinator, Anna Tucker: annatucker8@outlook.com

GOLF REPORT

This event has been running now for 95 amazing years with a great history. It is interesting to note that Clyde was one of the original founding schools. Congratulations to PLC the winners this year. Next year’s event is at a venue to be advised. As always, we would like to thank the Clyde Old Girls Association for their financial support in this event.

For enquires please contact: Anna Tucker (Kimpton) COGA Golf Coordinator annatucker8@outlook.com Mobile 0408 540 252

We never envisaged the event’s success nor that it would run for 50 successful years.

The name of the event came off the top of Flo’s head and a trophy was dug up out of a cupboard – the sort of place old trophies tend to find their way into. It has scrubbed up into something quite sweet and was one of my athletic cups.

However we still were able to have a wonderful day at Sorrento Golf Club. A cool sunny morning and the battle was underway.

Being a “fun day”, everyone goes out to play, no stress as it’s the four best scores from each school that count. Clyde’s team were Kate Robinson (Richardson), Eda Ritchie (Beggs), Ros Bromell (Gardner) and Anna Tucker (Kimpton)

We finished the morning with a really close event. Toorak College winning on a count back from St

THE HISTORY OF THE FUN CUP by Di Gatehouse (Toorak College)

50 years on

A red-letter day on the golfing calendar Cup. Now an event that has passed its ful year, it proves that old girls from Clyde, College and St Catherines love nothing round of golf, a catch up and a bit more over lunch.

The event was mooted by Flora ‘Flo’ , who like so many, had endured of bushfires on

The old girls’ golf day was beginning dwindle in numbers as was those of Toorak and St. Catherines. She floated the idea and Kar MacKinnon (St. Catherines) of event that included the three schools. members of Royal Melbourne, a much then and a much easier place to enable tee of three to get the event up and running.

Women’s Interschool Challenge Cup golfers

L-R: Janet Coombes (Dalrymple), Deb Middleton (Noall), Eda Ritchie (Beggs) and Ann ‘Roo’ Rawlins (Hornabrook)

We never envisaged success nor that it would 50 successful years.

The name of the event the top of Flo’s head phy was dug up out board – the sort of phies tend to find their It has scrubbed up thing quite sweet and my athletic cups.

Di Gatehouse with the Fun Cup trophy

COGA

Di Gatehouse with the Fun Cup trophy

Fun Cup golfers L-R: Kate Robinson (Richardson), Jo Armytage (Barr Smith), Eda Ritchie (Beggs), Ros Bromell (Gardner), Mandy Snaddon (White), Julie Cole (Baird), Ann ‘Roo’ Rawlins (Hornabrook), Janet Gordon (Affleck) and Anna Tucker (Kimpton)

1. L-R: Kate Robinson (Richardson), Jo Armytage (Barr Smith), Eda Ritchie (Beggs), Ros Bromell (Gardner), Mandy Snaddon (White), Julie Cole (Baird), Ann ‘Roo’ Rawlins (Hornabrook), Janet Gordon (Affleck) and Anna Tucker (Kimpton)

2. Di Gatehouse with the Fun Cup trophy

1. Anna Affleck (Durham Clyde ‘71), Guest Speaker fort the COGA AGM

At the 1966 Reunion Lunch

(Nielsen)

Jackie Mackinnon Archives Coordinator (M) 0417

Tour of Barwon Park Mansion

The Hermitage Old Girls enjoyed a well-attended and very interesting tour of Barwon Park Mansion on Thursday 21 March. We were very ably led by our own tour guide, Alison Rhodes (Webster, The Hermitage ‘72), who shared her amazing knowledge of the Italianate mansion built by Thomas and Elizabeth Austin in Winchelsea in 1869. The HOGA Committee is exploring further opportunities to visit other National Trust buildings in the Geelong region.

Scholarship Morning Tea

HOGA President, Elizabeth Bennett (McDonald, The Hermitage ‘66), attended a Scholarship Recognition Morning Tea at Corio, where she met the new recipient of the HOGA Scholarship, Liz Whitford (Yr7 Ku), and the Elsie Morres Scholarship, Rubie McNair (Yr8 Ot). Rubie’s grandmother is Sally Roadknight (Dexter, The Hermitage ‘65), her great-aunt is Joanna Steer (Dexter, The Hermitage ‘71), and her great-great-aunt is Lady Geraldine Currie (Dexter, The Hermitage ‘40).

Golf Report

The 95th Women’s Interschool Golf Challenge Cup was held at Yarra Yarra Golf Club on 18 March. This year, 29 schools competed in the charity golf event, raising more than $2,000 for McAuley Community Services for Women. The Hermitage team, pictured below, was well represented in the 18-hole stableford competition by Lib Nicholson (Calvert, The Hermitage '68), Sarah Tallent (Calvert, The Hermitage '72), Suzanne Hurley (Jones, The Hermitage '73) and Sandy Fraser (Bell, The Hermitage '72). The HOGA Golf Day will be held at Barwon Heads Golf Club on Monday 14 October.

Reunions and Events

HOGA recently hosted another very successful Casual Lunch at the Waurn Ponds Hotel and we are looking forward to upcoming reunions and events, including our Old Girls’ Day and AGM in the Darling Hall at Corio on Saturday 5 October. The 1964 60-Year Reunion will be held at St Lords (formally Lord of the Isles Tavern) on West Fyans Street on Saturday 16 November. Please notify Marie Jordan (Hill, The Hermitage '63) on 0408 553 027 or Sue Rickarby (Parramore, The Hermitage '63) on 0421 998 425 if you have changed your email or postal address. The 1974 50-Year Reunion will be held at the Sawyers Arms Tavern on Noble Street on Saturday 12 October. If you have not already received an email or message, please contact Wendy Tuechler (Dennis, The Hermitage ’74) via wmtuechler@gmail.com for more details. Looking further ahead, our HOGA Christmas Lunch will be held at All Saints’ Hall in Newtown on Monday 2 December. The Class of 1965 are busy planning their 60-Year Reunion, which will be held at Southbank in Melbourne on Wednesday 19 March 2025. If you have recently changed your contact details, please notify Ann Andrew (Gooch, The Hermitage '65) on 0439 369 057, or Prue Taylor (Thomson, The Hermitage '65) on 0417 036 255.

If you have and/or know of any changes of address or contact details, please notify HOGA Secretary, Jill Nicholls (Holmes, The Hermitage ’68), on 0400 800 136 or email: hermitagegirls@gmail.com

Nicola Higgins’ (Ga’93) portrait of her sister, Missy (Cl’01), was named as a finalist for this year’s Archibald Prize, Australia’s premier prize for portraiture. “I wanted to capture her in a creative mode, and it just happened naturally,” Nicola said in her submission. “Missy really lives and breathes music. In the painting, she is in her own little world, completely absorbed in writing a song.”

“Getting into the Archibald Prize was one of the most surreal and exciting moments of my life,” Nicola said. “Taking Missy to see my painting of her, hanging in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was really funny because loads of people crowded around and started filming us on their phones. It was a special and kind of hilarious moment.”

Nicola has always thrived in the creative space, but her path to becoming an artist full-time hasn’t exactly been conventional. “I loved the art department building at Corio... I remember spending most of my spare time there, just frolicking around making paintings or ceramic sculptures, totally in my element. My main area of interest was fashion, and it was my Year 12 art portfolio that secured my position in a Bachelor of Fashion Design at RMIT. I went on to design swimwear and clothing under the label Nicola for the next 15 years, and this was my main creative outlet.”

Inspiration and lifting each other up has been a hallmark of Missy and Nicola’s relationship; famously, it was Nicola who entered Missy’s song All for Believing (written for a school project while at GGS) in Triple J’s Unearthed competition. “A few years ago, Missy gave me a huge blank canvas for a present,” Nicola said in an interview with Good Weekend in 2018. “I think it was a bit of a hint – nudge, nudge – and it made me think about painting again.”

“I’ve been painting full time for about eight years now, and last year completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the National Art School in Sydney.”

Nicola was one of two OGGs to have a piece named as a finalist this year, along with Zoe Young (Ga’95) who was named a finalist for the fourth time. The Garnett House connection proved to be quite the talking point when the pair connected a few years ago. “I had been a fan of Zoe’s art for a few years, and when she reached out on social media she mentioned that she remembered my artwork hanging on the wall in Garnett! It was great to finally meet her at the Archibald opening earlier this year.”

Nicola has recently signed with Nanda/Hobbs Gallery in Sydney and has a solo exhibition coming up in the second half of 2024. “Everything seems to be suddenly happening very quickly, and it’s incredibly exciting!”

1987Vice Admiral

Justin Jones

AO CSC RAN (M’87) assumed responsibilities as the seventh Chief of Joint Operations in July. Chief of Joint Operations is a three-star role within the Australian Defence Force (ADF), responsible for the Joint Operations Command and joint operational deployments, such as United Nations peacekeeping and joint task groups. Justin joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in 1988 and is a graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College (HMAS Cresswell) and the Australian Command and Staff College in Canberra. He also holds a Master of Management Studies, a Master of Arts (Strategy and Policy), and a Graduate Diploma in Defence Studies. He has served in patrol boats, guided missile destroyers, guided missile frigates, amphibious assault ships, and combat support ships. He has deployed operationally to the Middle East four times, been assigned to 11 named operations, and deployed into the IndoPacific region on 13 occasions during his career. He has commanded HMAS Newcastle (2008-10) and HMAS Success (2014-16), and served as Director of the Sea Power Centre (2011-14). Justin was Director-General Operations (J3) Headquarters Joint Operations Command (202021), Commander Maritime Border Command (2022-24) and Deputy Chief of Joint Operations (2024), before his promotion to Vice Admiral and command of Headquarters Joint Operations Command. He was also the inaugural Navy Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in 2010, co-authoring Crisis in Confidence: major powers and maritime security in Indo-Pacific Asia (2011). He has since edited two books, A Maritime School of Strategic Thought for Australia: Perspectives (2013), and Australian Maritime Strategic Thought 2013-2023 (2023). He was the recipient of the Vice Admiral Viscount Horatio Nelson KB Trafalgar Bicentennial Sword of Excellence for leadership in 2006 and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2024 King’s Birthday honours list for distinguished service to the Royal Australian Navy, Maritime Border Command and the Australian Defence Force’s joint operations.

