19Spring 2018

19 Spring 2018 The Reunite magazine is published twice a year for alumni, past & current parents, staff, students and the wider community. Re-uniting the Georgian Family with each other and the School in order to strengthen our LinkedIn Facebook Twitter community and enhance educational provision for the future through charitable giving. LinkedIn is a great business Keep up to date with Reunite @stgeorgesru social networking site. news and events. Follow St George's Weybridge, Follow us on @stgeorgesreunite Alumni & Parents Welcome To the 2018 Spring Edition of Reunite CONTACT US: THE DEVELOPMENT OFFICE It’s fantastic to know this is our 19th Many of you already enjoy close links with the Mrs Caroline Long INSIDE issue of Reunite – we have really enjoyed School and we are delighted with the 1872 alumni, Development Director parents and OG parents that have attended our Mrs Janice Rodrigues-Mendes working on this magazine and hope you range of events over the last fourteen months. Development Manager THIS ISSUE – all enjoy reading it as much as we do. Among these, the Annual Georgian Day when Mrs Melanie Gordon-Hughes 2 Coming home to School The Development Office has produced the Reunite we welcomed over 300 friends and family of Alumni Relations Officer magazine to keep you up to date with life at the St George's who returned to School for a fun day of Mr Oliver Robinson 4 Dates for your diary Development Officer School and to enhance further links with everyone sport, lunch and activities. We are looking forward in the Georgian Family. We are so fortunate to have to seeing many of you at this year’s Annual T: 01932 839352 8 Who has been reunited? E: development@ such an active and engaged Georgian community, Georgian Day – which will include so many more stgeorgesweybridge.com 14 The Class of 2007 whose expertise, interest and support are integral exciting activities and will be taking place on www.stgeorgesreunite.com to the success of the present day School. We are Sunday 24 June. 18 Careers Office hours: 8.30am–5pm especially indebted to those who have returned to As the pages of this magazine make evident, Monday to Friday all year 20 Getting to know you St George’s to offer career advice and to share their we take great pride in highlighting the many (except Public/Bank Holidays) experiences with current Georgians. The students achievements of Georgians throughout the world. 32 OGA find these visits inspirational and our colleagues The Development Office, St George’s Weybridge, also enjoy learning more about the compelling, We warmly encourage you to contact the Weybridge Road, Addlestone, 40 Join the Celebration! stimulating and diverse post-school lives of our Development Office if you have any news that Surrey, KT15 2QS, UK former pupils, not least if they recall them from you would like to share with the Georgian 50 Announcements their own lessons. community in a future edition of Reunite. THE CONGREGATION OF JOSEPHITES 58 School News The Development Office exists to support Thank you for generously supporting your School. For information about the Josephites Georgians throughout their lives and to help them We hope to have the opportunity to meet as many and their work in Belgium, England, connect with one another. Such connections offer of you in person as possible over the months and Africa and the USA. www.josephiteweb.org many benefits, both personal and professional, so years ahead. we encourage you to sign up to our LinkedIn group Keeping in touch and how we St George’s Weybridge, Alumni & Parents; a great With our kind regards and best wishes OLD GEORGIANS’ ASSOCIATION E: [email protected] look after your data: professional networking platform for Georgians. The Development Team ST GEORGE’S COLLEGE (11-18) We’re so grateful for your support, T: 01932 839300 F: 01932 839301 thank you. We hope that you feel E: [email protected] part of our Georgian family and would like to stay www.stgeorgesweybridge.com Pictured below (L-R): Janice Rodrigues-Mendes, in touch. We hold your contact information because Melanie Gordon-Hughes, Oliver Robinson, Caroline Long St George’s College, you have at some time been a student, parent, Weybridge Road, Addlestone, member of staff, supported the School or had Surrey, KT15 2QS, UK contact with the School. ST GEORGE’S JUNIOR SCHOOL (3-11) As a part of our community, we write to you to tell T: 01932 839400 F: 01932 839401 you about how your gifts help transform lives and E: [email protected] www.stgeorgesweybridge.com how you can donate and help in other ways, such St George’s Junior School, as