1990–1999 Chapter 10: the groundwork
1990–1999: The Groundwork 1994 Alby Twigg (OGG) made Acting Principal from August to December, following John Lewis’ appointment as Head Master of Eton College
Principals John Lewis (1980–94), known as Headmaster until 1993, Lister Hannah (1995–99)
1997 Death of General Sir John Hackett, GCB, CBE, DSO, MC and Bar, soldier, author, scholar, President of UK Branch of the OGGA
1997–8 Highton campus closes, Bostock House opens in Newtown, Geelong
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1993 The Hermitage (formerly Jennings) House reopens with the new name
1994 Directory of Old Geelong Grammarians published by OGG Michael Thornton
Previous page: OGGs hard at work at Timbertop Work Weekend, 1992. From left: Barry Matthews, Wes Reed, Simon Leslie (Head of Timbertop), Nigel Schofield, Tim Hamilton, Rose Gilder, Sarah Gilder, Kate Gilder, Tim Squire-Wilson, Simon Wilkins, Foster Crooke and Nigel Tait.
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1996 Gladys Bell Room opens as Staff Common Room, pictured here at second site
1998 Carpentry and Mechanics Workshops renovated and renamed Technology Centre
OGGA membership: 1994 During the establishment of a database for the Foundation, the OGGA membership was estimated at 7000. In 1994, subscription fees increased to $235 for life membership and $35 per annum for ordinary membership, while in 1996 they were $245 and $40. In 1996, the OGGA constitution was altered so the Association could accept former pupils of Clyde or The Hermitage and could embrace parents of pupils at the School as honorary members. Near the end of the decade the annual or ordinary membership was abolished and, with their life membership paid as part of their fees in their final year, virtually all students became life members of the OGGA – 91 per cent of Year 12 students in 1999, as opposed to 75 per cent in 1998. Alongside that change, Speech Day 1999 saw the first ‘rites of passage’ presentation when each new OGG was presented with a tie (for boys) or a signet-ring (for girls). In 1999, the life membership subscription was $320.
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Chapter 10: The Groundwork 1990–1999
1990–1999: The Groundwork
The Music School and Vincent Fairfax Court
I
n many ways the 1990s were years of consolidation for the OGGA, which survived the recession at the outset and helped to prepare the School for some of its transforming developments in the new century. The achievements of the OGGA Investment Sub-committee in the 1970s
and 1980s, not least in increasing the Association’s corpus, was a platform for substantial growth in the 1990s. Despite any impact of the recession that Australia ‘had to have’, in June 1990, the Treasurer Rob Lempriere estimated that the income from interest and dividends would be in excess of $50,000 and that by the end of the year the total market value of the OGGA’s investments would be $650,000.
James Mackinnon took over from Lempriere as Treasurer in 1995 and was an equally astute investor. He coopted OGGs Will Jones, David Ross-Edwards and David McFarlane to assist him, and by the middle of the decade, the portfolio was showing a value of more than $1 million. At one point the OGGA auditor, CL Carr, addressed the Committee about its tax liabilities. Given the success of its investments, he suggested the Association give its assets to the School and take advantage of its tax-free status. The Committee, however, adopted the view of its predecessors – that, to maintain their influence and identity, it was important to retain control of the assets. The idea of OGGA self-sufficiency was floated in the 1980s and became part of the Association’s financial planning. It came closer to realisation in May 1991 when the President, Robert Seymour, reported that the School Council was of the view that some economies were available if the Geelong Grammar Foundation and the OGGA came closer and shared some resources. Committee members reacted, accepting that some rationalisation was probably appropriate, but that it was crucial the OGGA remain independent. They set up a sub-committee to discuss their course of action, but were pleased to hear from Rob Lempriere that the OGGA was in a position to pay for the Secretary’s salary if needed. At its next meeting, the OGGA Committee adopted a resolution to be put to Council, which, among other things,
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recommended they appoint a full-time ‘Director of GGS Support Groups’, embracing the OGGA, the Foundation, an Admissions Office and a Publicity/Communications Office – four groups that would share resources, but with the OGGA remaining ‘constitutionally, operationally and financially independent and independently represented on Council’. With this resolution, the OGGA also agreed to pay its share of ‘support group costs on a formula to be agreed’. The Council considered the resolution and in 1991 commissioned a marketing report to review the matters. The OGGA and the Council were in the same paddock – not entirely surprising given the cross-pollination between the groups – and, at a Committee meeting in May 1992, the OGGA President, Alby Carnegie, tabled the Council’s plan to rationalise the workings of the OGGA and the Foundation in the Geelong Grammar Development Office. The material impact for the OGGA was that it went from having the services of one full-time-equivalent person – the Secretary and his assistant – paid for by the School, to one of having a share of those services at a cost of $10,000 to the Association. The Committee accepted and endorsed the plan and reiterated its support for the School and the Foundation, but – significantly – stated that support excluded ‘the actual practicalities of fund-raising’ and emphasised that they were ‘anxious that traditional Association functions were not used as specific platforms for fund-raising’.