2007

Sho Ito (P’07) was the School’s first Richard and Janet Southby Visiting Fellow of 2024 with an exhibition and presentation exploring how our natural resources are being commodified. An architect and educator based in the UK, Sho is the founder of Studio ITO: Interdisciplinary Thought Operations, and also teaches at both London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) and the University of Westminster. He studied art and design at the prestigious University of Arts

London (ual:) before completing a Diploma Programme (MArch) at AA and graduating with the Norman Foster + Partners Architectural Prize. He has worked at Rogers Stirk Harbour+Partner, dRMM (de Rike, Marsh, Morgan) and AHMM (Allford Hall Monaghan Morris) in the UK and was a Design Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Sho was in Australia in April to present a series of exhibitions and public lectures entitled ‘Nature’s Treasures: Celebrating Earth’s Natural Resources’, which explored how our natural resources are being commodified and politicised, with specific reference to the role of architects and architecture in the efficient use of limited resources. On his return to Corio, Sho also talked about his time at GGS, studying in the UK, and his practice as an architect and university lecturer.

2012

Nat Thaipun (Ga’12) was crowned Australia’s 2024 MasterChef, winning the reality cooking show’s grand finale, which aired on Network Ten in July. Nat won the coveted cooking title after surviving the final “pressure test” of recreating Michelin-starred British chef Clare Smyth’s intricate, 113-step Malteser dessert. “I couldn't believe it, I was in shock to be honest,” Nat said. As part of her prize, Nat received $250,000 and a twoweek residency at Crown Melbourne’s Alumni restaurant. The fan favourite performed well throughout season 16 of the popular cooking competition (which comprised 50 episodes across four months), winning the first immunity challenge, winning the mystery box challenge, cooking alongside Jamie Oliver for two weeks in his London restaurant, and being offered a job from acclaimed Hong Kong chef Vicky Cheng. Nat grew up in Sunbury, where her parents ran a Thai restaurant and her mum/food hero, Nutsiree, was head chef. Trained as a barista, she has lived and worked in Switzerland, Japan and New Zealand (while living in New Zealand, Nat developed an insulated reusable coffee cup for local cafes that replaced over 450,000 single-use cups in two years and won a Local Impact Award). MasterChef enabled Nat to embrace her “intuitive” and creative approach to cooking and showcase her culture through her food. “There’s nothing in Melbourne that is a reflection of how I grew up eating Thai food,” she explained. Nat recently started work at Melbourne’s celebrated fine dining restaurant, Vue de Monde. “I want to broaden my palate and my knowledge in the kitchen because that's going to be the best thing I can do before I do anything in hospitality.”

2013

Harriet Nixon (Ga’13) has been remembered through a scholarship at the Australian National University’s Burgmann College. Harriet was studying a Bachelor of Arts/Laws at ANU and living at the residential college when she died suddenly in 2017, hit by a falling tree branch while working with a group of students to set up the Lost Paradise music festival on the NSW Central Coast. From Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands of NSW, the Harriet Nixon Scholarship will honour her memory by helping other students from rural and regional Australia to live and study at ANU. The scholarship will cover up to 40% of the fees for a fully catered undergraduate package at Burgmann, and will specifically support students from rural, regional, and remote Australia, including first-in-family students, Indigenous students, and students from low socio-economic backgrounds. The scholarship is particularly meaningful for Burgmann College principal, Alex McKenzie, who was a college friend of Harriet’s when they were both living at Burgmann in 2016-17. “When I was able to share the news that we were doing this, (my college friends) were just so happy and so excited, because she did have a really big impact on a lot of people,” Alex said. “I think it’s such a great thing and it just shows that her legacy continues to live on.” Harriet was awarded the Osmand Neville Hunter Mackay Smyth Prize (the Timbertop Prize) for “making the greatest all round contribution to life at Timbertop” in 2010. The School inaugurated the Harriet Nixon Prize in 2017 to recognise the contribution of girls to the life of Timbertop, alongside the Osmand Neville Hunter Mackay Smyth Prize, which recognises the contribution of boys.

2017

Nat Lam (Ga’17) has recently completed her six–year journey at Cambridge University, graduating with a degree in Science after completing a Bachelor of Arts and a degree in Veterinary Medicine. Nat arrived at Corio Campus in 2013 in Year 8 as the School’s first Lee Hysan Scholarship recipient to attend Geelong Grammar School. “It really was a life changing experience to have the opportunity to go to GGS,” Nat said upon graduating as Dux of the School in 2017. Nat was joined at her graduation by her mentor from throughout her GGS journey, Hong Kong OGG Branch president Roland Wu (P’93). The pair’s connection has endured since their first meeting more than a decade ago. “The initial transition from Corio to Timbertop was difficult for Nat – she struggled with the open spaces – but she rose to the challenges and developed a love of animals during her Timbertop year, setting her on the path to a career as a

veterinarian,” Roland said. Upon returning to Hong Kong, Nat is going to be a volunteer vet for the Hong Kong Guide Dogs Association; an organisation of which Roland is chair.

2020

Star Rose Miller (He’21) and Sophie Ward (Cl’20) have been selected in the Australian Women’s Eight set to compete at the Under 23 Rowing World Championships in St Catherines, Canada between August 18 and 25. The pair have competed together at the University of California, Berkeley for the past two seasons, and this will be the first time they have represented Australia at Under 23 level. Sophie has previously rowed for Australia at Under 21 level, albeit as part of what could be held up as the poster event for all Covid-interrupted events; selected in the Women’s Eight unable to travel to Italy for the 2021 World Cup event, then unable to travel from Victoria to South Australia for the simultaneous regatta created by Rowing Australia, Sophie rowed in a four on Victoria’s Patterson River concurrently with those rowing in South Australia, which was held concurrently with the World Cup event in Italy. In April, Hamish Wynn-Pope (Cu’18) was part of an Australian ‘A’ squad selected to contest the first World Rowing Cup event of the year in Varese, Italy. The squad, selected with one eye on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, competed against elite crews from across the globe to fast-track their development. Hamish rowed in the two seat for the Men’s Coxless Four, finishing second in the B final.

HONOURS

Robert Dean (P’52) was awarded Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) on the King's Birthday for service to the community of Red Cliffs. Robert was the community pharmacist at Dean’s Pharmacy in Red Cliffs for 50 years, from 1957-2007, and contributed tirelessly to various organisations across the local Sunraysia community. He has served as a member of the Red Cliffs Fire Brigade for 65 years, serving as Secretary from 1999-2015 and becoming a Life Member in 1992. He was also president of the local Apex Club, secretary of the Benevolent Society, club captain of the Golf Club, inaugural treasurer of the Senior Citizens Club, secretary of the Red Cliffs and District Historical Society, and a volunteer for Meals on Wheels. Robert was previously recognised as Citizen of the Year for the Mildura Rural City Council in 1995.

Ian Thomson (Ge’53) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) on Australia Day for service to the community through a range of organisations in Geelong. Ian is a long-serving member of the Rotary Club of Corio Bay, serving as president from 1987-88, as a director of the Rotary Foundation, and as a member of the Probus Committee for District 9870 from 2006-09. He served as a CFA volunteer for 56 years, serving as captain of both the Corio and Lovely Banks brigades. Ian has also been a Youth Exchange councillor and chair of the Windmill Jelderks Trust, which provides scholarships to the Gordon TAFE.

The late Emeritus Professor Adrian Lee (Ge’59) became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on Australia Day for significant service to tertiary education, to microbiology, and to professional organisations. Adrian was a significant and important medical academic, contributing to the ground-breaking work of Robin Warren and Barry Marshall on the gut bacterium Helicobacter pylori that was recognised with the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 2005. Adrian was Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he was also a Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education and Quality Improvement) and an Emeritus Professor. He was awarded the inaugural Distinguished Teaching Award of the Australian Society for Microbiology, was a consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Medical Education and received a Career Achievement Award from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council in 2008. Adrian passed away in July 2023.

The Honourable Lewis (Rolf) Driver (Bw’66) became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on the King’s Birthday for significant service to the judiciary, and to the law. Lewis was a Judge of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia for 22 years, from 2000-22. He was previously the Attorney-General Department’s Principal Legal Officer from 1984-89 and Senior Government Solicitor in the Office of the Australian Government Solicitor (AGS) from 1989-2000. Lewis also served as chair of the Australasian Chapter of the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IARMJ) and continues to serve as a member of the International Governing Council and Asia Pacific Chapter Executive of IARMJ.

Bruce Wilson (Cu’66) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) on Australia Day for service to the community, and to agricultural education. Bruce served on the College Council at Marcus Oldham College for 22 years, from 1999-2021, including 14 years as chairman. Bruce and his wife Judy diversified and expanded the family property, Murdeduke, near Winchelsea, introducing raised bed cropping and establishing Murdeduke Angus stud and Western Plains Pork. A former captain of the Winchelsea

CFA brigade, Bruce was also co-founder and inaugural chairman of agricultural research company, Southern Farming Systems, and was recognised with the HV McKay Science Award (named after the inventor of the Sunshine Harvester, Hugh Victor McKay).

Colin Dunn (Staff 1975-76) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) on Australia Day for service to the community of Pambula, and to education. The retired teacher is president of the Pambula Rotary Club, a former chair of the Sapphire Aquatic Centre, and a founding member and executive officer of the Bega Valley’s Bureau of Accessible Tourism (BOAT). He has been the chair of the Pambula and District Community Development Bank since 2017 and is a member of the Pambula Hospital Community Engagement Committee. A community radio presenter, Colin was named the Bega Valley Shire’s Senior Citizen of the Year in 2019.

