Supporter Update June 2022

Supporter Update

June 2022

Latest news from the Development Office

Foundation Day 2022

On Thursday 10th March the College was once again, able to come together in person and celebrate Foundation Day, after a 2-year break in festivities. It has become a cherished, annual tradition and an opportunity to pause, reflect and commend the positive impact the charity has had on the lives of The Foundation pupils and their families. It is also a chance for the College to thank all our donors and supporters, including our charitable trusts.

We were joined by Foundation pupils, past and present, who courageously took to the stage to tell their stories of how they arrived at the College and to what extent LWC has supported and guided them over the years. Beth Jackson, our Foundation Prefect, was outstanding in hosting the proceedings and speaking so eloquently about her time at LWC and exciting plans for the future.

We would also like to thank Sternian Foundationer Andy Baker, and LWC grandparent, Ken Carter who both spoke movingly of how The Foundation has supported them and their families.

Beth Jackson, Foundation Prefect

And finally, it was our absolute pleasure to welcome guest speaker Leah Morgan from the Royal National Children’s Springboard Foundation, a charity which provides continued funding and support for several of our Foundation pupils.

New Cedrus Club Board Unveiled

This month we have been delighted to reveal our brand-new donor board which can be found just outside the Headmaster’s office, aptly opposite one of our iconic Cedar trees. This beautiful glass installation has been designed to recognise, and give thanks to, our Cedrus Club Gold Members, whose names are proudly displayed.

The Cedrus Club is one of three donor clubs at LWC. Cedrus Club members have generously donated in excess of £5,000 over the years, with gold members gifting £50,000 or more. We are so grateful for their incredible philanthropy, kindness, and unwavering support. We hope to add more names to the board each year, so if the generosity of these wonderful individuals inspires you give to The Foundation or one of our other College projects, then please do get in touch.

Science Centre Opens!

Head of Science, Richard Thorne comments…

Since its opening in January 2022, the new Science Centre has had a significant and exciting impact on teaching and learning across the year groups. The move from 9 to 13 large, modern, and fully equipped laboratories has greatly increased the ability of teachers to deliver exciting and inspiring Science lessons.

Outside of formal lessons, the Science Centre has become a focus for a range of academic clinics, extension, and other activities, including Astronomy GCSE, Aiming High and even DofE. Its open and light design have made it an attractive venue for other events, including the recent Psychology presentations. The quiet study areas upstairs have become a haven for Sixth Formers and we are delighted with the new David Watts Conference Room which has amazing views over the fields to the east.

Thank you to all our donors who supported this project. Your generosity has meant the Faculty of Science could further equip our labs and inspire pupils for generations to come.

A huge thank you to every Sternian, parent, member of staff/governors or charitable trust who has donated this year so far - whether you are supporting The Foundation, an Aspirations Campaign or another area across the College, we are truly grateful.

As we all know, times are tough for everyone at the moment and this, unsurprisingly, is having a significant effect on philanthropic income this year, with The Foundation being particularly hit. In 2019/20 donations from Sternians and parents for The Foundation exceeded £300,000. This dropped to a little under £200,000 last year (but with a further £200k donated to Aspirations and Covid Appeals). This year is looking even more concerning and so we made the decision in January not to promote any further Aspirations projects in the hope that the LWC Community will lend its urgently needed support to the education of Foundationers – the beating heart of LWC.

A number of Regular Giving campaigns have been taking place, but if we haven’t yet contacted you and you would like to support in this way, or make a one-off donation, we would be most grateful. We have a couple of months until the end of the financial year in August and it would be wonderful to reach a target of at least £200,000 for The Foundation. Please lend your vital support if you can.

Thank you on behalf of everyone here at LWC.

Fundraising Income 2021/22

Donor Focus

Current LWC Parents

It was wonderful to chat to LWC parents Dominique and Ian Vinecombe and hear why they support not only The Foundation, but other fundraising projects around the College as well...

Our son joined LWC in 3rd Form in 2020, when COVID was in full swing. We have been thrilled with the support he has been given and how he has developed over the last two years. Contributing to the College’s different fundraising campaigns is a way we can give back and thank the school for everything they do, both for our son and all the pupils.

