From The Old Girls’ Association 56

Robyn Eden and Rebecca Hickey setting up their new equipment

Year 13 students test out the new microscope

brand-new Old Girls’ Honours Board. Katharine’s name was one of 12 to be included in the inaugural unveiling. She then re-joined the teaching staff in 1955, holding the Head of Science role for a time and teaching Science right through until 1979 with a short break between 1974 and 1977. Jocelyn recalls QMC was a large part of her mother’s life, and here we are some 90 odd years later, and Katharine is still supporting Science at QMC.

““The gift is for mum, to mark her contribution to the school

she loved,” says Jocelyn.

Jocelyn is the author of the book 'Radical Reformers and Respectable Rebels – how the two lives of Grace Oakeshott defined an era', published in 2016. An autographed copy of this book now lives in our library, another generous donation from the Robson family, for which we are very grateful.

Sophia Gittings – Junior Champion, and Iris Ma – Senior Champion, pictured here with Jane Ball (Alumnae Relations), Tim Jenkin (Head of Arts), Jayne-Ann Young (Principal), and Lynne Speight (OGA President)

Several planned events have been interrupted in recent months; however, we still managed to achieve all we could for the college and students. Between Alert Level changes, we hosted another very successful annual Mentors’ Breakfast for our Year 13 students and their Mentors; an Old Girls day in June (assembly and lunch); most recently we agreed to sponsor, and then hosted, a brand new event for current students. This new event, the Queen Margaret College Aria and Concerto Competition, is a showcase of our top singing and musical students across two year group categories. The junior competition for Years 9 and 10, and the senior competition for Year 11 to 13. We look forward to inviting old girls to join us in the audience next year as it was a special night. Our inaugural winners were Sophia Gittings – Junior Champion, and Iris Ma – Senior Champion, pictured here with Jane Ball (Alumnae Relations), Tim Jenkin (Head of Arts), Jayne-Ann Young, and Lynne Speight (OGA President).

Like everyone, the effects of this year’s lockdown have caused us to pivot. As an Association, our main aim is to support our Old Girls community, but with extended pandemic restrictions, we’ve had to pivot ourselves. By this we mean we have looked to focus our efforts within the college for ways to support our current students. If we can support our current students, we hope to create great old girls.

We believe very strongly that the mental and physical wellness of the students, and also the staff, is so important. With this in the front of our minds, the Old Girls’ Association have created two new wellness spaces within the college. These are breakout and wellbeing treatment/teaching spaces, which are proving to be very popular. We felt with the pressures of COVID-19 on everyone the college was in need of places for the students to feel safe and get the care they need. These places are not only for students, but we hope that staff will get to benefit from them when students are off-campus.

To support this work, we have a new wellness fund launching in 2022 and we can’t wait to share this with you in more detail soon. Essentially this is a fund we wish to grow through donations from our community to help support the College, students and our Old Girls in appropriate ways. We’ve already had several generous contributions from Old Girls to get us started.

If you too would like to contribute ahead of the launch, please get in touch with us oldgirls@qmc.school.nz.

Jane Ball Alumnae Relationships Director