Julian Bickersteth (Timbertop Assistant 1980) became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) on Australia Day for distinguished service to the museum and arts sector, and to conservation and the environment. Julian is the founder and CEO of International Conservation Services and has played a key role in promoting sustainability in the conservation sector. He is chair of the David Roche Foundation in Adelaide, President of Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Societies (ADFAS) and was a board member of the National Trust of Australia (NSW) for 10 years.

Georgina Gubbins (Cl’82) was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) on Australia Day for service to primary industry, and to the community. Georgina is the owner and principal of Maneroo Farms at Heywood, producing lambs and Angus beef with a focus on sustainable environmental farming practices. From 2017-23, she was chair of Food and Fibre Great South Coast, the representative body for agricultural production across five local government areas in South West Victoria. She served as chair of the biennial sheep industry conference LambEx 2020 from 2018-23 and was president of the Grassland Society of Southern Australia from 2006-07. Georgina was also a director of the Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority from 2015-19, deputy chair of Wannon Water from 2011-19, and director of South West TAFE from 2014-16.

Vice Admiral Justin Jones CSC RAN (M'87) became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) on the King's Birthday for distinguished service to the Royal Australian Navy in significant command positions. Justin was Director-General Operations (J3) Headquarters Joint Operations Command (2020-21), Commander Maritime Border Command (2022-24) and Deputy Chief of Joint Operations (2024), before his promotion to Vice Admiral and command of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) Headquarters Joint Operations Command.

Mia Gross (Fr’19), Jock Landale (M’13) and Lauren Ryan (Cl’16) represented Australia at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Mia (200m) and Lauren (5000m and 10,000m) each contested their first Olympics, becoming the first female Old Geelong Grammarians to represent Australia in track and field in the process. Jock, having won a Bronze medal with the Boomers at the Tokyo Olympics, returned for his second campaign with the Men’s Basketball team.

The Boomers entered the Olympics as an outside chance for a medal, kicking off their tournament with an encouraging 12-point win over Spain. Being drawn in what was labeled the “group of death” was always going to be a tough task, and so it proved as Australia lost their next two games to Canada and Greece. With three teams finishing on one win, Australia progressed to the quarter finals due to the win over Spain and a superior points differential. Jock finished the group stage averaging 17.6 points and 9.6 rebounds. Jock would have his hands full in the quarter final match-up against Serbia, responsible for guarding three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić. The Boomers burst out of the blocks, leading by 24 points midway through the second quarter, only for Serbia to slowly but surely whittle the lead away. Jock fouled out of the game with 10 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, with Australia ultimately falling to Serbia by five points in overtime.

On the track, Lauren was a model of consistency, finishing 13th in her 5000m heat and 13th in the 10,000m final. Lauren’s 10,000m time, while not a personal best, was the second-fastest 10,000m she has ever run. “This moment was surreal in so many ways!” Lauren posted on Instagram. “A lot has changed in the last year and there are so many people to thank that helped me achieve these

AT THE OLYMPICS

goals: thank you to every single one of you.” The past year has been a whirlwind for Lauren, seeing the 26-year-old win a national championship over 10,000m and break the long-standing Australian 10,000m record before making her Olympic debut.

It’s been a long time coming for Mia who, aged just 23, has endured more setbacks than most. Representing Australia for the first time at the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games, Mia fractured her wrist after colliding with someone who strayed into her lane on the training track. From there, Mia has represented Australia at Under 20 level and was part of the Bronzemedal-winning 4x100m relay team at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, but her young career has been repeatedly interrupted by injury and illness. Competing at the Olympics has been a lifelong dream for Mia, which she achieved after running sub-23 seconds over 200m for the first time in June 2024. In Paris, Mia finished sixth in her heat (23.36 seconds) and fourth in the repechage (23.34 seconds), ultimately missing a spot in the semi finals. Running in front of more than 60,000 raucous fans in the Stade de France was a moment Mia will never forget, and she is excited to hopefully replicate those feelings in Los Angeles 2028. “I’m aiming to go full-time as an elite athlete,” Mia told Forte Magazine earlier this month. “I’m chatting with brands about possible sponsorships that match my values and personality. I’m super positive about this and believe being an Olympian will help me reach new heights as an athlete. I’m already eyeing the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, along with all the World Championships and Commonwealth Games teams in between… And a cheeky Australian record would be the cherry on the top!”

OGG Golf – Women’s Interschool Golf Challenge Cup

OGG Football

The Old Geelong Football Club is celebrating 70 years since its inception, marking the occasion with a gala dinner on Saturday 18 May. The event welcomed current and past players, coaches, supporters and sponsors to celebrate the club’s anniversary.

On the field, the Senior Women’s team finished the home and away season in second on the ladder* in the VAFA’s Premier B competition. Led by captain and reigning best and fairest winner Brooke McKay (He’15), the team has an imposing record of 13 wins and three losses on the season. Brooke and Annabel Rafferty (A’14) have each surpassed 75 games, leading the way in terms of games played for the OGFC women’s team. Off the field, Sophie Batten (EM’14) became the first female player to join the club’s committee, elected to the role of Vice President in 2023. The support of community members like past parent Nick Edwards is invaluable for the women’s teams. Nick fills the roll of goal umpire for the Women’s Senior and Reserves sides week-in, week-out, having missed just the four games since the club started fielding women’s teams in 2017.

Teams representing Clyde, The Hermitage and GGS participated in this year’s Women’s Interschool Golf Challenge Cup, held at the Yarra Yarra Golf Club on Monday 18 March 2024. Developed to foster teamwork in Associate golf, the competition also supports a charity, with the McAuley Community Services for Women selected in 2024. Thanks to the organisational efforts of Sophie Holloway (Cl’83), Geelong Grammar School has participated in the Cup for the past 10 years. Congratulations to Sophie who has recently been awarded a life membership for her contribution to the Cup.

Thank you to Alison Gibson (Gordon, A’79), Edwina Sinclair (Kinnear, Cl’81) and Kirsten Scudamore (A’80) for representing Team GGS this year, and congratulations to Kirsten on winning the nearest the pin competition on the 15th hole on the day. We would love to field a full team of four in 2025, to be held in March. If you are interested in playing and you have a golf handicap, please contact oggs@ggs.vic.edu.au.

The Senior Men’s team finds itself in Premier B for the second-consecutive year – the highest grade achieved in the history of the club – and sit third on the ladder* in a stacked mid-tier of the table; one-and-a-half wins off top spot, but just one loss above sixth. Mickey Nicholls (P’16) sits in the top 15 in the league for goals in 2024, while brothers Nick (A’14) and Scott Dixon (A’13) are part of the Senior Men’s coaching staff, alongside former AFL footballer Nathan Brown.

*Ladder positions and win-loss records correct as of August 11.

1. Brooke McKay (He’15)

Sophie Batten (EM’14)

Mickey Nicholls (P’16)

Scott Dixon (A’13)

1936Cecil Edgar Robertson (Boz) Parsons DFC (M’36), who was born in Colac on 12 September 1918 and died on 1 February 2024, was a wartime pilot, farmer and educator, and distinguished member of the Geelong Grammar School community.

Boz was the youngest of six children born to Cecil Parsons (GGS 1889), a farmer, and his wife Lena (née Robertson). The early years of his life were spent among horses on ‘Wilgul’ near Beeac, not far from Lake Corangamite in the Western District of Victoria. His father bred horses there and in Madagascar, where he contracted malaria. Wilgul was sold in 1924 and Cecil died of blackwater fever in Colac in 1926, leaving six children under 14 years old. Boz was seven at the time, and thereafter his devoted mother exerted a significant influence on his life.

Boz entered Junior House in 1931, and in 1933 won the Bertie Manifold Scholarship to enter Manifold House. Bertie had been killed in World War One, and this knowledge, as well as a sense of indebtedness to the School, spurred Boz on; he later remarked, “I felt it was incumbent upon me to do the best I could”. He played football and tennis, was a member of the cricket First XI, CSM of the Cadet Corps, and took the part of Moses in the 1936 biblical pageant Alpha and Omega. Although describing himself as a “very poor English scholar”, he demonstrated strengths in physics, chemistry and maths. He was appointed a school prefect in 1936. His final school report identified characteristics that foreshadowed the trajectory of Boz’s life: ‘A thoroughly good person with more ability than his results show up to date. Would make a very good schoolmaster. Thoroughly honest and decent and strong in character”.

After graduating Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne, where he was a member of Trinity College, Boz had no hesitation in enlisting in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) following the outbreak of World War Two. He set his sights on becoming a pilot, and after a period of training in Canada was posted to an air base in Yorkshire in 1941 where, as a second pilot with 35 Squadron, he flew five operations in Halifax bombers. He then transferred to 58 Squadron and flew 25 operations, mainly as captain, in cumbersome twin-engine Whitleys attacking targets across the Ruhr and along the French coast. His aircraft was part of a disastrous nighttime raid on Berlin – the furthest possible target – on 7 November 1941, which resulted in the loss of 160 airmen and 37 planes. Boz’s was one of only 79 of the 169 aircraft that departed to reach the target. Flying a night bomber, explained Boz, “was an extreme form of tension, anxiety and fear … it’s just luck if you don’t get hit”. After a period as an instructor with a training unit, he took part in the first of the thousand-bomber raids over cities in Germany

in 1942. He was twice Mentioned in Despatches, and presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Having survived against the odds in an occupation with an almost 50 per cent casualty rate, Boz returned to Australia in 1944 to serve with 24 Squadron flying B-24 liberators out of Darwin. As captain, he flew 20 operations in the Pacific, including dropping troops behind enemy lines, displaying an ability “to carry out any type of operational flying coolly and skilfully”, for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, Boz flew for Connellan Airways based in Alice Springs, providing a flying doctor service and delivering mail – from Amaroo to Napperby, this was a three-day round trip in a 1927 DH75 Hawk Moth. He adored this time in the Territory but had met Barbara Cane, a physiotherapist from Ardrossan, South Australia, shortly after being demobbed and decided he “didn’t need to look any further”. He resigned from Connellan Airways, rejoined the RAAF, and Boz and Barbara married in 1947, forming a partnership that was to last for 77 years. Three children, Bill (M’66), David (M’69) and Jane (Li’73), followed.

