The Old Elizabethan Association

The RAF Club in Piccadilly once again played host to the 145th Old Elizabethan Dinner on 3rd October 2008. Encouragingly numbers were considerably up. Well done those OEs who travelled from the far corners of England, Wales and of course Guernsey, not forgetting two European OEs from Switzerland and Portugal!

The Guest of Honour was L A M Lewis (4467) a fine stalwart of the OEA and a very persistent attendee at the London Dinner!

He spoke emotionally about his time at Elizabeth College and the importance to him of maintaining links with it, through the OEA. Many amusing stories were told from his colourful and very successful career.

Floreat Collegium was proposed by J C Tucker (7515) in a splendid and robust manner. He later admitted that he was enjoying himself so much, he was reluctant to sit down!

The Principal, Dr. Nick Argent, delivered his account of the College year, which only seems to get better and achieve more year on year. Some outstanding results were recalled, such as 44% of all A level entries achieving ‘A’ grade passes and record high GCSE results. The College was the largest fundraiser at the Swimarathon and at the National Fencing Championships there were 9 prizes for boys, 7 of which were taken away by Elizabeth College! Other sporting successes included coming 7th in the Ashburton at Bisley, thereby beating Victoria College, and Michael Creber shooting for Elizabeth College who won the Victoria Tankard (that was a tough one for that Jersey college to swallow!)

Last but not least the OEA, Victoria College and the MCC (Marylebone not Middlesex!) were all beaten by College in the same week. The victory over the MCC was the first since 1989.

The Principal concluded by expressing his thanks to Roger Perrot for his chairmanship of the Foundation, now taken over by Bruce Parker, and also to Jerry Girard for his presidency of the OEA which will end mid 2009.

Click here to see pictures of the Dinner.

Click here to see the full list of diners.