What a varied week!

We've had plenty going on this week, ranging from liaising with the youngest people we work with - our pupils - to the oldest - the OMs who joined MGS pre-1951 and who are gearing up for their Reunion Dinner at School on 8 May.

Youngest first - this week the Sixth Form Bursary Fundraising Committee got their Superstars competition off to an exhausting start in the Sports Hall, with some of our fittest pupils taking on staff members Messrs Lawrence and Batchelor in the first of 5 weekly contests.

You can see that some of the keenest spectators (paying £1 for the privilege) were members of our Junior Section.

It's been a great week for team sports, too, with our Under 16 footballers winning their quarter final of the English Schools Cup, the most prestigious competition open to boys of their age, played against Corpus Christi Sports College, Preston. The match was a thrilling 3-2 victory after MGS had been 2-0 down. The winner was scored in the last minute of the match and capped a fine performance from every player. The boys are eagerly anticipating finding out who their opposition will be in the semi final, to be played sometime in March.

The Rugby Club was not to be left out. We congratulate Marcus Webber on being selected for the England U16 Squad. This news, together with notification of David Madden's third consecutive Oxford Blue for hockey, got us talking about some of MGS's great sporting heroes and achievements. Why not include your favourite(s) in a comment on this blog?

And now to OMs. Watch out next week for Aaron Neil's appearances in Five Days (BBC1, Monday to Friday). Aaron was recently directed by fellow OM Sir Nicholas Hytner in a play at the National Theatre.

Lastly, our older OMs. Invitations to the May 8 Reunion have been posted out to all pre-1951 joiners for whom we have contact details. If you are of this generation, we hope to see you in May. Please have a look at the Lost Owls information on the Old Mancunians website (http://www.oldmancunians.org/) and tell us if you know the whereabouts of anyone listed there. We like our contacts database to be as full and accurate as we can possibly make it - it's the lifeblood of our links to Old Mancs.

Back from half-term

The six o'clock alarm was a bit of a shock this Monday morning after a relatively light week when school was on half-term. I was on call as the Manchester contact for a trip to Poland, but completely unneeded as everything went to plan. A far cry from last half-term when I was kept pretty busy as the staff and boys on Desert Trek near Marrakesh suffered from unexpectedly high temperatures and keeled over with worrying regularity.

It's a good thing that the Dev Office staff can be involved in many of the pupils' and teaching staff's activities - soon we'll be sorting out the arrangements for Activities Week in the summer term when all teaching stops for a week and everyone goes to camp or takes part in a fantastic range of Manchester-based activities from rowing to cooking.

We're hoping to add Sir Ben Kingsley to the growing list of Old Mancunian stars of stage and screen who will help us to celebrate the opening of the new Drama Centre in the autumn. There can't be that many OMs whose appearances are managed by a New York-based publicist! We're now in touch and trying to make the diaries match. Sir Ben was last at MGS for an acting masterclass in 1998, following the launch of the Foundation Bursary Appeal.

For news of a successful young Old Manc entrepreneur, Jonny Goldstone, follow this link:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article7034889.ece

If you have news of Old Mancs' achievements, please let us know at oldboys@mgs.org.

Just back from an interesting lunchtime meeting of our A level and International Baccalaureate students of Economics. They have been competing in a share-trading competition organised by Old Mancunian Marc Duschenes, one time City trader and now Chief Executive of the Braemar Group, based in Hale. When he was at MGS (in the early 90s) Marc used the payphone by the Refectory to arrange his trades, using his father's account.


The present competition involved both simulated trading and writing a market report. The best entrants, Marc said, had achieved a standard that a stockbroker would have been proud of. Members of the winning team will have the opportunity to complete a week's paid work experience at Braemar.


An Old Manc a little older than Marc was at MGS yesterday. John Crawley, ex-Lancashire, England and Hampshire cricketer, has taken up his post as the Marlborough Association Director at Marlborough College. He was interested to look round school again, not having been here since we built our Sports Hall, extended the Art Department and introduced the new Junior Section in Bexwyke Lodge. We talked over how different schools follow very varied patterns with their networking, charitable fundraising and ex-pupil associations. I was reminded once again of how lucky we are at MGS to have been able to integrate these links through the Development Office. We have professional staff to manage our ex-pupils database, which is available to the Executive Committee of the Old Mancunians' Association and the Recorder of the Old Boys' Dinner. We also have weekly visits from Peter Ainsworth, the Secretary to The MGS Trust, so that funds raised through this office are passed promptly to the Trustees for investment.


Yesterday we all (Jane, Julie, Simon and I) worked late as 6 pm is the chosen time for our quarterly OMA Executive meetings. Our chairman, David Walton, took us pretty briskly through our wide-ranging business (reunion plans, 2015 forward planning, accounts, production of OM tie in silk not polyester) - grateful thanks to all (the professionals and the volunteer committee members) who give up their time to keep things ticking along.

Just another week?

Plenty of variety this week. A great start, with a further donation of £78,000 from a regular benefactor (worth £100,000 to us with reclaimed tax under the Gift Aid scheme) - the sort of gift which encourages the MGS Trust trustees to be generous when looking at future grants based on the income generated from their invested Bursary Fund. Investment income in the current markets is a little difficult to predict, but we still recognise each £100,000 of gift value as likely to provide an additional bursary place for ever.

If you are an Old Mancunian or ex-member of staff, you should receive your New Year copy of The Old Mancunian next week. It's out a little later than usual, but offers the usual wide range of articles. If you qualify but aren't receiving one, it's because we don't have an up-to-date postal address for you - please send details including your years at school by email to oldboys 'at' mgs.org.

Unusually (see last blog) I was in London again this week for a couple of days. First, courtesy of an Old Manc season ticket holder, to a highly entertaining Intelligence Squared debate at Central Hall, Westminster on the motion 'Public Schools are a blight on this country'. Lots of Harrow-bashing (Barnaby Lenon, the Head, was opposing) and lots of reminders of how far away the MGS tradition is from that of the mainly southern, public boarding schools. The pros and cons of academic selection weren't mentioned at all.

Then to meet the Chief Executive of the Lords' Taverners to see if MGS and they can work together on improving our cricket and pavilion facilities with a view to our being able to offer cricket courses to local children throughout the summer holidays. Discussions to be continued, next time on site in Manchester.

The trips to London are a reminder of the extent to which this country is capital-centric. How few organisations have their national HQs outside the capital! At least my trips don't cost much in expenses - we buy discounted Charity Line rail tickets and my daughter provides me with a Finsbury Park boxroom to sleep in. It's not luxury, but it keeps our costs down!