In 1952, Boz again resigned his commission in the RAAF and went farming with his father-in-law Wilfred (Bill) Cane at Ardrossan, then with his sister, Janet Wettenhall, at Stanbury near Ceres in Victoria. By 1962, Boz had decided it was time to put his degree to use and become a schoolteacher. Fortuitously, a job teaching agricultural science at Geelong Grammar School was available and the Parsons family moved to Corio. Boz was Tommy Garnett’s first appointment.

It seemed like destiny when Boz was appointed housemaster of his beloved Manifold House in 1965, a role in which he continued until 1978, positively impacting many hundreds of boys under his care who remembered him with levels of affection and respect awarded only to legendary teachers. He was inspired by the example of his own headmaster, Sir James Darling, from whom he had learnt “the obligation of giving service to your fellow man … there is no doubt that whatever influence I had was derived from what I learnt in the first place as a boy”. From 1979 to 1980, with Robin Ritchie, Boz led the School as Senior Master during an interregnum following the untimely death of Charles Fisher (headmaster 1973–78) and retired when this role was completed.

In retirement, Boz was an active Old Geelong Grammarian (OGG), serving as secretary of the OGG Association from 1979 to 1988, and a donor and member of the Geelong Grammar Foundation. The Boz Parsons Scholarship was established in 2019 to support rural and regional students to access a GGS education, just as Boz had had the opportunity to do himself. He never forgot his Manifold boys and his ag science students, delighting in their visits and correspondence. Until his death at the extraordinary age of 105, Boz maintained his interests in farming, golf – he was a celebrated member of the Barwon Heads Golf Club – and aviation, flying his single-engine Piper Arrow all over outback Australia until he was 94.

Boz is survived by Barbara, their three children, eight grandchildren – among them Simon Parsons (M’92), Matthew Parsons (M’95), Anna Parsons (Ga’15), Phoebe Parsons (Ga’16), Lena O’Donnell (Fr ’04) and William O’Donnell (T’09) – and three great-grandchildren. Boz’s enduring legacy is to be found in his service to his country (his obituary appeared in two British newspapers) and to Geelong Grammar School, and in his dedication to friends and family. “I have lived an extraordinarily fortunate and a very fulfilling life,” reflected Boz in 2015. “I think if you enjoy it and you give to it, it’s half the battle. I’ve been very lucky.”

1944

Digby Glen Crozier (M’44), who was born on 16 May 1927 and died on 26 February 2024, was a Member of the Victorian Parliament representing the State’s south-west for 15 years. Digby was born in England to Dr John Edwin Digby Crozier and Nancy Legoe, who were both from South Australia. John’s father, Edwin Crozier, was a grazier at Bimbowrie Station in the State’s north-east and his grandfather was pioneering pastoralist and politician John Crozier, who emigrated from Scotland in 1838 and served in South Australia’s Legislative Council from 1867-87. Nancy’s father was well-known Adelaide businessman and pastoralist Glen Legoe of George Wilcox & Co, and her grandfather was Captain John Legoe, a sea captain of the Orient Line who settled in South Australia in the early 1870s.

The family returned to Australia in 1932 and purchased a sheep farm, ‘Kalabity’, in Wando Vale near Casterton. Digby commenced at Geelong Grammar School in Bostock House in 1935. In January 1939, at the age of 12, he served as a volunteer firefighter with the Wando Fire Brigade during the Black Friday bushfires that burned 2,000,000 hectares of land across Victoria and killed 71 people, devastating the nearby towns of Portland and Heywood. He would remain an active volunteer and passionate supporter of the Country Fire Authority (CFA) throughout his life. Digby moved up to Manifold House in 1941, winning prizes for English and history. He was cox of the First VIII in 1944 and a member of the School Representative Council and Library Committee. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy during his final term at Corio (his father had enlisted in 1941) supported by a reference from Sir James Darling (Headmaster 1930-61) that recommended Digby as “a person of very great ability and strong character”. He was completing his training at Flinders Naval Depot, HMAS Cerberus, when World War Two ended. He served on the HMAS Warrego and was demobilised in 1946 with the rank of able seaman.

Digby continued his studies at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was Captain of Boats and received a Master of Arts. He returned to Australia in 1949, taking on the family farm and becoming actively involved in politics, handing out how-to-vote cards for the then Liberal candidate for Wannon and subsequent Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser CH AC (Glamorgan ’37). In 1957, Digby married Mary ‘Jill’ Salter, and together had four children; John (P’75), Will (M’78), Georgie (Je’81) and Annabel Cooper (Crozier, Je’85). He served on the Glenelg Shire Council from 1965-73, including a two-year term as president (1967-68). He joined the Casterton branch of the Liberal Party and won the seat of Western Province in the State Parliament’s Legislative Council in 1973. During his tenure in the upper house, Digby was appointed Minister for State Development, Decentralisation and Tourism in 1976, moving to Local Government in 1979 (notably sacking the Melbourne City Council for alleged corruption and burnishing his reputation for decisive decision-making), and to Minerals and Energy in 1981. He was also deputy leader of the Legislative Council from 1978-79 and, following the defeat of the Liberal government in 1982, became the opposition spokesman for Minerals and Energy. In 1985, Digby transferred to the Legislative Assembly, winning the seat of Portland. He was Shadow Minister for Police and Emergency Services from 1985-88, after which he retired from politics. Later, following the amalgamation of City of Portland in 1994 with the Shires of Glenelg and Heywood, he served as a commissioner for the newly formed Glenelg Shire until the first local government elections were held in 1996.

Digby was a tireless advocate for the rural and regional communities of south-west Victoria. He and Jill travelled across his constituency, doorknocking and speaking with constituents to gain a deeper understanding of the region’s needs. He played an integral role in establishing the Alcoa aluminium smelter in Portland, which was announced by the then Premier, Sir Rupert Hamer AC KCMG (M’34), in 1979. Digby insisted the smelter be located in Portland given its natural, deep-water harbour and proximity to international shipping routes and access to Asian markets. The smelter transformed the town, creating thousands of jobs. It reached full production in 1988, producing 350,000 tonnes of aluminium ingot annually, and remains Victoria’s single biggest exporter.

Digby and Jill moved to Ocean Grove in 2007. Jill passed away in 2016, followed by their son Will in 2018. Their daughter Georgie followed Digby into politics, elected to the Victorian Legislative Council representing Southern Metropolitan Region in 2010. “I’m incredibly proud of his legacy and what he contributed in public life and to the community more broadly,” she said. Digby is survived by his children, John, Georgie and Annabel, and seven grandchildren, including Kate Crozier (Ga’13), Harry Cooper (M’22) and Freddie Cooper (Yr11 M).

1947Sir

Peter Maudslay Hordern (M’47), who was born on 18 April 1929 and died on 18 April 2024, was a long-serving and widely respected Conservative politician in the UK. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, to Captain Charles Hordern and his wife Dorothy, Peter came to Geelong Grammar School in 1941 having already lived in India and South Africa as well as Egypt. His British father was an overseas representative for Morris Motors. Peter was a prefect in 1947 and captain of cricket, achieving School colours for cricket, and House colours for cricket and football. His younger brother Nick Hordern (Ju’46) was a member of Junior House.

The family returned to the UK in 1947, where Peter completed two years National Service in his father’s regiment, the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, after which he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, to read history. Upon graduating he applied unsuccessfully to enter the Foreign Office, and went to work instead for the stockbroking firm Colegrave & Co. Subsequently, Peter decided to become an MP because of his belief in the European Union. He was elected Conservative Member for Horsham, Sussex, in 1964, and married Elizabeth Chataway in the same year. He retained the seat until 1997, including when it was designated Horsham and Crawley from 1974 to 1983. Until 1974, Peter continued his city job alongside his responsibilities as an MP – with only a basic salary and no expenses, this was necessary for MPs who had a family to support.

Described by the political journalist Colin Welch as “the ablest Tory never to have been a minister”, Peter remained on the backbench and took on several financial and consultancy posts. He was chairman of the Finance Committee from 1970 to 1972 and chairman of the Public Accounts Commission from 1988 to 1997, and in 1993 was appointed to the Privy Council. He later became deputy lieutenant for West Sussex. He received a knighthood in 1985. Widely respected for his polite and gentle manner, he earned a reputation for speaking his mind and sticking to his principles, unafraid to challenge the fiscal policies of the Heath, Thatcher and Major governments.

Sir Peter Hordern died on his 95th birthday, survived by Elizabeth and their children Vicky, a hospital consultant, and James, an investment manager and company director. Their elder son, Andrew, was born diabetic and died in 2009, having become paralysed and unable to speak following a hypoglycaemic attack some 13 years earlier. During this time, he was cared for by his parents. “It is the most important thing in life to look after those in difficulty and distress,” reflected Peter in a recent interview with All About Horsham magazine. “Although it came to me late in life it was the best experience I ever had.”

1948Garth Owen Vaughan Manton (P’48), who was born on 16 December 1929 and died on 1 February 2024, was an Australian Olympic rower, a coach, a giant of the sport of rowing, and stalwart of the Geelong Grammar School community. Garth was the eldest of three sons of Nancy (née Kelynack) and Ivor Manton. His younger brothers were Darrell (P’50) and William (P’52). Ivor and his brother Jack, with their father William Manton, were the proprietors of Manton’s department store in Melbourne, which during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s rivalled only Myer in its appeal.

