Welcome to the 2011 Newsletter. While many of you will still receive this by traditional “snail mail”, our distribution is now limited to those who have supplied us with their updated mailing addresses. Therefore, if you know of any ODs who have not received this letter and would like to, please forward a copy to them and ask that they contact us through the school or email so that we may keep in contact with them in future. Contact details can be found at the end of this newsletter.
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Through the kind offices of John Barber (School 1973-78), we continue to use the facilities of the RAF Club in Piccadilly for our annual drinks party, where this year, many of us had the opportunity to meet Gerry Holden and his wife Liese, in advance of their arrival at Dover College in August this year. Stephen Jones turned his hand to auctioneer, where the original framed water colour of the Gatehouse, painted by Dick Dot Bates (Priory 1950-55) was sold to raise funds (over £300) for the Old Dovorian Trust. Mounted prints can be purchased via the website for £35 + p7&p, with all funds going to the Old Dovorian Trust. As with previous years, the event was well attended by both Old Dovorians and current students and staff of the College. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible again this year.
The Old Dovorians were proud to assist the opening of the Tallis Music school in the building which many of you will remember as the head master’s house. Julian Lloyd Webber was invited to officially open the school at the end of January this year, and this ensured much interest from the town and Press. Julian was very impressed with the musical facilities being offered to our students, and enjoyed the various renditions put on by the students and school.
We have continued to improve our website through the year. The website is clearly helping us reach out to all our ODs dispersed around the globe. Penelope Else, our webmaster, continues to be pleased and impressed to read the vivid recollections of ODs going back to the war and days at Poltimore. This has definitely helped many of our senior ODs to link up with friends, some of whom they had not heard of for over 50 years! Both our website and the school website have assisted ODs in their quest for information. We have also embraced Facebook and twitter: our stance being that we want to encourage and facilitate communication and therefore socialising between ODs. From my personal experience, I have found that ODs in general have never had a problem with the socialising aspect. Finally, we have a small number of ODs who have volunteered their services to go through the archives in order to dig out some of the more interesting pictures end events so that these can be published on the website for all to see and comment upon.
Leading up to the summer term, the Old Dovorians were very pleased to purchase a new lawn mower for use at Maxton in readiness for that all important match of the season, ODs vs Dover College 1st XI. This year proved to be an exciting match with Matt Jay (Leamington 2005-10) scoring an unbeaten century, helping to set a total of 208. The well mown outfield clearly helping the score, as did his selection of fielders to offer catches to. To their credit the school reached 185 but lost too many wickets resulting in a win for the ODs. Our thanks must be recorded to our President, John Widgery (St Martins 1952-57), for not only organising the match but umpiring it as well. The gauntlet has been laid down for next year!
Before the cricket match we had the OD Chapel service and AGM, which were both very well supported. This gave many of us the opportunity to give Stephen Jones a fitting send off to thank him for both his efforts and dedication to Dover College. Now Stephen has yet another Old School tie to add to his “box of frogs” collection. Furthermore, the Old Dovorians presented Stephen with a water colour print of a collage of the College which was painted by Dick Dot Bates. You can see copies of this collage, including a picture of Priory House for those that can remember, on our website www.olddovorians.com. Mounted prints can be purchased for £35 + p&p with all proceeds going to the Old Dovorian Trust.
Some 50+ ODs attended the AGM, which resulted in my election to Chairman. Much interest was expressed in the website, resulting in the unanimous decision to take our website away from the incumbent website company and service in house which we continue to do. I am therefore under no illusion as to the interest ODs have in both the running of the club and the events it organises.
We have heard on many occasions, that only one sporting event a year between the school and ODs is not enough. Indeed, in previous years there were many more OD sporting events. We are therefore organising an OD sporting weekend in March next year, which if successful can be repeated and enhanced in future years. This is one our many agenda items discussed at committee meetings in the ward room on board HQS Wellington. We are looking for willing, energetic, athletic, sporting ODs to take on both the girls and boys. More information on this sporting weekend will be posted on our website and Facebook.
Many of you will remember Farthingloe for wind, rain and rugby! This year, the Old Dovorians were proud to sponsor again the annual junior cross country event, hosted by Dover College and open to junior schools across Kent. I had not visited Farthingloe for some 20 years so was pleasantly surprised to see the development of the upper ground carved into the hillside. Competitors up to the age of 11 take part, both girls and boys and this year, there were nearly 400 competitors. On this occasion home advantage did not favour our runners. If Gerry were to speak with any of my previous masters, he would have thought twice before giving me the microphone to address 400 children plus parents in giving out the prizes. However, the Mayor of Dover, Mrs Ronnie Philpott was in attendance to give out he awards and ensure my good behaviour!
Both the new Head Master, Gerry Holden, and I made the journey to Cranleigh in October this year to see some 23 ODs gathered, initially at the Rectory, and then moving on to the Punch Bowl for a fine supper of steak and ale pie. Thank you Nigel Nicholson (St Martins 1960-64) for your kind hospitality, and efforts in organising such an enjoyable OD event.
It was at Cranleigh, where I met our new OD Golfing Society captain Richard Owen (School 1961-66). Tony Robin (St Martins 1961-66) has done an excellent job over the past years organising our fixtures and teams and is to be commended for it. A separate OD Golfing Society report is accompanies this letter.
In previous years we have had sections on births, marriages and deaths. Since much of this information is updated on the website, I shall not list details here and encourage you to continue feeding news to our webmaster. However, no newsletter would be complete without reference to John Turnpenny (Crescent 1937-41). John passed away only recently on 27 October 2011 aged 88. His funeral took place in St Mary’s Church Dover on 11/11/11, where I counted over 30 OD’s in attendance. Graham Turner (School 1946-49) read the eulogy, where we learnt of the time and effort John had given both to the School and the town of Dover. John had supported with absolute regularity so many OD and school events and he will be sadly missed.
And finally we should thank our retiring chairman John Sinclair (School 1962-67) and all committee members for their efforts and success in taking the club forward these last few years.
On behalf of our new committee and officers, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the London drinks party or another OD event.
Richard Robinson
Leamington 1980-85