A feature of the OGGA Family Day in March 1991 was the opening of an extension to the Music School and a new, partly paved, partly grassed courtyard, named after an OGG and former member of the School Council, Sir Vincent Fairfax, who together with his family was principally responsible for the gift of the additions. The opening was by John Fairfax (OGG), on behalf of his father, in the presence of other members of the Fairfax family and many staff, OGGs, present members of the School, parents and others. ‘We are deeply grateful, too,’ read the report in The Corian, ‘to the other donors of the extensions, including the parents of Alexei Hryckow, Stephen Bostock, and Alanna Stringer, who all died shortly after leaving the School or while still at it, and who are commemorated – the first two in rooms bearing their names, the third in a garden. The largest room in the new wing bears the name of John Brazier (pictured below), who as Director of Music and in other ways gave richly of himself to Geelong Grammar School during his years on its staff from 1933–65.’ Sandy Mackenzie, Director of the Foundation, since 1984, was appointed Head of the Development Office in 1992. The staff and facilities of the Foundation, OGGA and part of the School Archives were relocated to a refurbished staff house adjacent to the Kennedy Medical Centre in Biddlecombe Avenue. The Corian noted that ‘a comprehensive records centre and data base system has been established and will be networked to the Quadrangle area by fibre optic cable’. The Council Chairman and former OGG President, Jo Breadmore, gave an assurance that, following the opening of the Development Office, the OGGA would operate ‘as before, retaining its existing objectives and identity and remaining constitutionally and financially independent. The Geelong Grammar Foundation operates with its own Trustees as a separate company to support the school.’ One early change was to hand the running of the annual Family Day from the OGGA to the Development Office. OGGA President Alby Carnegie put it like this: ‘The Association is pleased to note the increasing interest being shown by parent groups in the social life of the School. This was the main reason why the OGGs initiated Family Day in first term each year because we felt that many parents had no real contact with other parents and with the School other than through their children. These days have been very successful and have grown in variety each year. The Association will now step aside and let the School organise this event in the future.’
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Chapter 10: The Groundwork 1990–1999
The professional presence was strengthened in 1993 when the School devised a position of ‘Director of Alumni Relations’. Part of that person’s brief would be to encourage enrolments from the children of OGGs – at the time, they were in decline as a percentage of the School’s student population – in mid-1993 comprising just 17 per cent of enrolments. The inaugural Director was Mary Weatherly (later Morton) who had been Captain of Clyde House in 1985 and would later become the first female OGGA President – something Kate Gilder, a VicePresident, might have accomplished but for a work transfer overseas. Shortly after her appointment, Mary Weatherly told the OGGA Committee that, among her many aims, were a fees-assistance plan for OGGs who were potential School parents, and activating dormant OGGA branches. An OGGA Sub-committee, chaired by John Lewisohn and assisted by Rob Minis, Kate Gilder, Bas Seymour and Sandy Gilbert, prepared a Fees Assistance Proposal. At a 1994 Committee meeting, Minis reported that a commercial brief had been developed for circulation to various financial consultants to gain expert advice, and that it was a proposal that would appeal to many OGGs who had left the School
Behind the scenes It’s often the unseen that best illustrates the organisation you see. In November 1991 a letter was tabled at a Committee meeting. The writer expressed their concern for an OGG (a 1933-leaver) who was the son of a vicar and who, through ill health and tough times, had become the responsibility of the State Public Trustee. The writer said the OGG was ‘moving through a series of special accommodation homes of decreasing comfort’ and they wondered if some help or influence could be provided to have him moved to a home ‘where cleanliness and clothing are supervised’. At the Committee meeting, Dr David Mackey ‘undertook to make some enquiries’. This he did, reporting later that he had visited the OGG but he was uncertain whether the OGG ‘himself was inclined to any change’. Nevertheless, he discussed his situation with the authorities and encouraged other Committee members to visit the OGG whenever possible, not least to show accommodation staff that interest was being taken and more attention might consequently be paid to him. David Mackey had been Senior Prefect in 1952 and became the School’s first Resident Medical Officer in 1964, which he remained for thirty years. He was an OGGA Committee member for almost forty years.