We were fortunate that the pandemic did not affect our jobs. We know that others were hugely impacted and didn’t hesitate when asked by the College to support the COVID-19 Appeal for Single Term Bursaries to help other families who needed immediate, short-term, financial assistance to ensure their children could continue their education at LWC.

Music and Drama have played significant roles in our household and so we were again very happy to donate to the Performing Arts Aspirations campaign for the refurbishment of the theatre in the Music & Drama Centre. It was wonderful to be invited to the official opening of the new Nadine Uppal Theatre to see how our support had helped transform this teaching and performance space, and we enjoyed meeting other donors and supporters. It was an incredible night of pupil performances and we were extremely proud to watch our son sing publicly again after so many COVID limitations. We know that the pupils love their new space and it makes it even more special that it was funded by parents and Sternians.

It has been a huge pleasure to support The Foundation since joining LWC. The knowledge that you are helping youngsters that have had a challenging start in life, to benefit from all that LWC has to offer, is hugely empowering.

It is clear that it is not just the individuals that benefit, but their whole families, and in many cases the LWC experience is literally life changing.

It has been wonderful to see the contribution that the Foundationers make to the life of the college, in Music, Drama, on the sports field and in enriching the LWC community as a whole. Ian has signed up to trek across the Sahara. This is both a personal challenge, but also an opportunity to help raise funds for The Foundation. He has enjoyed meeting some Sternians, who themselves were Foundationers, and are taking part in the trek as a way of saying thank you and to give back to The College, so that others may follow in their footsteps.

We are pleased that the College has ambitions to continually enhance pupils’ lives at LWC. We would, of course, expect that the majority will be funded by our school fees, but we also recognise that not all can be and so we are happy to do our bit to help and donate where we can to make these goals achievable. We hope that other parents and Sternians will also continue to support The Foundation or another Aspirations projects that they are interested in, for the benefit of current and future LWC pupils as others have clearly done over the decades before.

Become a Foundation Ambassador

Your support is urgently needed to ensure The Foundation can continue to offer transformational awards to children who have lost the support of one or both parents, primarily through bereavement. Become a Foundation Ambassador and help raise awareness for our incredible charity.

INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT MORE?

As an Ambassador we would ask you to use your network of friends, family and work colleagues to:

Spread the word far and wide about the vital work of The Foundation

Sign up for one of our Centenary events

Become a regular donor and support The Foundation on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis

Consider leaving a gift in their Will.

Contact: Kate Boyd, Development Manager on 01256 860297 | boydk@lordwandsworth.org

INTERVIEW

Jane Friend, Partnerships Manager

Following on from the interview with Pete Maidment, Foundation Tutor, in the November 2021 Supporter Update, we caught up with Jane Friend our fellow Development Office colleague, to fill us in on her role within the College and with The Foundation in particular…

What are your key areas of responsibility?

My job title feels particularly accurate as I work in partnership with LWC’s Development and Admission Teams; with teaching and pastoral staff; with parents and pupils; and with a range of charitable trusts to help ensure that our Foundationer places at Lord Wandsworth College are fully funded.

Over half of our Foundationers receive 100% bursaries and, although most of the costs of The Foundation are met by the College’s own charitable foundation, it is important that parents and carers are not expected to pay more than they can afford. This is where I step in, working in collaboration with a wide range of trusts and charities to ensure that we do not have a funding shortfall, and that our Foundationers’ education can continue uninterrupted.

What attracted you to this role at Lord Wandsworth College?

I have always been attracted to roles that have the potential to make a difference. What I love about The Foundation is that it takes young people facing disadvantage and sets about reducing that advantage gap, whilst never taking its eyes off their individual character and potential. It also helps that I am part of a great team of passionate individuals who believe in The Foundation’s power to transform lives, and who are very supportive of each other. Over the past couple of years LWC has won the Independent School of the Year Award for Student Wellbeing and the Boarding Schools’ Association Award for Working with Vulnerable Children. This September marks the start of our Centenary, celebrating 100 years since the first Foundation pupil here in Long Sutton. I think it’s fair to say that we have a bit of experience in the field!

What challenges do you face?

Working with 50 young people means 50 completely different individuals with 50 unique stories. I then need to filter hundreds of different trusts each with their own priorities, funding criteria and evaluation requirements to make the best match. Keeping organised and on top of application deadlines is so important - let’s just say that I have a rather long and very bespoke task list.

