Gordon's OM Presidential Year

 21st July 2021 At last....! The OM's Summer Cocktail Party went ahead at the National Liberal Club! Hooray!! Up until the last day I was wondering whether we might have to postpone given the rising number of Covid cases as well as the flash floods and storms around London. But it went ahead and was a great success. We are still reconciling the numbers but our section of the terrace at the NLC was crowded with OMs and guests enjoying a beautiful evening with excellent food and drink. My guess is that there were at least 55 present, despite several "regulars" having sent their apologies. Most encouraging was to see the age range. There were quite a number of young OM's as well as those mid-career. This bodes well for the future of the club. My thanks to Laura Turner at the OM Club who organised everything with the NLC. When I get some photos I shall upload one or two. Fingers crossed that we can look forward to a few more events before we get to the Annual Dinner on Fr...

 15th July 2021 It has indeed been a while since my last Blog post. When I set this up and set out to Blog regularly during my Presidential term who could have imagined what we have been through these past 18 months. At every stage when I thought that we were about to open up sufficiently to enable the OMC events to start up again, we have been thwarted by a surge in cases and new Covid variants. But at last we have good news earlier this week that the opening up will go ahead on Monday 19th July. This means that the OMC annual summer Cocktail Party can go ahead on Wednesday 21st July at the National Liberal Club. I realise that some people will still be cautious about attending such events, and I understand this. However, I do hope to see a decent turnout and look forward to catching up with many OMs. We haven't been inactive during these past many months. A couple of weeks ago we held the OMC AGM via Zoom for the second year running and this went very smoothly. We had 44 people l...

 26/11/2020 Today we held the first virtual OM reunion for Australia. I was delighted that we were 14 participants including Jane Sanchez (MHS Head), Peter Wakeham (OMC Chair) and myself as President acting as chair for the Zoom meeting. It was wonderful to see quite a number of those whom Angela and I had met during our trip in January, which now seems so long ago (almost another era). After introducing ourselves, Jane gave us an update on how the school is coping with the Covid challenges and examples of the arrangements that have had to be undertaken. Jane also touched on developments at the school and emphasised how much the school and Foundation have grown in the past few years and that demand for places remained strong. I then invited Peter to say a few words about the OM Club. Peter explained about the changes in structure, the life membership developments and some of our plans for the future, especially the careers and alumni websites. Below is a screenshot of those who joi...

Wednesday 11th November 2020 The Remembrance Day service  at MHS is always a moving event and very well organised . It aims to  include as many of the pupils as possible and explain the context and significance with imaginative displays. There is usually a strong turnout of OMs and the President of the OMC lays a wreath on behalf of the Club and gives a reading during the chapel service (see earlier blog).  Sadly, not all of this was possible this year. As a result of Covid19 restrictions in force, the OM contingent wasn't allowed to attend and I couldn't represent the Club as I had done last year. The school managed to live stream the service at the memorial arch and the earlier ceremony in the Quad in the Chapel Garden. Attendance was very limited, and most pupils were able to view proceedings in their classrooms via the streaming.  On a positive note, it was great to see the school putting on such a wonderful effort in these tough times, and I look forward to bein...

 My first entry for some time. The OM Golf Society Autumn meeting went ahead as planned this weekend past. 24 OMs turned up which is a great turn-out and testament to the work put in by Derren Hamilton (Captain) and Beej Chandaria (Vice captain). We were blessed with wonderful weather and perfect conditions for golfing.  OMs have been coming as a group to Royal Cinque Ports Club in Deal since at least 1930 I believe, mainly to play in the annual Halford Hewitt championships for public schools. However, the OMGS' Autumn meeting has been in existence for many decades as well. I have been attending since 2002 and always find it a very enjoyable weekend. This year was no exception. With Covid19 hanging over the event, Derren and Beej did a wonderful job to organise everything and get such a superb response. We stayed at Dunkerley's Hotel in Deal and had competition rounds on Friday and Saturday. On Friday I played with Stephen Wright in the singles and performed respectably. On Sa...

19th June 2020 The years longest day is almost upon us! Where is the summer going. Mind you, we have had a glorious spring. I have decided it’s time to come out of hibernation and restart my blog – and carefully expand my activities. I have restarted golf, and have event been to the shops in Watford and Rickmansworth. This week was a milestone for the OM Club when we held our AGM online for the first time. This involved quite a lot of detailed planning and organisation, and for that my thanks go to Peter Wakeham our club Chair who drove this through, supported by Julian Pollock (Hon Club Sec), Asif Ahmed (Hon Treasurer) and myself. I think I can say without contradiction that it was a great success. We had 50 people log into Zoom for the AGM and the papers and voting were handled through a service called MiVoice. We tried to plan for all eventualities, but in the end everything worked very smoothly and the feedback we have received has been universally positive. This will und...

Unfortunately all travel and events have had to be cancelled/postponed for the foreseeable future as a result of Covid19. This week we have had to cancel our trip to New York and Toronto where we had OM events scheduled. Similarly, a whole raft of OM events scheduled for the next 2 months have now been postponed. This is a great shame, but there is nothing to be done other than to hunker down and hope that these measures see off the virus as quickly as possible. I wish anyone reading this  - Stay Safe! Hope to be back in touch within a few weeks/months. Regards Gordon