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ten to twenty years earlier and wished to send their children to GGS, but were unsure how to manage the expense. The fundamentals involved advice on fees and fees assistance, a list of appropriate financial planners, and information about scholarships and entrance procedures.
Back to Timbertop Part of Timbertop’s appeal is its rudimentary character, but the government’s Health Department took the view that bushcraft needed to end outside the doors of the kitchen and dining hall. The Headmaster, John Lewis, was a frequent participant at OGGA Committee meetings and in November 1991 he alerted them to the health authorities’ dim view of Timbertop’s forty-year-old kitchen and dining facilities. They would have to be improved by 1995, at a cost of around $1.2 million. Lewis thought it would be a suitable project for ‘funding activity by the Old Geelong Grammarians and Foundation’.
The Timbertop Redevelopment Appeal was launched in 1992, with the Prince of Wales as its patron and one of the first donors. The OGGA President, Alby Carnegie, appealed to members for help at Timbertop, both financial and physical, to prepare the building site for the campus’s new kitchen and multipurpose dining hall. He wrote:
Timbertop Work Weekend, 1992. From left: Wes Reed, Foster Crooke, Kate Gilder, Sarah Gilder, Tim Hamilton, Simon Wilkins, Tim SquireWilson, Nigel Schofield, Rose Gilder, Barry Matthews.
Right from the top: OGG Timbertop Work Weekend, November 1992: Bogged; a Darling hut; Darling hut morning tea.
We want to be able to rekindle the spirit that helped establish Timbertop back in the early 50s when working parties of OGGs, staff, and students gave up weekends and holidays to help build units, roads, lay pipelines and with dozens of other tasks. Already a number of past students, both female and male, have indicated their willingness to help and the Old Geelong Football Club will definitely be involved in a big way … Let us show the 1990s students what the self-help philosophy really means. (Light Blue, No 30, August 1992)
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a wider OGG network in Australia and throughout the world ‘to enable OGGs of all ages to make contact with others for various social, sporting, or business purposes,’ as OGGA President Alby Carnegie put it. School-leavers were issued with a booklet containing the names of more than one hundred OGGs who had agreed to be resource persons to offer practical guidance and career advice. Malcolm Priestley (New South Wales), Scott Ashton-Jones (Tasmania) and Wally Cliff (Australian Capital Territory) assisted the central OGGA Committee in compiling the booklet and creating the network. Later in the decade, the network evolved and expanded to the point where the OGGs started an annual Careers Seminar at the School for Year 10 and 11 students. Recent and not-so-recent OGGs from various disciplines have given insight into their chosen careers, while representatives from tertiary institutions have also attended to answer students’ queries.
Headmaster and Principal
They came in numbers – around eighty OGGs volunteered their time and labour over four working-bee weekends in 1992, and there were more in 1993. One volunteer, Graeme Fenton, said: ‘There was a two-way benefit, not only to ourselves, but hopefully also to the students … I had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, blew away many cobwebs, and possibly ruined forever my satisfaction with city life.’ The new dining hall and kitchen had their formal opening on August 20, 1994; it was John Lewis’s last Timbertop function before leaving for Eton.