Garth entered Glamorgan in 1936, and came to Corio and Barwon House in 1940, moving up to Perry House in 1944. He was awarded House colours in football, rowing, athletics and swimming. He rowed in six seat in the Second VIII in 1947, and in the First VIII in 1948. After finishing school, Garth completed an apprenticeship in Sydney for two years and returned to Melbourne in 1951 to work in the family in business until it was sold to GJ Coles in 1955. He joined Mercantile Rowing Club upon his return to Melbourne, and in 1954 he was selected for Victoria in the senior men’s eight in five seat, a position he maintained throughout his rowing career. At the Interstate Men’s Championship, the Victorian crew took silver in the King’s Cup in 1955 and gold in 1956. With one exception, that same crew was selected to represent Australia as the Men’s Eight in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. In a thrilling race, they won bronze, finishing behind the USA and Canada.

In 1961, Garth married Sue Landy, sister of John Landy AC CVO MBE (M’48). Four children followed: Jane (Horne, staff 2016 to present), John (P’80), Anna (staff 1986–96) and Kate. Garth’s passion for rowing continued well beyond his retirement from the sport, especially at Geelong Grammar School. He was instrumental in the foundation of girls’ rowing at GGS in the 1970s, and served as president of the Pincott Club from 1977–92. An active Old Geelong Grammarian, he served on the OGG committee from 1963–83, including a term as president (1972–74), and was a member of School Council from 1971–80.

Garth was president of the Anglesea Recreation and Sports Club from 1991 to 2010, notable for its annual regatta raced in century-old fixed-seat gigs. Garth was renowned for his amusing commentary at this regatta, such as “rating 43 on stroke side, 39 bow side”. He was also a highly active member of the Old Geelong Football Club for which he played 12 games and served two terms as president. In 2012, he was acknowledged as one of the Club’s three official legends. He was inducted into the Victorian Rowing Hall of Fame in 2010.

Renowned as a raconteur, and loved for his friendship, good humour and larger than life personality, Garth left

a mark on the Australian rowing community and at GGS, where a racing eight in the GGS fleet is named in his honour. He is survived by Sue, his wife of 63 years, their four children and 10 grandchildren.

1949

John Scott Rowe AM (M’49), who was born in Penguin, Tasmania, on 11 June 1931 and died on 10 April 2024, was a talented rower and long-serving member of the WH Pincott Club, Mercantile Rowing Club, and a senior executive in the travel and tourism industry. John and his family were living in Hamilton, Victoria, when he came as a boarder to Geelong Grammar in 1943, followed later by his younger brother Bruce (M’54). John was a school prefect, and received House colours for rowing, football and shooting. He rowed in the 1948 and 1949 First VIII crews.

After school, John joined Mercantile Rowing Club and was a key contributor along with Brian Dawe (P’48) and Garth Manton (P’48) to the club’s highly successful 1950–55 seasons with the Senior VIII being undefeated during that entire period. He was a reserve member of the victorious Victorian King’s Cup crews of 1952 and 1953. In 1954, he rowed in seven seat in the Victorian eight, with Adrian Monger (FB’51) and Garth Manton, which won the King’s Cup in world record time for the distance of three miles, beating the existing record by a whopping margin of 16 seconds (apparently a world record time that has never since been beaten). After the 1955 season, with the 1956 Olympics on the horizon, John made the difficult decision to stop rowing to concentrate on his career. Along with Garth Manton, he reformed the struggling nascent WH Pincott Club in the mid-1960s, serving as president. He was made an honorary life member of the club in 2006.

John joined Australian National Airways as a cadet in 1949, including a year-long period when he was posted to London. From 1958 to 1980, he worked for Qantas in various senior roles, including leading Qantas in San Francisco and New York, and as regional director in Australia. He was closely involved with the Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) from 1962, becoming president in 1982. In 1980, he became director of the Victorian Tourist Commission. In 1983 he was appointed managing director of the Australian Tourism Commission, leading it during a period that saw a 25 percent increase in tourism to Australia. He was awarded Membership of the Order of Australia in 1990 for services to tourism, and in 1991 became president of the Association of Australia Convention Bureaux. He was subsequently appointed managing director of the Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau, and appointed chairman of the Northern Territory Tourist Commission.

John married Susan Gill in 1956. She predeceased him in 2005, as did their eldest son, Peter (M’74), in 2015.

Two younger children, Michael (M’77) and Georgina, survive him, along with seven grandchildren – including Emilie Rowe (Cl’08) and Jessica Rowe (Cl’10), who are the great-granddaughters of Marjorie Good (Clyde ‘15) and granddaughters of Geoffrey Leviny (Glamorgan ‘58) – and one great-grandson.

1950

William Hugh (Hugh) Edwards OAM (Cu’50), who was born on 29 July 1933 and died on 10 May 2024, was a maritime historian, author, underwater explorer and shark expert.

Born in Edinburgh, Hugh migrated from South Africa to Perth, Australia, with his family in 1941. He came to Geelong Grammar School in 1945 and matriculated in 1950. He played Sir Richard Vernon in the 1950 production of Henry IV Part One

On his return to Western Australia, Hugh became a journalist and diving enthusiast, finding three extraordinary treasure ships before the age of 30. The most significant of these was the wreck of the 1629 Dutch ship Batavia. Hugh was instrumental in its discovery in 1963, and that of the 1727 ship Zeewyjk, and is recognised by statute as ‘primary finder’ of both wrecks. He later remarked, “When I was a small boy reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Treasure Island in the Geelong Grammar School library, I never dreamed that one day I would find a treasure myself.”

His many encounters with great white sharks during his various diving expeditions along the West Australian coastline led to a lifelong fascination with these creatures, on which he became a renowned expert. Hugh’s passions for Western Australia, maritime heritage and sea creatures resulted in over 35 published books, the best known of which is Islands of Angry Ghosts, the story of the Batavia. In 1966, it won the Sir Thomas White Memorial Prize for the best book written by an Australian. He also published two autobiographical works, Gods and Little Fishes (1962) and Dead Men’s Silver: The story of Australia’s greatest shipwreck hunter (2011). He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2009 for services to maritime heritage and as an author. He leaves an extraordinary legacy of the recording and interpretation of the history and archaeology of Western Australia.

Hugh Edwards died following a fall. He is survived by Caroline, the daughter of his first marriage to Jennifer Lejeune, and Petrana, daughter of his second marriage to Marilyn Georgeff, and by his companion in later life, Athena Paton. A son of his first marriage, Christopher, predeceased him in 2019.

1951

David Colin Goss (FB’51), who was born on 6 February 1933 and died on 16 February 2024, was a highranking career diplomat. The son of Jan and Colin Goss, David entered GGS in 1946, and in 1947 received the BM Osbourne Scholarship. He was highly engaged and active in school life: a member of the Cadet Corps, History Society and Areopagus (debating) committee, and a sub-prefect and coxswain of the First VIII in 1951. He played the part of Peto in Henry IV Part 1 in 1950 and was a recipient of the Wilkins History Prize and the Foreign Languages Prize.

David matriculated in 1951 and entered Trinity College, where he continued to cox rowing crews and was the recipient of the Leeper Prize for Oratory in 1955. He graduated Bachelor of Arts with Honours in 1955 and in 1956 joined the Department of External Affairs as a diplomatic cadet. For his first posting in 1959, David was appointed second secretary at the Australian Embassy in Karachi. After returning to Australia, he met and married Ann Briant, the love of his life, in 1962. Numerous postings followed – to Thailand (twice) and Germany (Bonn and Berlin) – interspersed by periods in Australia. A son, Andrew (FB’81), was born in Bangkok in 1964, followed by two daughters, Catherine in 1965 and Sarah in 1970. Family holidays at the beach house on the south coast of New South Wales and abroad while on postings made for many fun and happy memories.

From 1977 to 1980, David was Consul General in Chicago, where he worked closely with Michael Coultas (M’49), and from 1980 to 1983 he was Ambassador to Israel. Returning to Australia in 1984, he worked in the Economics Relations and Corporate Management divisions of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade until 1989. From 1989 to 1992 he was High Commissioner to Kenya, including Uganda and Tanzania, and Ambassador to Ethiopia and Somalia. In 1991, he was elected chairman of the Committee of Permanent Representatives to the United Nations Environment Program and in 1992 became Deputy High Commissioner in London, his final posting before retiring, initially to Canberra and then to Woonona, New South Wales. He later remarked, “These 40 years wandering in the wilderness left me with workable German, rusty French, very rusty Thai and declining to virtually no recall of Hebrew, Swahili, Russian and Urdu”.

David’s drive and passion for social justice and ensuring the world was a better, more equitable place for all, guided his moral compass and informed his choices in life to make a difference and leave a better world. He was honoured as a Life Member of the Australian Labor Party, which he joined in 1952. He pursued his sporting and community interests with vigour. A keen skier, badminton and squash player and a strong bushwalker,

he was foundation president of the ACT Squash Racquets Association, secretary then president of the YMCA Ski Club and served on the board of the Canberra YMCA. David is survived by his two daughters and three grandchildren. Ann died in 2017 and Andrew, tragically, in a road accident in 1988 aged 24.

1952

Robert Otto

Albert AO RFD RD (Cu’52), who was born on 14 December 1934 and died on 7 February 2024, was a businessman and philanthropist known for his humble manner and boundless generosity. Robert was the eldest of three sons born to Elsa (née Lundgren), a Swede, and Sir Alexis Albert CMG, a lieutenant commander in the Royal Australian Navy during World War Two. He was chairman of J. Albert and Son Pty Ltd, the music and entertainment business started by his great-grandfather, Jacques Albert, in 1885. Its interests included music publishing and recording, television and ownership of a number of radio stations on the east coast. Robert’s brothers were Ted (Cu’54) and Tony (Cu’57), and all three boys ultimately worked together in the family business.