Sometimes I also encounter scepticism about the role of boarding schools in helping disadvantaged and vulnerable

young people reach their full potential. It is therefore increasingly important for us to evidence the fact that the right boarding place for the right child can be highly effective in improving both social and educational outcomes.

What’s the best bit of your role?

Emerging from lockdown has been wonderful as it has enabled me to meet many of our Foundationers, funders and alumni in person. It’s fantastic when the young person on the application form or the funder’s voice on the end of the phone comes to life - even better when you see them meeting each other at our annual Foundation Day and can witness the impact of The Foundation first-hand. Having changed schools four times as a young person myself, I can really appreciate the stability that the caring boarding environment at LWC provides.

What will you be prioritising next year?

Next year, we would like to focus more on funding a range of experiences for our Foundationers which will enable them to get even more out of their time with LWC. This year, for example, we developed a new relationship with the Andy Fanshawe Trust who partially funded the costs for three of our Foundationers to undertake the epic Devizes to Westminster international canoeing challenge. They were part of a team of 19 racers from Lord Wandsworth College who raced 108 miles over three days, camping each night and raising over £3,000 for Prostate Cancer UK. Whilst this gruelling physical race might not be for everybody, I would love every Foundationer to have the opportunity to find their own personal challenge, without financial constraints.

INTERVIEW

Martin Smedley, Sternian Foundationer (Hazelveare, 1969)

Many of our Foundationers keep in touch with the College over the years but for others, time marches on and you lose touch. We wanted to re-establish that connection, so we reached out!

Not only did we want to hear how they are getting on, we also wanted to find out a little bit more about their family history and how they came to be a Foundation pupil at LWC. We had an overwhelming response, and it was such a pleasure to read all of their incredible stories. We are delighted to share one of these stories with you below and hope that you find it as inspiring as we did…

Can you tell us about how you came to be a Foundationer at LWC?

My father died of cancer when I was 10 years old, and my mother received information about scholarships at LWC for boys who had lost a parent. My mother realised that this could be an opportunity to gain a better education and a possible route out of poverty for me. At that time, we were living in a small, terraced house in a disadvantaged part of North Manchester. I recollect that the school sent someone to the house to interview me and then I was offered a place.

“I learned a love of nature and the open air, a love of sport and that there was so much more to life than I ever imagined.”

What are your strongest memories from your days at LWC?

Going from the “slums” of the north to the beautiful countryside of Hampshire was a revelation in my first term. I tried to embrace every new experience. I particularly remember the house master of the lower school, sharing the joys of cross country with us and being able to race across open fields. I have loved running ever since. Each Autumn we also spent a week working on the farm potato picking, which was challenging but great fun. I remember walking up the Cinder Track to Upper School and back each day through the fields on either side, and seeing the seasons change. In Upper School I loved the creativity in the Art Department and playing rugby for the 1st XV.

What are you doing at the moment? What’s next?

I became a Chartered Geotechnical Engineer and worked all over the world before moving back to Manchester to live. I then established a charity in Africa called Act4Africa with my late wife and ran that for the past 20 years as CEO and currently as Chair of Trustees. I am now semi-retired but enjoying art, golf and learning Italian.

What did you learn from your time at LWC? How has it influenced your journey so far?

I learned a love of nature and the open air, a love of sport and that there was so much more to life than I ever imagined.

What’s the one piece of advice you would give to current Foundation pupils?

Grab hold of every opportunity offered and don’t waste a second. Believe in yourself, work hard and anything is possible.

What was the impact of The Foundation on you and the rest of your family?

The impact on me was simply life changing. The education I received broadened my horizons and I gained an inner confidence that anything was possible. I tried to pass on some of this to my own family and my three children have all gone on to have excellent and successful careers.

How would you describe the LWC Foundation in 3 words?

Simply life changing.

“The education I received broadened my horizons and I gained an inner confidence that anything was possible.”

Centenary Celebrations

In Aid of The Foundation

Excitement is in the air as we move ever closer to the start of our Centenary celebrations this September. The Centenary marks 100 years since the arrival of our first pupil here at Long Sutton, Alfred Beckwith in November 1922.