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John Lewis, a New Zealander, had come to Geelong Grammar School in August 1980 from Eton College, where he had been Master-in-College (Housemaster of the King’s Scholars), and it was to Eton he returned in August 1994 to become their Headmaster. He seldom missed an OGGA Committee meeting and at the last one he attended, in August 1994, he thanked the OGGs for their support to him and the School. The President, John Hawkes, congratulated him on his appointment and expressed the OGGA’s appreciation of his work at the School. He was made an honorary life member of the Association at that meeting and presented with an OGG tie and a set of Manning Clark’s A History of Australia. His successor as Principal was Lister Hannah, the first OGG (he had been at GGS from 1957 to 1961) to run the School. Tanganyikan-born, Hannah had been at the head of schools in Africa, North America and Europe, coming to GGS from Munich, where he was Head of the International School. Just as Garnett had faced the threat of encroaching industry early in his term, so did Hannah. This time it was a plan to move Melbourne’s Coode Island bulk liquid chemicals storage plant to Point Lilias, just around from Limeburners Bay. It was a debate that went this way and that throughout the decade and, even though the Victorian government eventually abandoned the move, the School’s tactical response was to purchase the Avalon homestead block and related property to the north, and resume ownership of the land on the eastern side of Limeburners Bay.
The branches
Above: Timbertop students, November, 1992. Top right: Mechai Viravaidya on a visit to Corio in 1993 (pictured left with John Lewis and top right with Thai students). He had only recently stood down as President of the OGGA Thai branch and remained Timbertop Appeal chairman in Thailand. Bottom right: An informal OGG dinner on the Gold Coast, January, 1994 (from left) Andrew Ramsay, David Angliss, Adrian Bell, John Bellgrove, Steve Cheney, Geoff Smith, Michael Hayne, Tim Loveless and Paul Lister.
Careers and contacts There’s usually a gap of a number of years to be bridged between leaving the School and becoming actively involved with the OGGA. When he was Secretary, Boz Parsons recalled visiting Year 12 students in each House to point out the benefits of belonging. One method of making a very tangible connection was an OGGA initiative, launched in 1992, to assist School-leavers with career advice and planning. At its centre was a hundredstrong network of OGGs who agreed to offer practical guidance and act as points of contact throughout Australia. This initiative was the forerunner to the establishment of
The OGGA’s United Kingdom branch continued to show strength; in June 1992 eighty OGGs attended the annual dinner at the Royal Overseas League in London. The Headmaster, John Lewis, was the guest speaker, and he was welcomed by the branch President, Sir John Hackett. A report of the event in The Corian reflected on the strength and continuity of the branch, extending as it did back well over half a century, and noted that its membership remained ‘loyal to the well-being of the School and ever-interested in its present situation’. Towards the end of the decade – on June 24, 1999 – the United Kingdom branch held its annual dinner at the Travellers’ Club on Pall Mall. The Secretary, David Hudson, welcomed OGGs – some as fresh as gap year students – as well as Hermitage and Clyde Old Girls and former staff and friends of the School. In Queensland, early in 1992, some ninety OGGs and Clyde and Hermitage Old Girls gathered at the Hyatt Regency for a Gold Coast Dinner. Items on the menu included Connewarre Collation, Manifold Mutton with Barwon Basil, and Timbertop Tart, all accompanied by a selection of Hermitage Home Brews and finished with Cuthy Coffee and Perry Petits Fours. Michael Collins Persse was guest of honour and Sandy Mackenzie, Director of the Geelong Grammar Foundation, gave an address describing how the School had developed over the last several decades and, more importantly, what it represented as Australia’s foremost independent boarding school. The OGGA President, Alby Carnegie, proposed the toast to the
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Chapter 10: The Groundwork 1990–1999
Clubs, sports and support The golfers
Left: Golf at Sanctuary Cove in the wake of the Queensland Branch’s 1991 dinner, (from left) Tom Newman, Richard Marsden, Alastair Bayles, David Shields, Laurel Green and Andrew Ramsay. Right: At an OGG dinner at Leonda, Melbourne (from left): Rebecca Cooney, Jon Apted (former Garnett Housemaster), Simone Worts and Sue Oliver.