Robert came to Geelong Grammar School in 1948. He was appointed Cuthbertson House prefect in 1952 and was awarded House colours for work and music. Music was an Albert family tradition, and Robert, a pianist, was a member of the Musical Society. His performance of ‘The Bonny Earl of Moray’ (arr. Benjamin Britten) in the 1950 House Music competition was singled out as “welldisciplined and moving”. After school, Robert studied Arts/Law at the University of Sydney where he was a resident of St Paul’s College, an institution he continued to support throughout his life. In 1977, he founded and chaired the St Paul’s College foundation and became its most significant benefactor and donor. In 1981 he was made a Fellow of St Paul’s College, where he also served on the council for 21 years and as secretary of the alumni association for 35 years.

Robert graduated in 1961 and joined the law firm Allen, Allen and Hemsley, specialising in commercial law and conveyancing, later becoming a partner. In 1965, he became a director of the family business and in 1984, he and his brother Tony, also a lawyer, joined Alberts full-time alongside their father and brother, Ted. The company had experienced spectacular success from the 1960s onwards after Ted began promoting pop and rock bands such as The Easybeats, John Paul Young, Rose Tattoo and AC/DC. The support for Baz Luhrmann’s box office-breaking film Strictly Ballroom was another creative masterstroke. Robert became chairman upon his father’s death in 1996 and held the position for the remainder of his life. Ted died in 1990 and Tony in 2000.

Robert and his wife Elizabeth (née Selby), whom he

married in 1968, were generous donors to a wide range of organisations and charities, including the Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, the Navy League, Sydney Heritage Fleet, Westmead Hospital, Mission Australia, Taronga Zoo, Guide Dogs Australia and the University of Sydney among many others. At Geelong Grammar School, Robert served as secretary and president of the NSW branch of the Old Geelong Grammarians Association between 1963 and 1986, an especially active period. He was a generous benefactor of GGS, donating to scholarship funds and the Michael Collins Persse Archives Centre. He particularly supported music at Timbertop, donating funds for the new organ and a new piano, and in 2003, with John B Fairfax (M’60), he supported the setup of the Timbertop Music School.

In 1993, Robert was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and elevated to Officer (AO) in 2001. In 2002, he was made an honorary fellow of the University of Sydney. His citation noted, “It is a measure of the man that Mr Albert’s philanthropy has been private, discreet, without attention or fanfare, and has been characterised by modesty and self-effacement.” Following in his father’s footsteps, Robert was an accomplished sailor, a member of the Naval Reserve from 1955 to 1977, achieving the rank of Commander and being awarded the Reserve Decoration (RD) and Reserve Forces Decoration (RFD), and a long-time member of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. Many of the causes he embraced related to the sea, or to his love of music and the arts. Remembered for his cheerfulness, humility and quiet philanthropy, Robert is survived by Elizabeth, their three children, Kirsty, David and Jane, and 11 grandchildren.

1954Professor Richard (Dick) Alan

Smallwood AO FRACP FRCP

FACP (P’54), who was born on 28 January 1937 and died on 1 June 2024, was a gastroenterologist, emeritus professor of medicine and Australia’s Chief Medical Officer from 1999 to 2003. Dick was born in Batugajah, Malaya (now Malaysia), the second and youngest son of Ian, an insurance executive, and Margaret (née Hewitson), a doctor who worked for the Malayan Medical Service caring for mothers and children. Upon the outbreak of World War Two, Dick and his brother Robin Smallwood (P’52) were evacuated to Australia into the care of their grandmother. Their parents were evacuated to Singapore when the Japanese invaded Malaya; they became prisoners-of-war following the fall of Singapore in February 1942. Ian was sent to work on the Thai-Burma railway and Margaret was interned in Changi and Sime Road internment camps. She provided vital medical services to women and children in the camps, for which she was awarded an OBE in 1947.

The family was reunited in 1947, set up home in Ivanhoe and after a short period at Ivanhoe Grammar, the two boys became boarders at Corio. In 1954, Dick was captain of Perry House and captain of cricket, and received School and House colours for cricket and football, and House colours for athletics and work. He was president of the Pilgrims club, a good actor, and received the chapel reading prize. As guest speaker at Speech Day in 2003, Dick remarked, “I was allowed to grow and work with the talents and enthusiasm that I had, and these were fostered in a way which ensured that they continued to develop beyond my time here”. Dick matriculated in 1954 and entered Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, where he captained the cricket team and received a Blue in 1958.

Inspired by their mother, both Robin and Dick entered the medical profession. Robin became an eminent anesthetist until his premature death in 1987. Dick graduated MBBS in 1960 and MD in 1964 then undertook further training at the Royal Free Hospital in London and the Boston University School of Medicine. In 1970, he returned to Melbourne and was recruited by Professor Austin Doyle to help establish academic medicine at the Austin Hospital. Dick established and directed the first adult-centered gastroenterology department in Victoria and subsequently became professor of medicine, head of department and chairman of the division of medicine at the Austin. Over a 30-year period, he became a highly respected teacher of medical students at the University of Melbourne and was later president of the Australian Medical Council. In 1993, with Richard Larkins, he co-authored the leading textbook on clinical skills for medical students. He also published more than 250 papers mainly about liver disease.

Alongside his educational and clinical practice, Dick made significant contributions to public health in Australia and internationally. He was president of the Royal Australian College of Physicians from 1996 to 1998 and served on the National Health and Medical Research Council in a range of roles, including chairing the council from 1994 to 1997. From 1999 to 2003 he served as Australia’s Chief Medical Officer during a period of heightened public health awareness resulting from the risk of bioterrorism and pandemics, including the SARS epidemic in 2003. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1997 and was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001. He was the recipient of an honorary doctorate in Medical Science from the University of Melbourne and in 2013 was awarded the Sir William Upjohn Medal. He was made a Senior Fellow of Trinity College in 2020.

Dick married Carol Taggart in 1964. She and their three children, David, Penny and Michael, and three grandchildren, survive him. Mentor, scholar, clinician, educator and friend to many, Dick is remembered for his engaging and cheerful manner, and his dedication to his family and to his vocation.

1955

David Bowyer

Rosback AM (P’55), who was born on 26 February 1938 and died on 22 January 2024, was a Rotarian and community servant. David entered Geelong Grammar School in 1950, and in 1953 was one of the Timbertop ‘pioneers’ – the first group to spend six months there. He left Corio at the end of 1955 to enter the workforce, joining La Mode Industries in 1956 and later becoming a sales coordinator for Hanes of America. He continued working in retail sales until his early retirement in 1987, a decision prompted by the early death of his father, aged 48. David had decided he would retire at the same age to devote himself to family and community projects.

David threw himself into Rotary activities after joining the Rotary Club of Hawthorn in 1979. He served on all committees within the five Avenues of Service between 1980 and 2002, was club president from 1989-90, and district governor from 1994-95. His early activities focused on the club’s Hawthorn Kitchen project in Thailand, a self-help project which provided meals for children and received accolades from the King of Thailand. As district governor, he raised considerable funds for the Portsea Camp for country children, promoted the Employ Australia campaign, helped introduce Australians Against Child Abuse and oversaw the expansion of Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC).

In other community service roles, David was a member of the committee for the development of the Shrine of Remembrance, served on the council of St John Ambulance from 1990-94, and was appointed chair of the Epworth Medical Foundation in 2002. He was named a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2001 for service to the community. David is survived by his wife Judi, children Jane, Charles and Susie, and five grandchildren.

1956

Vere David Urquhart (David) Hunt MBBS, FRACP, FCSANZ, DDU, FACC (FB’56), who was born on 20 May 1939 and died on 11 January 2024, was an eminent cardiologist. David was the son of Vere Hunt, a barrister, and his wife Betty (Kidd, Clyde’33), granddaughter of Hugh McKay, founder of the Sunshine Harvester Company which in its day was the largest industrial enterprise in Australia. They met when Betty travelled to Europe in 1934 to attend finishing school in Paris and married in 1936 when she was 19 years old, before settling in Essex. With Vere serving in the Intelligence Corps during World War Two,

Betty and David spent the war years in Australia and joined Vere in Sweden towards the war’s end, travelling in a convoy which became the target of German submarines. A second son, Robin (FB’64), was born in England in 1946. Tragically, Vere died of a heart attack in 1952 and Betty returned to Melbourne with her children. Robin was enrolled at Glamorgan and David at Corio.

At school, David played cricket, football, hockey and rugby, becoming a member of the hockey First XI and rugby First XV. He was part of the second pioneer cohort to attend Timbertop in 1953. A House prefect, he flourished academically, and in his second matriculation year in 1956 won the Mackinnon Prize for Mathematics as well as a general exhibition and a Commonwealth scholarship. He was one of several boys from his peer year to study medicine at the University of Melbourne. David topped the year upon his graduation in 1962 winning the Sandoz Prize in Clinical Obstetrics, the Fulton Scholarship in Obstetrics, the Keith Levi Memorial Scholarship in Medicine and the Glaxo-Allenbury’s Prize in Surgery. He decided to specialise in cardiology, a field that was to enjoy an extraordinary transformation in the treatment of cardiovascular disease in the latter part of the twentieth century.

At Royal Melbourne Hospital, David was a member of the electrophysiology team and was appointed assistant director of the Cardiac Laboratory in 1971. He worked with Dr Graeme Sloman to build a world-renowned cardiology department, becoming director of cardiology in 1980, a position he retained until 1994. His friend James Tatoulis observed that David “declined private practice in Collins Street and his life, both personal and professional, was richer for it”. David was president of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ) from 1992 to 1994, and was involved internationally with numerous fellowships including at the prestigious American College of Cardiology. He contributed widely to academic journals, including 122 research works, and was an active participant in international cardiology trials. In 2009, he published an anecdotal account of his years at the Royal Melbourne Hospital: The evolution of cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery at Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Away from Melbourne, David enjoyed filling locum roles in Mildura and Swan Hill, and spending time on his farm where he indulged his love of the Australian bush. He had a zest for travel and was proficient in German and Italian. He also served in the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve, achieving the rank of wing commander, and from 1969 to 2007 was a trustee of the Sunshine Foundation, a charitable trust established by his mother’s family. David is survived by his wife Marie-Therese and his brother Robin. David’s first wife, Julie, predeceased him in 1990; their four children, Peter, Sari, Timothy and Jeremy, also survive him, along with eight grandchildren.

