A note from the Membership Secretary, Mr Graham Jones:
There will be an Extraordinary General Meeting of the association committee and members at Bournemouth School on Tuesday 25th June 2024 at 7pm.
The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss the proposed winding up of the Old Bournemouthians Association.
Please indicate if you wish to attend, preferably by email. Minutes of the Committee Meeting are also available by email. Please let me know if you want them.
Further context, also from Graham:
… for the past several years the OB’s has only existed as a dinner society, organising a re-union dinner once a year. With the ageing of the membership and a lack of recent leavers joining the Association, to say nothing of the effects of Covid, the numbers attending the dinner has declined dramatically, though there is the possibility of the school organising such an event in their new catering premises.
The committee has also dwindled in size with only five or six stalwarts attending committee meetings or AGMs. There is the possibility of us merging with the school’s alumni society, but the Association would need to have each member’s individual permission to pass on personal data.
The EGM will be held at 7pm on Tuesday 25 June 2024, at Bournemouth School, East Way, Bournemouth (enter by the left hand door, at the church end).
Dear Graham,
I was sorry to read this though I understand the situation. Please make a note to send me the minutes.
BTW, I have only just received this advice which I believe was circulated generally some time ago. Perhaps I can confirm my email address as below for future reference.
Regards, Bill Hoodless.
It seems that the principal reason for proposing a windup of the association is the decreasing attendance at the annual dinner. I understand the concern of the officers, but respectfully point out that many OBs are no longer Bournemouth residents, in many cases having left the UK, yet retain an interest in maintaining a virtual link with alumni. I hope that notwithstanding any decision that may be made to wind up the association the blog will continue as a vehicle for contributing anecdotes and keeping memories alive.
Ray Thompson (1957-64)
This is sad. I don;t live in Bournemouth and was not able to attend the dinners. However, I always enjoyed getting news of the School.
Peter Harte (1961 to 1967).
Please advise us of how we might get in touch with the alumni association, in order that we might maintain contact through that route?
I believe there is a LinkedIn group called Bournemouth School Alumni. Perhaps that is to what they are referring. I shall try to clear this up on 25 June.
Dear Mr Jones,
I am another who now lives far from Bournemouth but has hugely valued the posts and photographs made available through the Association over many years, and am very grateful for the input of Ian Westhead.
I would suggest that the statement “for the past several years the OB’s has ONLY existed as a dinner society” (my emphasis) is very far from correct. It is clear from a wide variety of posts and, in particular, comments upon them, that there is a far-flung following who place a great value on hearing news about the school and about former staff and pupils.
Thank you to the stalwarts who have kept the Association going but please do not believe that its success, or indeed its importance, is to be measured by attendance at its annual dinner. I have never been in a position to attend, which is the very reason that the Association is so valued. I’m sure this is true of many others.
I will not be able to attend the EGM but please represent my views and send me the minutes.
John Dinham
1958-65
So sorry to see this organization go. Although I now live across the pond, It has enabled me to maintain valued contact with some of my past school colleagues and to meet for the annual luncheon.
Please see the more detailed email I sent you this morning, Graham. Since then, I have discovered that there is some sort of presence of the OBA on Facebook, and for alumni on LinkedIn. I do not belong to either of those. Although I am an emeritus professor, I am still actively researching and writing, and have a job to keep up with all my contacts in academic circles and daily masses of email. So I have no time for those other sites–I am told that Facebook especially is very distracting. So please do not think of either of those as a satisfactory solution for the transfer of the OBA’s website.