School and the Queen. Among the organisers were Paul Lister, Steve Cheney, Geoff Smith and Andrew Ramsay, and they encouraged guests to stay over and enjoy some sport or shopping the following day. Not surprisingly, the ‘sport’ involved golf, and Jim and Anna Middleton teamed up with Jim and Diana Grose to take out the inaugural QOGG Cup, a team event over the Pines Course at Sanctuary Cove. Of interest were the demographics of the gathering with Shorland Moffat (1930) the most senior OGG present, and guests coming from as far afield as Barcaldine and Cape York. Closer to home, Boomanoomana, the historic homestead of Sir David and Lady Hay on the banks of the Murray between Cobram and Yarrawonga, was sometimes generously opened to the OGGA as a venue for functions. In the autumn of 1992, seventy OGGs and Old Girls from Clyde and The Hermitage met for lunch with the Headmaster, John Lewis, and his wife Vibeke, as Sir David and Lady Hay’s guests. ‘John gave his usual clear and lucid account of the School’s affairs, David Yencken expanded on developments at Timbertop, Alby
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Carnegie, the OGGA President, enlarged on Association matters and Bill Dobson, the president of the North-East Victoria branch, saw to it that things generally proceeded as they should. It was a matter of regret and sadness that Steve and Pat Noble were unable to be present owing to Steve’s indisposition.’ The report in The Corian noted that this would have been Noble’s thirtieth and final function as Secretary of the North-East Victoria branch and ‘it was most unfortunate that he could not be with us … The success of branches depends largely on the efforts of the individuals involved in running them. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the efforts of Steve Noble.’ Branches north of the border remained active. In August 1992, the New South Wales branch held a cocktail party at the Royal Sydney Yacht Club while the next night, the official caravan moved to Canberra for dinner at University House. Later in the decade, a soggy Sydney night welcomed more than a hundred OGGs and Hermitage and Clyde Old Girls and current parents, who gathered at the Royal Motor Yacht Squadron for their annual get-together. The New
OGGs will often be found on the golf course, so it was hardly surprising to find them active in golf tournaments. In September 1992, the OGGs fought it out for the Boz Parsons Cup at Royal Melbourne Golf Club. Of the fifty-two there, Andrew Chapman won the cup for the best individual score while ‘nearest the pin’ went to John Ackroyd and Ken Davidson. Rob Happell made the longest drive. Later that year, the OGGs were back at Royal Melbourne with a team of twenty-eight for the Public Schools’ Old Boys’ Annual Golf Meeting. ‘The weather was less than ideal, as were the OGGs’ results. Haileybury College won and GGS came eighth out of 11 schools. John Newman was the best of the OGGs, finishing one over par for the 18 holes.’ South Wales branch President, Cam Smith, welcomed attendees including guests from Corio, among them the registrar, Trish Gilson, and OGGA Secretary Tanya Bishop. In Tasmania, the 1992 OGGs’ function was a lunch held at Woodstock in Hobart, a reception centre owned by the Cascade Brewery which was previously the residence of the managing director. Among the OGGs present were Stuart McGregor, the current managing director, and John Gray, who had lived at Woodstock when his father was the managing director. For the first time, invitations to join the lunch were extended to Clyde and The Hermitage Old Girls. About forty people came along, and the branch President, Scott Ashton-Jones, welcomed Alby Twigg, the Master of Corio, and his wife Anne, the OGGA Secretary, Jim Winchester, and his wife Margaret, and the OGGA President, Alby Carnegie. In Asia, the OGGA Malaysian branch was registered in November 1997 and celebrated the event with an inaugural dinner in September 1998 in Kuala Lumpur. It was attended by about one hundred OGGs, including the guest of honour the Minister of Defence YB Dato Seri Hamid bin Tan Sri Syed Jaafar Albar. Other guests included the School Council Chairman, John McInnes, and the Principal, Lister Hannah. In his address, the Malaysian branch President, David Teh, thanked guests and organisers and shared some of the objectives of the branch: to unite Malaysian OGGs and parents in the pursuit of common interests and ideals, to link with other OGGs in the region and maintain ties with the parent association, OGGA Australia. Teh also spoke of the hope that one day the branch might be in a position to assist a less fortunate Malaysian to attend the School.
OGG Ski Club Early in the decade the OGG Ski Club had upgraded its Mt Buller lodge and continued to offer ‘comfortable, cosy skiing at very reasonable rates’. It had a special introductory rate for young OGGs and Year 12 students, with a reduced entrance-fee plan, making skiing affordable on leaving school. The Club also broadened its base by offering memberships to Clyde and The Hermitage Old Girls. Norman Faifer, Amanda Fish and Edwin Gill were the key contacts at the time.