It won’t come as a surprise to you that we are ensuring The Foundation is at the centre of our celebrations with every effort being made to raise more awareness and funds for this mighty charity of ours! An outline of the key events is below, and we do hope you will be able to join us for some or all of them. We look forward to seeing you.

The Beckwith

5/10k Run/Walk

SATURDAY 24TH SEPTEMBER 2022

Parents, pupils, Sternians, governors and staff are welcome to take part in The Beckwith, either walking or running the route. Please do bring your families too!

It begins at the Acorn Gates and takes in some of our most iconic areas around the estate including Sheephouse Copse, the infamous Quercus, and Heaven and Hell. Choose from the 5k or 10k route, and for those competitive runners amongst us there is the option to log your race times and be in with a chance to be the first name on our Beckwith leader-board. All proceeds go to The Foundation.

Trek the Sahara Desert

23-28TH FEBRUARY 2023

Limited places remain for this adventure of a lifetime! Do you want to take part in a challenge that will help raise vital funds for The Foundation?

Join other Sternians and LWC parents (you must be aged 18+ to take part) as we trek the Sahara Desert across the breathtaking Chigaga Dunes. With camels to guide us through the ever-changing landscape we will visit the nomads’ encampment before sleeping under the stars.

Registration Fee: £199 (non-refundable)

Trip Cost: £1,166pp

Additional Fundraising Target: £1,200 or more!

BOOK NOW TO SECURE YOUR PLACE

Centenary Festival

FRIDAY 23RD AND SATURDAY 24TH JUNE 2023

As the Centenary year comes to a close, the entire LWC community (parents, pupils, Sternians and staff) are invited to celebrate with us over a fun-filled two days of celebration here at LWC. Both days will be jam-packed with events, performances, games, music and more.

We are planning to have an extensive programme of musical performances from our pupils, staff and Sternians too. The campus will be filled with food and drinks stalls, shopping tents, a fun fair and there will be plenty of opportunities to simply enjoy being at LWC with your families and friends.

Centenary Sponsorship

Would your business like to sponsor The Beckwith or the Centenary Festival?

There is a broad range of sponsorship opportunities available for our key centenary events.

From individual items such as staging, clothing, medals, programmes etc. As well as a variety of Event Sponsorship packages including becoming a Headline Sponsor at either.

INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT MORE?

Contact: Sam Corfield, Development Director on 01256 860243 | corfields@lordwandsworth.org

Sponsorship packages include stage advertising

House Wish Lists

The last few months have seen an increase in donations to Houses here at LWC. Generous parents have made significant donations to help with various small to medium sized projects within several of the boarding Houses. It has been heart-warming to know that parents want to support the College in this way and ensure current and future housemates can benefit from the improvements.

Haygate

A grandparent was keen to ensure the girls had some wonderful new outdoor items to enhance their social time together.

Their donation paid for new garden furniture, a pizza oven, table tennis, table football and some fun garden games.

School House

A current parent, wanted to contribute towards equipment that would improve the boys’ culinary skills! The donation is being put towards refurbishing the kitchen and kitting it out with some fantastic new appliances.

Several parents have donated to other Houses and we are so grateful for everyone’s support.

If any parents, or indeed Sternians, would like to discuss making a donation towards a boarding house please get in touch with Sam in the first instance who will then liaise with the relevant Houseparent.

The Headmaster, Governors and Development Office Team would like to thank all of our donors for the support you give LWC, particularly with the prolonged situation we are all facing.

Whether your gift is large or small, regular or one-off, it is an accumulation of everyone’s donations that enables LWC to fund The Foundation and other projects across the College.

We are also so grateful to all those who volunteer and give up so much of their personal time to support the pupils here at LWC by speaking at Roundtables, attending Careers and Interview Days, serving on committees and so much more.

We are truly grateful for all the support we receive, and hope to receive in the future… Thank you.

GET IN TOUCH WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OFFICE

Sam Corfield, Development Director

Kate Boyd, Development Manager

Clare Faherty, Centenary Events Co-ordinator

E: development@lordwandsworth.org

T: 01256 860243

T: 01256 860297

T: 01256 860392

Lord Wandsworth College, Long Sutton, Hampshire RG29 1TB

www.lordwandsworth.org/support-us