[ Post a Response | SNOBs Message Board ]
Posted by David Dixon I have experience of two thriving Old Boys clubs, one from my own school, Lancaster Royal Grammar School, the other from John Lyon. Both schools are still supplying new members and so their position is different from ours. However, LRGS attracts around 100 to its annual dinner, in addition to about 10 branch dinners which attract from around 100(London Branch) to around 20(East Anglia). When I last attended, John Lyon mustered around 80. Neither had a Gerry Miller but if Gerry worked as hard every year as he did for the 50th anniversary, we wouldn't have Gerry much longer. My point is that dinners do not raise more than about a half to one percent of the potential membership. There is probably a natural dinner attending fraternity who will always attend and they will occasionally draw others in. My suggestion would be that someone interested should float a dinner date on this website and see what the interest is. Good souls would respond to pressure but pressure is hard work in the application and tedious in the receiving. So I would not advocate it. As for a regular magazine, this can be incredibly hard work to produce and not really necessary with the ready availability of this website. Chaps are more likely to dash something off in this informal medium, rather than meet deadlines etc for a more formal publication. It all seems less tedious where envelopes and stamps can be forgotten. So my own feeling is that a properly constituted club may not serve any purpose that is not able to be met by the the informality of website. Where clubs are attached to a 'living' school, the Old Boys can be involved in various ways in helping the school and so an organisation is needed to pull things together. But as our school has been vandalised out of existence its raison d'etre is the social life and nostalgic impulses of its former members. Perhaps we could hear from some 'real' Old Boys.
on 18/9/2005, 8:39 pm, in reply to "Old Boys?"
80.41.144.101
John Hawley is obviously trying to stimulate a response from Old Boys rather than former staff but perhaps I may be allowed to put in a word, despite his delicate footwork in hinting that before long we will all have been removed to another place.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread