Old Boys' Society President's Report - June 2019

By Geoff Bates | Posted: Friday June 21, 2019

The Society’s principal purpose is to promote and foster the association and fellowship of Old Boys, but also contribution and service.

An active OB's Society is important to the sustainability of our school. Current pupils will benefit from the time, charity and expertise that can be offered by our Society.

With fellowship in mind, my thanks to teacher, and passionate fellow Old Boy, Gwyn Pratley, Gwyn organised a lunchtime function held at the school in the Shand Building prior to the kick off to the first traditional interschool of the winter term against the King's 1st XV.

This was attended by around 50, mostly local, Old Boys' who heard  from the newly appointed Otago Boys’ High School Director of Sport - Craig Cumming on how he is settling into the job and his vision for sport at school.

A good hard game of rugby followed with OBHS winning by a handsome margin.

Gwyn has followed this up with another lunchtime function for the Christchurch Boys' Interschool on Tuesday July 2. This was attended by 65+ Old Boys, both young & old. Prematch, Des Smith (ex OB’s teacher/Deputy Rector, 1st XV coach, current President of The Otago Rugby Union & generally a great person) with Ranfurly Shield in tow, spoke briefly on its history with a few Otago Rugby stories thrown in.

The game that followed was a cracker with our 1st XV finishing strongly for a deserved 37-27 win.

With charity in mind, Ben Reeves, a very recent OB’s Old Boy, came to the Society to see if we would be able to help him live his dream of studying and playing Basketball overseas.

The scholarship Ben had received to attend St. Josephs College in Brooklyn, NYC only covered part of his tuition costs. It was gratifying that a good number of our members came to Ben’s aid with donations that totalled $6,920. We look forward to hearing from Ben on his progress in New York.

With contribution & service in mind, I think now back to April where I had the privilege to attend, and on behalf of the Old Boys’, read the prayer of commemoration at our schools traditional and very moving Anzac service that recognised in particular the 36 old boys who fell in the Gallipoli campaign.

Lest we forget their ultimate sacrifice.

In my March report I called for a sub, a measly $4.50, or x 12, $54.00 as a helping hand.

This fell on deaf ears, so how about having another think, but do more than that by going to https://obhs.school.nz/foundation/donations/

Sooner or later your Society will end up running on fresh air.

The other plea was for you to keep in touch and reach out to other Old Boys' you know who may not be connected to us. Our biggest problem remains that the Old Boys' email database pretty much goes out of date on a daily basis, with email bounce backs continuing to grow.

If you read this we have your contact details.

If you have class mates that you keep in touch with can you let us know, so that we can check that their details are correct in the database.

Regards

Geoff Bates
Old Boys' President