METEOR2018 CONTENTS 2 CHAPLAIN’S NOTES • Rev Richard Horner considers how human life is like the ‘back of a canvas’ 4 SERVICE & PUBLIC BENEFIT • The Arnold Foundation, ponies in the Chapel, Community Action roundup and a passage from India 8 ACTIVITIES • Academic Scholars up for a challenge • The art of collagraphy 8 • CCF and the benefits of leadership • DofE, First Schools’ Day; a global conference experience; a Harry Potter celebration; engineering experience and the increasingly popular push cart race 18 CHANGING WORLDS • GAP year to Ghana 22 SOCIETIES • The Classics, Landor, Science, Sidgwick and Temple Society members learn from an impressive list of speakers 26 CAREERS • The 2018 Careers Convention – an ideal platform to inspire and inform our future workforce 34 28 TRIPS • Pupils travel the world including a classical Croatia trip; meeting the Montpellerains; enjoying life on the Opal Coast; practising German at Rugby’s Vienna partner school; delving into the history of Berlin; philosophy and theology at Quarr Abbey; the politics and geography of Geneva and a USA skiing adventure in Loon and Cannon 34 CREATIVE ARTS • Life is a Cabaret – 2018’s sell-out performance • Fun and laughter from the House plays • Highlights from an impressive year of Music 48 • Hot stuff from STEAMfest in a glorious week of sunshine • A selection of the year’s best writing 58 SPORT • Highlights from one of Rugby’s most successful three seasons of sport and the year that girls got bowled over by cricket • Sporting tours roundup 86 VALETE • A fond farewell to those who left us this year 96 OBITUARY 58 • Christian Hobbs Head Master: Peter Green Editor: Jonathan Smith Artwork by: Cate Minards (S) Design: Mercer Design Thanks to: Amanda Hunter, PJ Green and George Archer Photography www.rugbyschool.co.uk | Meteor 2018 | 1 Chaplain’s Notes There’s a conspiracy afoot. right across the work when one colour needed to appear in People in high places are several different places on the front. If you look at the back of a lying to us. I’m sorry to have piece of embroidery, it will in some way be an image of what’s to be the one to tell you this, on the front; you might be able to work out that it’s a picture of but strawberries are not in a flower or a bird; but it will be a confusing, unsightly mess. Of fact berries. They lied to us – course, it’s the front that matters. strawberries are actually a kind of fruit called an aggregate. Our human life is the back of a canvas. Our experiences, our And it doesn’t stop there. loves and losses, our achievements and desires, our sorrows Brace yourselves, people – and joys form a tangled knotty mess, full of false starts, wrong Stonehenge is not a henge. connections and loose ends. That’s normal – for the back of the work. It may be clear enough for us to discern a vague image of A henge is a combination of what the front is going to look like, sometimes when you look a ditch and an earth bank. at the back of an embroidery you can get a glimpse of what the And it goes on. A strawberry is not a berry, Stonehenge is not picture on the front must be. Sometimes, though, you just can’t a henge, a coconut, apparently, is not a nut (a doughnut is make sense of it at all. So it is in our school life as in all human definitely not a nut), Captain Jack Sparrow is not a bird and life. The loves and the joys of another year have contributed as for Peter Pan – well, he’s clearly not a pan, is he? He’s quite once again to the pattern; loss and sorrow have played a more obviously a boy in a short dress and not a kitchen utensil. prominent part than usual in recent months. Don’t even get me started on Winnie the Pooh. There’s a passage in the Bible which makes the same point And earlier this year President Macron of France offered to using a different metaphor. St Paul wrote: lend to Britain that priceless historical object from nearly 1000 years ago, the Bayeux Tapestry. Which is not a tapestry! Now we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. For now we see The Bayeux so-called tapestry, depicting scenes from the only through a glass, darkly; then we shall see face to face. Now I Norman Conquest of 1066, is in fact an embroidery. A know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. tapestry is made by weaving – the strands of wool criss- cross and interleave one another, building up an image with Our life is the back of the work. But on the other side, on different colours. In embroidery, you start with a plain white the front, a master artist is at work, transforming our clumsy piece of cloth – canvas or cotton – and with