Old Geelong Football Club If they’d struggled at times in the 1980s, the footballers tackled the 1990s head-on and topped the table at the outset. With premierships in the E and F Reserve Sections of the Victorian Amateur Football Association, 1990 was the most successful season in twenty-four years for the Old Geelong Football Club. The Seniors’ flag was the Club’s fourth, but its first since 1966, while the Reserves won their second flag in three years. Fourteen of the Senior side were OGGs and the wins also gave the Club connections through the generations, with fathers and sons having played in Premiership teams for the first time: Bill Handbury (Reserves, 1966) and John (Seniors, 1990); and Jo Breadmore (Seniors, 1956 and 1957) and Tim (Reserves, 1990). In 1992 they didn’t fare quite as well; the Seniors won seven of their last nine games but missed the finals on percentage. They did, however, manage one Club premiership: the supporters’ group, under convenor Tim Jackson, commissioned a wine bottling as a fundraising
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Chapter 10: The Groundwork 1990–1999
St Kevin’s College and Ivanhoe Grammar. The game was played in tribute to Bruce Barton, who had recently died. Barton had been Housemaster of Manifold and 1st XV assistant coach. The Lewis Club were the winners 10–7; Lister Hannah presented the Bruce Barton Trophy to Nick Treweeke, who had been nominated by coach Chris Davison as the player of the match.
Left: 1996 GGS Olympians (from left), James Lowe, Angie Holbeck, Garth Manton, Kate Slatter, Rebecca Joyce, Tim Young. Opposite: John Lewis.
Communications
exercise. The ‘OGS Red’ from the Ritchies’ Delatite Winery (selected by winemaker and OGG Rosalind Ritchie) went on to win a gold medal at the InterVin wine competition in New York. By 1997, under Captain-coach Mark Neeld, the former Geelong and Richmond AFL player and later an AFL coach, the Senior side made the grand final again, going down to Beaumaris, but still earning promotion back to C Grade. The Reserves team won the Premiership against Parkside. In 1998, major work to the playing surface at Como Park meant that the Club’s home ground was available for only six out of the nine home games and the Seniors missed the finals. The Reserves played all the way through to the grand final, but went down to St Bedes-Mentone.
Rowing The Pincott Club’s support for School rowing continued to bear fruit. It involved a new boat in 1990: purchased jointly by the 1990 crews, the School and the Pincott Club, the WH Pincott was the School’s first with a high-tech Kevlar shell construction. Building on sustained success in the 1980s, the School boys’ crew won the Head of the River twice (1991 and 1994) and the girls’ crew a stunning eight times (only losing in 1992 and 1999). In the 1991 Senior Regatta on the Barwon, GGS had wins in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd boys’ eights and the three girls’ events, all crews establishing new records for the course. It was also an era for Olympians, particularly OGGs Kate Slatter, Bee Joyce and Angie Holbeck. Slatter rowed in
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the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in the Women’s Four, placing sixth. At the World Rowing Championships in Finland 1995, she teamed with long-time partner Megan Still to win the World Championship coxless pair. In Atlanta 1996, they held off the fast-finishing Americans to win gold – the first for an Australian women’s crew. Not only was Kate Slatter the first OGG to win an Olympic gold medal, she followed this up with a silver medal in the pairs at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She was awarded an OAM and inducted into Sport Australia’s Hall of Fame in 2002. Bee Joyce partnered Virginia Lee of New South Wales to contest the double sculls, the only lightweight women’s event in the Atlanta Olympic programme. The race was won by an outstanding crew from Romania, with the United States taking silver, and Joyce and Lee holding off the Italians to bring home bronze. Angie Holbeck took up a rowing scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport soon after leaving the School, and was selected as reserve for the women’s eight at Atlanta. Nearly one hundred students, OGGs, staff and parents attended a Rowing Lunch in the Darling Hall in October 1996 to be delighted by Slatter, Joyce and Holbeck and their accounts of their Olympic experiences. Various members of the School’s rowing community took the opportunity to pay them tribute.