1960

Dr Richard John Martyn Lucy (FB’60), who was born on 20 October 1943 and died on 21 February 2024, had a career in academia as a lecturer in political science at both the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and The University of Sydney. Richard grew up in the Upper North Shore of Sydney before joining Geelong Grammar School in 1955 in Connewarre House. Richard was active in the Philosophical Society at Corio, presenting papers on cheirology (the study of the hand) and predestination, with reference to the classical views of Christianity, Calvinism, Nostradamus and Karl Marx. A creative bent found him more likely to be involved in art or woodwork than on the sporting field. Richard did, however, cox several rowing crews to victory and, once, into the reeds; receiving House colours for the former.

After matriculating with a Commonwealth Scholarship, Richard initially attended Monash University, where he jointly instigated the World Government Club and was an early editor of the student newspaper, CHAOS, and contributed letters, editorials and a humorous comic strip, ‘Thud the Stone Age Man’. Whilst at Monash, Richard met his wife, Donna, and the pair married in Sydney in 1965. Their daughter, Juliet, was born in 1971. Richard graduated from Sydney University and completed his PhD at UNSW in 1974. With a word count of over 200,000 words, at the time his was the longest PhD thesis submission to any Australian university. Richard later became senior lecturer in Australian Politics at Sydney University, and also taught in the field of International Relations with a focus on crisis diplomacy. He edited and published several academic papers and books, including The Pieces of Politics (Macmillan, 1975) and The Australian Form of Government: Models in Dispute (Macmillan, 1992). He continued his involvement with groups promoting World Government, with interests in constitutional law and finance.

Described by his schoolfriend Jon Pratten (FB’60) as “unconventional and authentic”, Richard was known for his kindness, generosity and a sense of humour that appreciated the ridiculous. He loved the sea, whether bodysurfing at Palm Beach or paddling homemade canoes in Middle Harbour – he also famously built a catamaran hull in the hallway of his Turramurra home. Richard and Donna separated in 1979. He would later find happiness with a second partner, Susan. Their son, Stuart, was born in 1997. Richard is survived by his partner Susan, sister Sue, children Juliette and Stuart, along with four grandchildren and one great-grandson.

1968

Richard Thomas (Tom) Manifold (M’68) who was born on 30 October 1951 and died on 17 October 2023, was a greatly respected sheep and cattle farmer near Camperdown, and known as a true gentleman and a loyal friend to many. Great-grandson of William Thomson Manifold (GGS 1879) and the youngest son of Jean and Christopher Manifold (M’37) of Milangil, Camperdown, Tom followed his brothers Roger (M’61) and Simon (M’66) into Barrabool House in 1961. Tom’s Timbertop year suited his love of the outdoors, including the hiking and running programmes. He placed most importance around mateship, however, and he maintained very strong relationships with members of his unit and year group for the remainder of his life. In Senior School, Tom entered Manifold House under the stewardship of Boz Parsons (M’36, Staff 1962–80) and he liked nothing more than helping Boz with lamb marking and managing the small herd of cattle at Corio.

Tom loved all sports, having played basketball and football for the local Camperdown teams, but especially rowing, and was a member of the Second VIII in his final school year. When asked if he could return to Corio for another term the following year for the sole reason of being in the First VIII, his parents very politely declined the offer and Tom never forgave them! Tom was passionate about the land and farming, and he returned to Milangil at the end of 1968. He spent a year learning about stud cattle under the mentorship of Ralph McEachern at Terrinallum, and in 1969 went to Cirencester Agricultural College in England, enjoying his time there along with some travel in Europe before making his way home again.

In 1977, he married Sara Hope (The Hermitage’73) in St Paul’s Anglican Church, Harrow, and they began their life together at Milangil before taking over their share of the property, which they named Cascaes. They set out to make improvements including building a house and garden, and the first raised board woolshed in the district. Tom ran a Pol Hereford cattle stud for many years before moving into breeding Wagyu and Angus cattle. He was a very well-respected member of the local Camperdown community and volunteered his time for various organisations including the Victorian Farmers Federation and the local fire brigade for many years. Tom is survived by Sara, daughters Emily Scarlett (Manifold, He’00), Joanna Morris (Manifold, He’01) and four grandchildren.

STAFF

Joan Mitchell Montgomery AM OBE, who was born on 6 July 1925 and died on 5 February 2024, was a highly influential and widely respected educator, and headmistress of Clyde School from 1960 to 1968. The eldest of four daughters of Beryl and William Montgomery, Joan was 16 when her mother died of an illness and 18 when her father died unexpectedly, soon after she had completed her education at Presbyterian Ladies College (PLC). At school, she enjoyed tennis and baseball. She was a prefect in her final year and the recipient of the Harris Prize for Sports and Studies. In 1948, she graduated Bachelor of Arts with a Diploma of Education from the University of Melbourne, with a Blue for baseball.

Following teaching roles at Frensham School in Mittagong and Tintern Church of England Girls Grammar School in Melbourne, interspersed by two periods teaching in London, Joan was offered the position as the fourth headmistress of Clyde School in Woodend. During her nine-year term, she lifted academic achievement and introduced engaging cultural and intellectual activities, encouraging her students to pursue personal excellence. She earned the respect and esteem of students, parents and staff who remembered her with affection and gratitude.

From 1969 to 1985, Joan was principal of her alma mater, PLC. During this period, she became an influential educator both in Victoria and nationally. She was president of the Association of Independent Girls Schools of Victoria from 1978–80, and president of the national body from 1979–81, driving its merger with the association of headmasters to form the Association of Heads of Independent Schools Australia (AHISA). She was elected a Fellow of the Australian College of Education in 1971, awarded an OBE in 1975 and made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1986. Though respected and admired by staff and students alike, her progressive reforms were not welcomed by some traditionalists within the Presbyterian Church, and her contract was not renewed at PLC beyond 1985.

Aged just 60 when retirement was imposed upon her, Joan put her wealth of experience and knowledge to good use. As well as serving on the governing councils of several schools, she was a member of the University of Melbourne Council, and chair of its promotions committee, a member of Ormond College Council, and a member and chair of Medley Hall Council. She also served on several other committees and boards, including among others the Alfred Hospital, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Baker Institute, Lyceum Club and the Animal Experimentation Ethics Committee. She was one of the first female members of the Melbourne Cricket Club,

enjoying both cricket and football as well as a round of golf. She travelled widely into her old age, always eager to learn and engage in new experiences.

Joan was a loved aunt and great-aunt, and a trusted friend to many. She is remembered as a giant in education, regal, inspiring, firm but fair, a champion of women and a true leader who never failed to model integrity, humility and personal dignity, even when confronted by personal challenges. One of the great school heads, she generously fostered staff and positively influenced a generation of girls, with a twinkle in her eye.

Selwyn Moresby Owen, who was born in 1943 and died on 31 January 2024, was a staff member at Geelong Grammar School from 1984 to 2001. The son of Estelle and Rossini Owen, Selwyn was educated at North Sydney Technical High School and at the University of Sydney, where he was a member of St Paul’s College. He graduated as Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical) in 1967 and took a teaching position at The King’s School until 1969. For the next two years he worked for CSR in Ingham, Queensland, as a chemical engineer, but reverted to teaching in 1971 at St Peter’s College, Adelaide.

Selwyn came to Geelong Grammar School in 1984 as head of the mathematics department. In this role, which he occupied until 1993, he became renowned for his methodical application of the subject and his skilful management of the introduction of the imperfect VCE curriculum. In 1993, he was appointed Housemaster of Cuthbertson House, a role he held for six years. He reintroduced house prayers, established a memorial rose garden, and oversaw an improvement in the House’s performance in sport. A talented rower himself, Selwyn coached several GGS crews to victory, and was secretary of the Pincott Club for 16 years. In retirement, he commenced writing a history of the GGS Boat Club. In other contributions, Selwyn produced several school plays, and between 1986 and 1992 alternated as editor of The Corian with Michael Collins Persse. From 1999 until his retirement in 2001, he was president of the Common Room Association, a role he undertook with purposeful endeavour.

A keen traveller, Selwyn visited many parts of the world and enjoyed voyages on the QE2. He also learnt bookbinding and woodwork and built his own harpsichord. He retired to Sydney where he was a member of the Bondi Icebergs Club, and alumni officer of St Paul’s College from 2004 to 2016. His memorial service was held in the St Paul’s College chapel. Selwyn is survived by his sister Roslyn and two nieces.

ANZAC DAY

David Kay Breadmore (FB’80) laid a wreath on the War Memorial on Anzac Day in memory of his great uncle, Captain George Pollard (Bob) Kay (P’15), on behalf of the Breadmore family, and his father Jo Breadmore (FB’55, Chair of Council 1990–97, OGG Fellow). Bob Kay was a Prefect, House Captain of Perry, Captain of Football, a member of the Cricket and Athletics teams, and was in the crew that won the Head of the River in 1914. His love of the natural world found an outlet in his curation of the School’s natural history collection.

Bob was one of ten GGS students who enlisted together at the end of 1915. He joined the Royal Flying Corps, which was the air arm of the British Army until the Royal Air Force was formed in 1918. After receiving his commission, he joined 46 Squadron in 1916 and was posted to France later that year. He attained his Captaincy in June 1917 and was made a Flight Commander. Tragically, he suffered catastrophic injuries in an air accident when his aircraft suddenly dived into the ground, possibly because the controls became jammed. He

underwent an operation but died of his injuries on 29 June. His Commanding Officer, Major Babington, described Bob as “one of the most stout-hearted people I have ever met, and also one of the most reliable of officers, and universally liked in the squadron”. Major Babington also said Bob was “one of the finest pilots” he had ever known and “a magnificent officer”. Captain Bob Kay was buried in La Gorgue Cemetery beneath a cross made from his plane’s propellor.

