On 24th April, the Bishops 175 Appeal was launched to the UK ODs at a wonderful function held at the offices of Stonehage Fleming in London. Hamish Sinclair (S, 1992) was our generous host.
Presentations were made by Guy Pearson (Principal), Mike Bosman (O, 1978, Chairman of the College Council), Andrew Selby (Chairman of the Bishops Trust), and Raymond Ackerman (S, 1948, President of the ODU).
The Trustees of the Bishops UK Trust in attendance were: Bruce McGregor (F, 1963), Graham Thomas (K, 1984), Niall Carroll (O, 1981), Choppy Bands (K, 1990) and Chris Molteno (G, 2010).
The School has not been on a formal fundraising
drive for over 30 years and the consequence of this is easy to see. At 31 March
2017 the school had funds invested of R244,8 million (up from R100,3 million at
31 December 2011) which includes the following:
Scholarships and Bursaries Fund: R129,2 million
Buildings Fund: R26,6 million
Staff Benefit Funds: R42,9 million
Staff Post Retirement Medical Aid Funds: R25,2
million
Endowment Fund: R5,8 million
Several buildings are now in real need of
improvement, refurbishment or replacement. There are also currently 35 boys
from disadvantaged backgrounds at Bishops who are unfunded despite proper
sustainable annual drawdowns from the Scholarships and Bursaries Fund. The
Endowment Fund, by any measure, is in urgent need of being built to a proper
level. These are the three prongs to the appeal as funds for professional staff
development, support and salary augmentation are already in place. The details are all
in the Appeal brochure that can be read by clicking on the cover above.
Two spirit-stirring videos of Bishops were also shown. These videos are essential viewing to get a feel for the Bishops as it is today. They can be viewed by clicking on their titles, A Day in the Life of Bishops and A Bishops Legacy. The Appeal Slide presentation can be viewed HERE.
Seen at the launch (click on each picture to enlarge):
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| Raymond Ackerman and Mike Bosman |
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| Graham Thomas and Guy Pearson |
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| Nick Heesom (W, 1961) and Bruce McGregor |
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| Justin Thorne (F, 2007), Tom Horne (B, 2007), Dirk Kotze (S, 2007), and James Paterson (S, 2007) |
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| Nicholas Olds (O, 2009), Chris Olds (O, 1999), Ali Broadhurst (O, 2007) and Simon Woolf (M, 2007) |
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| Gareth Penny (F, 1980) and Simon Peile (F, 1979) |
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| Andrew Selby and Niall Carroll |
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| Peter Stokes (K, 1991), Caelim Parkes (O, 1990), Rob Campbell (G, 1974), Justin Thorne and James Paterson |
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| Raymond and Wendy Ackerman |
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| Rob Campbell and Trevor Torrington (S, 1978) |
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| Thomas Withington (W, 2000) and Rupert Hare (G, 2008) |
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| Robbie Weich (B, 1992), Niall Carroll and Gareth Penny |
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| Charles McGregor (F, 1968), Nicholas Olds, John Battersby (W, 1966) and Hamish Sinclair |
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| Dirk Kotze, Tom Horne and Rupert Hare |
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| Raymond Ackerman and Peter Stokes (K, 1991) |
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| Chris Molteno, Trevor Torrington, Simon Peile, Andrew Selby, Mike Bosman, Guy Pearson and James Durrant (G, 1994) |