John Lewis Rugby Club John Lewis’s physique, character and New Zealand origins made him a natural for rugby, but he was unique among
GGS Headmasters in applying his passion for a sport by finding the time to coach it. In 1992 he apologised ‘to all those over whose affairs I have been more dilatory than usual, a consequence in part of my decision to accept the invitation to join Mr Masters in coaching the first Rugby XV this winter, the only brand of football to which I can reckon to make a contribution … the consequences of a winter spent ankle-deep in mud are all too obvious on my desk, which has remained more than usually ankle-deep in paper’. Lewis’s passion for the sport was recognised shortly after his departure when a support club for rugby was founded, with Guy Masters, Sean Burke and Chris Davison among its early drivers. The John Lewis Rugby Club had its first event in October 1995: a match against Old Ignatians’ Rugby Club from Sydney followed by a dinner. At one point, the match report read, ‘four captains of rugby – Nick Treweeke (93), Ben Mason (94), Sam Priestley (91) and current captain Nick Davison – were on the field together’. It was a decade of strength for School rugby. In 1996, the 1st XV finished the season unbeaten, while the 2nd XV and Under-16 XV also won their grand finals. The 1st XV was also premier in 1997. In 1997 the Club played a Barbarians’ side made up of players from Xavier, Melbourne Grammar, Scotch College,
In August 1992, The Geelong Grammarian changed its name to Light Blue (first issue pictured below), and increased a little in page count. The journal’s significance for communications to and among OGGs also grew. As in the previous two decades, production and distribution costs were causing problems for The Corian. Receipt of a copy had always been a right of membership of the OGGA – it was in the Association’s constitution – but so was the objective that the OGGA ‘assist the School in every way possible’. In 1997, the Annual Meeting of the OGGA approved an amendment to the constitution so that, rather than being ‘free on publication’, a copy of The Corian or other publication be available ‘subject to the payment of such reasonable costs as may be imposed from time to time’. In 1999, The Corian was offered to OGGs by subscription at a cost of $30.
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while Robert Perry, Chris Bryan and Charlie Sutherland each took one wicket. Nick Sutherland was successful in obtaining three run-outs. The Tunbridge Club had a shaky start with the bat, slumping to 6/48 in the twelfth over, but James Sutherland (64 not out), Charlie Sutherland (51 retired), Robert Perry (19 from 14 balls) and Charles Cameron (52 not out) steadied the side to win the match with nine balls to spare. Tim Shearer, Captain of Old Scotch Collegians (and like each of the above Sutherlands, a grandson of Sir James Darling), presented the magnificent Tunbridge–Cowper Trophy to his cousin, Charlie Sutherland (Captain of the Tunbridge Club). The trophy now resides in the Tunbridge Pavilion at Corio. The winning Tunbridge Club side comprised: Richard Allen, Nick Sutherland, Rob Dery, Charles Cameron, Richard Knight, Robert Perry, Charlie Sutherland, William Vorrath, Chris Bryan, Andrew Martin and James Sutherland.
Chapter 10: The Groundwork 1990–1999
The engine room
Left: John Landy and Vic Tunbridge, pictured together in the 1980s.
Early in 1991, the OGGA Secretary, Jim Winchester (pictured left), advised his Committee that the School’s new IBM business administration computer had been installed and was being tested, and that it included a terminal for exclusive use in the OGGA office. He also recommended to the Committee that they spend $3403 on an IBM model 4018 laser printer for the OGGA office. They approved the purchase. Jim Winchester had taken over from Boz Parsons in 1989 and stayed in the post until 1996, when the School’s Director of Alumni Relations, Mary Morton, also took on the role of OGGA Secretary until December 1997. Their assistants also changed during the decade with Robby Bedggood retiring in 1996 after eight years’ service and Ann Drayton taking her place. Tanya Bishop replaced Mary Morton as OGGA Secretary in 1998.
Opposite: OGGA Secretary Jim Winchester.