In June 1919, a memorial window to Bob was unveiled in the Chapel of All Saints at Corio. It features the two archangels, St Michael, prince of the celestial armies, and St Gabriel, the messenger of God. Shortly after Bob’s death, his father published a book of his son’s wartime letters. It included a letter from Bob’s schoolfriend, Alan Wilkins (GGS 1911-15), who wrote, “Bob was the most popular fellow at the Geelong Grammar and there will be many Grammarians mourning for him now, as more than one fellow took Bob as his model, and I know that nobody ever set us a better example than he did.”

1. David Breadmore (FB’80) and Tim Breadmore (P’83)

2. Les Dean, Tristan Dwyer (Fr’01), David Breadmore (FB’80), Vanessa Mahon, Don Greaves, Joanne Dean

MEMORIAL GROVE AT TIMBERTOP

A grove of significant tree species was planted on May 23-26 to commemorate two students, Graeme Vanner (D Unit 1960) and Tim Collins (G Unit 1996), who died during their Timbertop year. The memorial grove was an initiative of Russell Luckock (M’63), Stephen Finlay (P’63) and David Angliss (P’64), enthusiastically supported by the current Head of Timbertop, Ross Hopkins. Russell, Stephen and David wanted to honour their former classmate and friend, Graeme Vanner, who joined GGS in 1959 (in Geelong House) and tragically drowned at Timbertop in 1960. They decided the grove should also recognise Tim Collins, who collapsed and died from a congenital heart condition while on the six-day hike in 1996. Russell, Stephen and David were thrilled to be joined on site by Tim’s mother, Este, and sister, Anna Gourlay (Collins, Cl’03), after the tree seedlings had been planted.

The specially-selected tree seedlings and design of the grove was the result of months of planning and discussion with expert horticulturists Elizabeth Gilfillan and John Hawker, whilst the founder of the Digger’s Club, Clive Blazey AM (P'62), provided advice and donated the 12

seedlings – five Wollemia nobilis (one of the world’s oldest and rarest trees, discovered in the Wollemi National Park in 1994), four Nothofagus cunninghamii (one of three Nothofagus species native to Australia) and three Quercus canariensis (commonly known as the Algerian Oak). The tree seedlings were carefully planted to retain water (each with its own gravity-fed water supply) and then double tree-guarded.

Russell, Stephen and David also gave a presentation to current Timbertop students about the project, sharing stories about their time at Timbertop in 1960; the memories created and the friendships made. “All these years later, they remain friends and proudly remember the transformational impact Timbertop had on them in their formative years,” Ross said. “I used this moment of community reflection to emphasise to current students the unique and special opportunity that has been afforded them, and to underscore that it is a privilege for us all to have the chance to experience the rare educational opportunity that is Timbertop.”

1. Ross Hopkins, Brad Bolden, Anna Gourlay (Collins, Cl’03), Este Collins, Stephen Finlay (P’63) and David Angliss (P’64)

BIRTHS

Georgie and Tom Cohen (M’09), a daughter, Isabella Frances Cohen, on 19 December 2023

Brittney and Nicholas Cacuick (Fr’03), a son, Oscar Darcy, on 14 July 2024

Alice and Angus Drysdale (Fr’06), a son, Albie Malcolm Drysdale, on 3 September 2023

Ella Rose Ragauskas and Toby Gray (Cu08), a son, Oscar Geoffrey Ragauskas Gray, on 21 March 2024

Camilla and Thomas Loughnan (Fr’05), a son, Edward (Ted) Campbell Loughnan, on 8 February 2024

Fleur Mann (Cl’01) and Adrian Miller, a son, George Richard Miller, on 24 May 2023

Petrina and Alex Norton (Cu’00), a son, Hugo Ralph Norton, on 2 September 2023

Renee and Ben Skelton (M’08), a daughter, Harper Florence Skelton, on 21 January 2021, and a son, Sonny Irving Skelton, on 8 June 2023

Annabel and Robert Speirs (Cu’01), a son, Merrick Alexander Spiers, on 15 June 2022

MARRIAGES

Victoria Cavanagh (Cl’05) married Nils Baron von Stromberg on 4 January 2024

Olivia Fish (He’11) married Kyle Wilkinson on 6 May 2023

Noni-Rose Buckman (GarlickSloman, Fr’05) married Rowan Humphries on 10 March 2024

Claire Hamilton (Cl’09) married Toby Lister (Past Staff 2016-22) on 9 March 2024

Melanie Jordan (Ga’05) married Richard Cutler (FB’01) on 18 November 2023

Hamish Macmillan (Cu’13) married Gemma Sullivan (EM’13) on 2 December 2023

Annabel McPhee (Cl’94) married Anatole Mills on 17 March 2018

Alex Norton (Cu’00) married Petrina Marshall on 17 August 2023

Lauren Simpson (Ga’09) married Kevin Cox on 10 February 2024

Oliver Wilkinson (M’03) married Hannah Fraser on 10 February 2024

DEATHS

Dalene Jill Bain (Hatwell, The Hermitage 1954-64) on 13 September 2023

Joan Frances Barron (Thornton, The Hermitage 1961-63) on 14 May 2024

Edward Henry Bates (194650) on 21 February 2023

William Robert Silvers (Bill) Black (1944-57) on 31 May 2024

James David Oswald (David) Burns (1942-46) on 12 September 2023

Peter Champion de Crespigny (1939-43) on 7 June 2024

Sir Roderick Howard (Rod) Carnegie (1938-50) on 14 July 2024

Pooi Yau (Jaclyn) Chin (1955-1996) on 16 June 2023

Digby Glen Crozier (1938-44) on 26 February 2024

Louise C Campbell (Budzynski, Past Staff 1988-2003, Hon. OGG) on 13 March 2024

Suzanne Duly (Dubois, The Hermitage 1948-51) on 1 April 2024

William Hugh (Hugh) Edwards (1945-50) on 10 May 2024

Hugh Fairfield-Smith (1946-50) on 10 June 2023

Sandra Marion Finlay (Bayne, 1952-56) on 30 March 2024

Reita Fowler (Richardson, The Hermitage 1943-47) on 10 November 2023

Peter John Antony Geddes (1983-84) on 28 April 2017

Jocelyn Eleanor (Jo) Kelly (Gilpin, The Hermitage 194855) on 13 January 2024

Peter Grapsas (1957) on 16 February 2024

David Colin Goss (1946-51) on 16 February 2024

Brett Michael Peter Heath (1952-64) on 7 April 2024

Peter Maudslay Hordern (1941-47) on 18 April 2024

Angela Robin Hope (1965-70) in February 2024

Robert Clive Franklin Hortin (1968-74) on 19 May 2024

Thomas Victor (Tom) Hurley (1957-61) on 22 November 2015

David Lester Ilett (1949-53) on 2 May 2024

Anthony Robert (Tony) Lawrence (1977-85) in 2024

Emeritus Prof Adrian Lee (1957-59) on 21 July 2023

Gillian Affleck Learmonth (1953-61) on 15 May 2024

Ruth (Christian) Macdonald (Hamilton, The Hermitage 1933-43) on 12 February 2024

Laurence James Richard (Richard) Mooney (1955-65) on 1 September 2023

Garth Owen Vaughan Manton (1936-48) on 1 February 2024

Edward James (Ted) Matson on 18 February 2024

Thomas Richard McCormack (1941-42) on 8 March 2023

Kenneth (Tim) McDonald (1945-50) on 12 April 2023

Malcolm Thomas Macleod (1948-1953) on 15 April 2022

Heather May (Piper, The Hermitage 1966-70) on 25 April 2024

Margaret Eveline Milne (Neil, The Hermitage 1954-66) on 23 April 2024

Joan Mitchell Montgomery (Clyde Headmistress 1960-68) on 5 February 2024

James Henry Nott (1959-64) on 4 May 2024

Selwyn Moresby Owen (Past Staff 1984-2001, Hon. OGG) on 31 January 2024

Cecil Edgar Robertson (Boz) Parsons (1931-36, Past Staff 1962-80) on 1 February 2024

Susan Margaret Pender (Rymill, Clyde 1952-58) on 10 June 2024

Patrick Fraser (Paddy) Porter (2003-08) on 8 January 2024

Andrew Nicholas RahlesRahbula (1942-50) on 17 May 2024

Vivienne Stuart Ritchie (Knox-Knight, Clyde 1951-53) on 10 July 2024

Frank Anthony Richard (Richard) Rogers (1945-47) in 2024

John Scott Rowe (1943-49) on 10 April 2024

Richard Alan Smallwood (1946-54) on 01 June 2024

Lolita Wallace Steingrube (Cooke, The Hermitage 1952-55) in 2024

Jeffrey William Stagg (Past Staff 1967-83, Hon. OGG) on 31 May 2024

Peter Exton Turner (1938-45) on 2 May 2024

Elizabeth Jane Turnbull (1941-44) on 7 June 2024

Noelene Dawn Thomson (Green, 1948-51) on 27 April 2024

Berkeley Michael Devenish Vaughan (1946-50) on 24 April 2024

Clive Darton Watson (1949-55) on 14 February 2024

Nicholas John Robert (Nick) Wagg (1958-71) on 17 July 2024

James Alexander Watson (1985-89) on 31 July 2023

Hubert Ward (Past Staff 1955-66) on 31 March 2024

Elaine Rosemary (Lainey) Webster (The Hermitage 1962-65) on 20 April 2024

IN 2024

ENROLMENT EVENTS:

Corio Campus Discovery Day - Friday 15 November

Toorak Campus Open Mornings - Wednesday 4 September - Wednesday 16 October

OGG EVENTS: OGG Timbertop Open Morning Timbertop Campus, Saturday 21 September