The Old Elizabethan Association

Secretary's Report 2008

Another exciting year for the OEA, with Mr President, 'Jerry' Girard, keeping the Committee and myself on our toes with lots of activity.

The Manchester Fund has attained excellent growth during the year, which enabled the Committee to approve a major donation to the College Foundation, helping it to achieve the remarkable figure of £1.45m to date. The generosity of so many people, parents past and present, also people not directly connected with the College and a huge response from the Old Elizabethans made this possible.

Projects completed with this funding include the Sixth Form Centre, opened during the latter part of the year, which is a superb facility for the College. The all weather playing field at Beechwood was also completed and Room 4 at the College has been refurbished into a new Sixth Form Study Centre, the high ceiling allowing a mezzanine floor to be constructed thereby effectively increasing the floor space by 30%.

Two Manchester Awards were made totalling £2,000, one for a World Sailing Championship in South Africa and the other for a British Schools' Exploring Society trip to Svalbard, an inhospitable part of the world only 600 miles from the North Pole! What truly great opportunities for the worthy recipients.

Beechwood became the very proud owners of a magnificent set of steel drums towards the end of 2007, donated from Old Elizabethan Association funds. This has created a completely different avenue for the boys to 'get into music' and has been exceedingly popular. Several public performances have been made and the residents of Queens Road are delighted with the new Caribbean feel their neighbourhood has taken on!.

In November 2007 Sir John Foley, ex Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey, was invited to be guest speaker at an OEA lunch held at the Farmhouse Hotel and Restaurant. The 100 OEs and their wives and friends who attended the lunch enjoyed the talk on his illustrious military life, culminating as head of the SAS. The OEA were indeed most grateful for the sponsorship from the Heritage Group, which enabled the OEA to donate £1,000 to the College Foundation.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the two Dinners and as always, good health and fortune to all of you.

Gresham Barber
Honorary Secretary OEA.

Secretary's Report 06/07

I am pleased to report that your Association has once again had an extremely busy and productive year.

Towards the end of 2006, 'Girards Follies' launched St. James for a trip around the Bailiwick, modifying the new Court Building somewhat on its return to base! The show was a resounding success, thanks to so many people, who contributed such a huge amount. In particular the President and Dean Hollingsworth worked tirelessly for its success. The profits of £2,000 from the production, purchased much needed new furniture for the College Library.

The OEA Committee have set in motion once again the Manchester Awards. The late Micky Manchester, through his bequest to the College, made provision for boys to apply for financial assistance from his fund, with the Principal's approval, to pursue sporting excellence, or academic studies that require travel and expenses off island.

A total of £2,300 was awarded to four boys participating in Swimming, Fencing, a Community Project with an ascent of Mount Kenya and a Veterinary course at Nottingham University.

A substantial sum of £10,000 was also made from the Manchester Fund to enable Acorn House to connect through Beechwood to the Guernsey Grid for Learning. This was a high priority requirement and forms part of the vital teaching process and communication system at Acorn and Beechwood. The Committee is pleased that the growth performance of the Manchester Fund has been such that this size of donation was possible.

My database of your email addresses has grown to 450 out of a membership total of over 1300, which is a great response thank you, but there are still more to collect. Do please keep them coming in to me at secretary@oea.org.gg

The website www.oea.org.gg is receiving an increasing number of visits which is most encouraging. Births, deaths and marriages have been added to 'News of OEs' and a 'Where are they now?' section is planned, so please supply the Webmaster with your information you would like displayed. I take this opportunity of thanking our Webmaster Chris Meinke for his continued hard work.

Some new social events this year, which I hope you will support and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the two Dinners.

Good health and fortune to all of you.

Gresham Barber
Honorary Secretary OEA.

Secretary's Report 05/06

I am pleased to report that much good work has been achieved in the last year by the Association and that our website was successfully launched in February. I firmly believe that this is the most efficient, effective and inexpensive method of relaying information to the 1200 or so members of the Association. I know some of you are not hooked up to the Internet. All I can say is - well, you should be! You really do not know what you are missing. Enjoyable as it is to receive The Elizabethan, I must inform you that postage alone this year for distribution amounted to just under £2,400.00. In particular, posting The Elizabethan to the far-flung reaches of the world is a very expensive exercise. With this in mind, your Committee looks forward to the time when the website is the primary vehicle for disseminating OEA news and information.

I sincerely hope in time that I shall be able to collect your e-mail addresses so that the expense of this current mail-out could also be spared and the money put to better causes for the College. In addition, I would also like to see all e-mail addresses posted on the members database on the website, so that contact with fellow OEs worldwide could easily be achieved.

So, please let me have your e-mail address as soon as possible so that you can receive up to date news about OEA activities. This address will be made available to fellow members on the web site, unless you state otherwise.

I do hope you will look at the website www.oea.org.gg as it does contain some wonderful material that is really good reading, apart from all the useful information about OEA events taking place during the year.

The Association is pleased to have made two substantial donations from the Manchester Fund during the year. Remote radio microphone headsets were given to Beechwood, which are proving invaluable and half the cost of a new tractor and cutting gear was given for the Memorial and College Fields. The previous machinery was affecting the quality of the pitches and much time was being wasted with breakdowns. The Committee felt that 'Micky' Manchester would have strongly approved of this purchase.

Recruitment to the Association has been encouraging with the net gain over the year being 41 new members.

I do hope I shall meet as many of you all as possible at the Dinners or other OEA events and I wish you all good health and good fortune.

Gresham Barber

Hon. Sec.

Secretary's jottings Feb 06

When Jerry 'came to power' and took over the Presidency of the OEA, the top spot on his wish list was that the Association should and must have a web site! Subsequently a very prudent decision was made to employ the professional services of John Surcombe OE 8417 to set up this web site. His expertise, co-operation, and of course, his past link with the College have been paramount to the success of the project.

The Association would like to thank Chris Meinke OE 5221 for many many hours of consultation over the structure and content of the site. Having been a past Secretary of the Association and with previous experience of this task in his business interests, his input has been invaluable. He has also agreed to be the Webmaster of the site, whereby one of his tasks will be to sanction material for the forum section that members will hopefully contribute to. Please register and obtain a password that will allow OEA members access to the members database of addresses. Should you wish that only your name and school number is available and not your address, please email the webmaster. Lastly my thanks to our President for his tireless efforts in producing this web site, mind you it was his idea in the first place!

The future use of this page will give me a unique opportunity to communicate quickly at zero cost with the majority of the membership, provided you want to hear from me and hook up to the internet! It will be most helpful in finalising last minute arrangements for the many functions we shall be organising. In time I would also like to create a database of members email addresses.

Material on the site will be changed quite frequently and I sincerely hope you use it and most importantly, enjoy it.

Gresham Barber
Hon. Sec.