John Landy Club
Tunbridge–Cowper Trophy Of the eleven schools that comprise the Associated Public Schools of Victoria, Scotch College and Geelong Grammar are the two often noted for the strength of their alumni associations. It wasn’t surprising, then, that the Tunbridge Club initiated an annual cricket match between the two schools’ former students. On November 13, 1994, the Tunbridge Club defeated an Old Scotch Collegians’ side by two wickets in a fifty-over match at Scotch College, to win the inaugural Tunbridge–Cowper Trophy (Vic Tunbridge’s significance to GGS is recorded elsewhere, Bob Cowper, an Old Scotch Collegian, was a Test player for Australia). In 1994 the OGGs’ side included Charles Cameron (then playing with South Yarra Cricket Club) who opened the bowling for the OGGs and took 2/51 from twelve overs. James Sutherland, fresh from District Cricket duties the previous day, was steady with 1/37 from eleven overs,
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The athletes and their supporters held a 21st anniversary dinner in the Sir Arthur Streeton Room of the Naval and Military Club in 1997. The patron, John Landy, showed his drawing power with the guest speaker being Peter Norman, the 200-metres silver medallist from the 1968 Mexico Olympics and hero of the human rights protest at those Games. Another special guest was the 95-yearold sprint coach, Charles Booth, who is credited with the invention of starting blocks. John Chittick, represented by his daughter Lisa Wick, and Bob Joyce – both OGGs and Olympians – presented the John Chittick–Bob Joyce Award for sprints (100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres or hurdles) to Peter Jardine (GGS master and athletics coach). The Club appointed a new President on the night – OGG Murray Wallace, who at the time still held the School record (11.1 seconds) for the 100 metres.
Social notes Reunions based on a fixed anniversary became more common in the 1990s. One of the most popular was the forty-year Timbertop reunion in December 1992, bringing together past pupils of Timbertop’s first intake. OGG President Alby Carnegie went along and, while he said the highlight was an address by Sir James Darling, he also noted some comments from Reece Burgess, who referred to the sales of butternut biscuits by some budding entrepreneurs who made ‘huge profits’, and the Rev David Townsend, ‘a person who did not speak highly of his time at Corio but mentioned that his overpowering memory of
Timbertop was freedom; freedom from the hierarchy of Corio, freedom from sport and cadets and rules. I quote a little from his speech to give some flavour to that first year: “There were not many rules - Monty was keen that you were on time and had a fixation about axe heads. Bishop (EK) Leslie liked you to be in bed by the time his hobnailed boots reached the dormitory after lights-out.”’ Early in the decade Simon Reed, Kate Gilder, Anna Mulley, Sam Smith and Tom Gubbins formed the Social Sub-committee and had the OGGs’ annual dinner, a Christmas cocktail party, and functions for young OGGs on their agenda. The annual dinner on VFL Grand Final eve continued in the early 1990s, but in 1991 it was transformed into a dinner-dance at Leonda attended by about 290 – their seniority ranging from Charles Hall (1927) to a group of younger people who had left the School at the end of 1989. Music was supplied by an OGG, Andrew Noble, and his disco. A highlight was the awarding of honorary life membership of the OGGA to Arthur ‘Nugget’ Stephens for his services to the School and the Association. The OGGA President, Robert (Bas) Seymour, sought a change of direction, however, and got the Committee’s agreement to hold the 1991 annual dinner at Corio and make it an OGGs-only event. Despite the attraction of Ranald Macdonald – an OGG and media personality – and a panel of people he proposed to interview on the night, including horse trainer Rick Hore-Lacy and diplomat Richard Woolcott, the dinner
had to be cancelled through a lack of support. Seymour put this down to ‘the recession, lack of interest in the Geelong area, drink-driving legislation and the fact that partners were not invited’. It was back to Leonda on Grand Final eve for the annual dinner and that’s where it stayed, with the Christmas cocktail party at the Melbourne Club popular, and less formal functions for young OGGs (known for a time as the YOGGs), sometimes at the Prince Alfred Hotel in Richmond. One young OGGs’ night, in October 1993, organised by a group led by Caroline Bedggood, drew almost 400 people to the Redhead nightclub in South Melbourne, and showed a surplus of $900; most OGG social functions ran at a loss and were subsidised by the Association. By 1994 Simon Reed had expanded his Social Subcommittee to include Tim Hegarty, Bill Pincott, William Davis, Edwina Burgess, Amanda Woods, Georgina Brown and Matthew Oliphant, and the annual dinner remained the main focus on the social calendar; they too had some financial success, with the OGGs’ annual dinner running at ‘roughly break-even’ in 1994. A marquee was put up on the Glamorgan Oval for the 1995 dinner in mid-September, and two OGGs entertained the crowd – David Adams, a round-the-world solo yachtsman, and Lister Hannah, the first OGG Principal, ‘who responded to the toast to the School by contrasting the Geelong Grammar of his time as a student with the current School’. By 1995, the Social Subcommittee was headed by Mary Morton (Weatherly).
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