The Kingswood Development Newsletter

DEVELOPMENT, ASSOCIATION & THE ARCHIVES

LOOKING BACK AT THE 2021/22 YEAR

Life returned to a more ‘normal’ year for us in 2021/22 after the disruptions from Covid curtailing the number of events we could run and the opportunities to meet face to face.

Michele’s excellent annual programme of events returned in the Autumn Term with highlights being the Community Golf Day, Business Networking, Community Supper as well as local, regional and international receptions and the hugely popular Bath Christmas drinks (postponed until April owing to Covid and combined with the 2020 leavers’ dinner) at the Apex Hotel in Bath.

We are very grateful to staff who joined us at our events as members of the Kingswood Community are always very pleased to reconnect with staff.

Please do let us know if you are able to join us at any of our events this year.

The best way to find out what events we are running is to register on our new online community platform at Home | Kingswood Community. It is free to sign up and once you have been accepted by Michele, you will have access to news, events, clubs, digitised archives, photographs and details of the Kingswood 275 Campaign.

RECORD YEAR FOR DONATIONS RECEIVED

I am very grateful to our very generous donors who have donated over 640 times during 2021/22 year totalling just under £500 000. Donations have ranged from £5 to £60 000 supporting:

• Transformational Bursaries

• The Cookery School

• The Prep School

• The John Wesley Bursary Fund

• The Old Kingswoodian Association

• The Chapel Organ

• Prizes

• Memorial Garden

• Library

We have also been notified of two very generous legacies (they included Kingswood in their Will) we will receive this year.

UPDATING OUR DATABASE

We are heavily dependent

data

is also very helpful

contact

had with members of

also very happy to help

Kingswood

meeting them on

LOOKING AHEAD

AND OUR 275TH ANNIVERSARY

We celebrate our 275th anniversary in 2023. The Kingswood 275 Campaign is about enriching the whole Kingswood Sixth Form experience, while offering transformational opportunities to students who can pay full, partial or no school fees at all.

The Kingswood 275 Campaign is raising significant donations supporting:

1. Transformational Bursaries in the Sixth Form expanding access to life-changing education for our students.

2. A new Cookery School which will offer enrichment and co-curricular cookery for students and the community, academic courses centred on the prestigious Certificate in Food and Wine as well as Level 2 (GCSE) courses and commercial courses to parents, former pupils and the wider public.

3. A Sixth Form Centre for the future transformed from the current series of small studies into a modern and more open plan space. This will allow for collaborative working and group seminars, facilitating a pre-university experience preparing our leavers for higher education and the world of work.

At the beginning of the term, Andrew shared with staff the very strong message their support for the campaign sent to the community and potential donors.

This support could include:

• Registering on the new online platform and connecting with our online community

• Helping us keep the database up to date by sharing interactions with members of the Kingswood Community

• Joining us at events during the year helping host our community

• Supporting the Campaign by making your gift at a time and level of your choice.

Andrew gave the example of 100 gifts of £12.50pm for two years, together with gift aid (at no cost to you), would fully-fund a 100% life changing bursary for a pupil in the Sixth Form.

Please contact Graham if you would like to find out more about supporting the Kingswood 275 Campaign.

Cookery School

Sixth Form Centre

ARCHIVES UPDATE

Last year, Zoë received over 200 enquiries – a record! These were received from a range of people including: Old Kingswoodians, family historians, university academics as well as Kingswood staff.

All spheres of school life are represented and the records take many forms: account books, day books, letters, magazines, minutes, photographs, prints, programmes, registers, etc. There are also various artefactsincluding uniform and plates etc. - and an increasing number of electronic records. To improve their accessibility, she is currently in the process of reorganising and refiling these archive records in preparation for formally cataloguing them electronically and rehousing them systematically on shelves on the first floor of the Posnett Hub.

Looking towards our 275 celebrations, she is very excited to support the School in any way she can to promote its amazing history. This year, she will be launching the Kingswood School Listening Project. It will be an audio archive of conversations whereby Old Kingswoodians will be invited to share a conversation with their contemporaries, to be recorded and archived in full.

The idea of the project is to record, share, and preserve the stories of Old Kingswoodians, so we do not lose the valuable history of the School, which does not appear in the school history books or magazines. It would be an opportunity for school friends to come together and reminisce about their time at Kingwood and how it has shaped their lives. It is often the minutiae of life which makes our lives and history so rich and interesting. Are there any current staff who would like to participate, too?

Zoë requests any photographs, programmes, marketing literature, rulebooks, scorebooks, general paperwork or digital files from your departments, which you think will make valuable additions to the School archive. She would be grateful for any items you think will help to tell the story of Kingswood in years to come.

The Archive received a number of donations over the last year, including this beautiful wooden chair, belonging to the Rev. Wesley Brunyate, Resident Governor at Kingswood between 1892 and 1901.

Kind regards

Graham Papenfus Development Director

E. gpapenfus@kingswood.bath.sch.uk | T. 01225 734 399 E. mgreene@kingswood.bath.sch.uk | T. 01225 734283

Kingswood School, Lansdown, Bath BA1 5RG www.kingswood.bath.sch.uk