offering careers advice; as well as to update you Thames Street, Weybridge, Surrey, about our School news, reunions and events. We KT13 8NL, UK will never sell your contact information or personal details and we promise to keep your data safe and 1 St George’s Weybridge is a Registered secure. If you would rather we didn’t communicate Educational Charity no. 1017853 with you in this way, you can tailor what you receive and the way we contact you at any time by e-mailing Fr Martin enjoying the fun run. [email protected] or calling Read more on page 8 01932 839352. For full details of our privacy policy, Spring 2018 please visit www.stgeorgesgiving.com RU19 COMING HOME TO SCHOOL HOME TO COMING COMING HOME TO SCHOOL I was drawn to more exciting things than serving we did not show a profit until the 7th year but I in Germany in the Cold War. Although not strictly never said die! I am often asked how Trailfinders eligible, as I was still but a 21 year old 2nd came to be so successful. The shortest answer is Lieutenant, I volunteered for the SAS. I was offered that TF brought integrity to the travel business the Selection Course, passed it, and joined 22 SAS and have become the most trusted travel brand. on operations in Malaya in November 1958. I was Ealing Trailfinders RFC and the Trailfinders Sports to serve eight years in Special Forces and become Club take most of my free time. I have always much travelled with tours in Malaya, Libya, been committed to the fine ethos of the game Kenya, Muscat & Oman, Borneo, Aden and the of Rugby. So good to see SGW doing so well, Yemen, together with many exercises in Europe. especially the successful resurrection of the Old After being put into the hands of the Jesuits, as Boys and Anthony Watson having such success. an ill prepared border still only 7 and in Wartime, all later tests have seemed quite manageable. I have watched SGW grow, prosper and develop, while still retaining the fundamental values and Being the youngest Sandhurst graduate ever in spirit I so happily recall. It has been a great success 22 SAS and having accumulated so much Sabre story and the new initiative of the Activity Centre Squadron service finally caught up with me. I was is another significant landmark which I am proud told I was too young to command a Squadron as to support, together with the ambition it displays. older officers were returning for further tours. Although right for it I would have to join the Be a part of it. queue and wait until after Staff College, for which I had been recommended. I was determined to be entrepreneurial and be my own boss. Mike Gooley,CBE This led, after a couple of other exploits, to OG ’54 founding Trailfinders in 1970. Although always growing it was not an instant success. In fact In a snapshot of his life, Old Georgian Mike Gooley CBE recounts his path through a life of camaraderie and adventure which has shaped his ambitions and successes. His devotion to the College and particularly his love of sport and his belief in the school’s vision for the future, led Mike to make the largest donation ever made to St George’s. In 1949 my parents sold up intending to marked a time of very significant progress for SGC. immigrate to what was then Southern In my time the School was an all-male boarding Rhodesia. This coincided with my finishing at school with just a handful of day boys. St John's the Preparatory School to the now They missed, or were spared, our monastic long defunct Jesuit College of Beaumont. fellowship but were much more Worldly-wise. It is always a joy to reunite with those who I was registered to continue with the Jesuits shared the camaraderie of those days and at Salisbury College, curiously also called St for the most part our recollections coincide! George’s College, however my Mother suffered a huge stroke just a month before we were due to We all had to do two years National Service sail. As a result I did not go to school at all for a and, as my Father was a lifelong Soldier and year until placed at St George’s, which I found an my Brother now a Regular Officer, I decided to altogether less harsh regime and settled in easily. follow the family calling and applied to go to I am currently writing my Memoirs, to be entitled Sandhurst. I was commissioned into the South ‘My Trail,’ and will cover off that time in more Staffordshire Regiment on the 19 December 2 detail. Suffice to say I found myself in a happy and 1956. This invitation to join them was no doubt 3 talented age group where we hardly ever lost a influenced by the fact they were renowned Rugby or Cricket match.

Load more