a needle you efforts into order, and making from the tangled knots of our sew, up and down, stitch by stitch, creating the image on the life, a thing of beauty; but a thing which we shall not see until background. And that is what the Bayeux thing is. we pass through and see it from the other side. And now at last I arrive at my point. When you make an Almighty God, by whose command the order of time runs its embroidery, your needle passes from front to back, front course, forgive our impatience, perfect our faith, and while we to back and as you look at the front of your work you see a await the full understanding of your glorious work grant us to beautiful picture emerging. But when you look at the back of have steadfast hope in the light of the world, our Saviour Jesus your embroidery, it’s a different matter. Because there on the Christ, Amen. reverse of your work, you see the threads jumping around all over the place. You see tangles and knots, where the thread ran RMH out and had to be reattached. You see trails of colour going 2 | Meteor 2018 | www.rugbyschool.co.uk www.rugbyschool.co.uk | Meteor 2018 | 3 SERVICE & PUBLIC BENEFIT The Arnold Foundation This year has seen the 15th anniversary of the Arnold September offered a chance for Rugby students and donors Foundation and a chance to reflect on all that has been to celebrate with the annual Arnold Foundation Lecture and achieved since 2003. With 2000 donors, £21 million secured Lunch. Former Arnold Foundation Board Member and now and 129 young people who have benefitted in total, there has CEO of UK Finance, Stephen Jones (K 77-81), returned to Rugby been much to celebrate. to deliver his answer to the question “Is the Financial Services Industry a Force for Good in Britain?” Guests joined current Several events have marked this milestone, including a special and former Arnold Foundation Students, the Head Master 15th anniversary celebration held at The Royal Society in and Tutors for lunch in OBS, appreciating the opportunity to May for those who have been closely involved with the speak directly to those who are benefitting from the Arnold Foundation’s success. Speakers included two former Arnold Foundation today. Foundation Students and a current student who told assembled guests about the incredible impact a Rugby School AFM education has had on their lives, and their continued aspirations for the future. There was great news from former students who were graduating over the summer, with several new graduates and four achieving first class degrees (in Painting, Physiotherapy, Biomedical Sciences and Management, Accounting and Business). Community Action a few weeks before Christmas. This sum – the length of the rugby pitch towards will help to support the excellent work the Doctor’s Wall – was as dramatic as The number of agencies in town to which the charity performs in offering equine- ever and the children, breathless from the we send students to support has increased facilitated learning to assist a wide range run as well as the excitement of the day, this year: no fewer than eight new places of disabled and disadvantaged children departed raucous and happy. (to us) – including two primary schools and young people. and three care homes – now receive sixth We have this year begun to forge links form visitors on a Wednesday afternoon. First Schools Day on 7 March brought with WCAVA, the local charity organisation along 280 primary school children from in town. They recommended some new One of the new agencies, P3, delivered six local schools. The weather played placements for us to explore and loaned a question and answer session in Chapel ball this year and the visitors enjoyed the to the school their rugby ball shaped on the subject of homelessness in Rugby. occasion hugely. There was the usual mascot Ellis, who was photographed in This was a topic close to the heart of variety of fun activities for the children to various venues around school, the pictures the Community Action levee who were choose from including Music, Fun sport, being published on Twitter. responsible for recommending the Science, Photography, IT, Drama, Maths organisation speak to the school; it was Games and Puzzles, Modern Languages AJN fascinating to hear about initiatives that and Ancient Languages. The “Fun Run” seek to reduce the numbers of young people sleeping rough. Homelessness is a growing concern for those of us who have lived in Rugby for some time and the visitors in Chapel certainly illuminated the sorts of measures that are trying to improve the lives of people who have nowhere to live.