A new Director, and an anniversary portrait

Congratulations to Simon Jones, Old Mancunian (88-95) and MGS staff from 2004 (teaching Geography) who has been appointed as Director of Development from September, taking over from Ian Thorpe, who will continue as a part-time Associate. Simon is relishing the challenges involved in the run-up to our 500th birthday celebrations in 2015. More immediately, there are plans to be made for the opening of our new Drama facilities which are due to be completed during the summer.

I have blogged before about OM writer Alan Garner and The Blackden Trust. Last night a portrait of Alan by Black Country artist Andrew Tift, commissioned by the Grosvenor Museum in Chester, was unveiled. The commission celebrates 5o years of Alan's writing career, and the unveiling took place at the Mansion House in Chester, hosted by the city's Lord Mayor.

Alan is pictured in the room where he has written all his books (indeed in the chair in which he always writes the beginning and the ending of each book), surrounded by a wide range of artefacts which have inspired his work.

This is my bootleg image of a photograph of part of the portrait - the real thing is infinitely better. If you get the chance, do try to see it at the Grosvenor Museum.

Term ends today

Another busy term officially comes to an end today, with a Colours Assembly this afternoon to celebrate the sporting achievements of the winter sports teams, followed by the Rugby Club's Phil Wade Memorial game and, this evening, the Rugby Club Dinner at the Cresta Court in Altrincham.

There are so many outstanding sportsmen in MGS at present (20 with international honours in their age-group) but here are two with unusual achievements: Alex Haynes is the current captain of the England Independent Schools' Football Association U18 team, and Max Drakeley has been selected for the U19 England ice-hockey team: he plays for Manchester Phoenix.

Yesterday I had a fascinating hour being shown with one of our major donors round the fast-developing Drama Centre building site. The new stage has a full height orchestra pit below to provide for our musicals, and a tall flytower above for moving scenery up and down. The auditorium has been completely reshaped to allow for proper knee-room and comfortable seats (twin revolutions for MGS!). Sponsor-and-name-a-seat opportunities still exist - please help if you can.


The old Prefects' Common Room will become our Drama Studio, with technical walkways just below the ceiling to allow shows to be rigged with great versatility. Many MGS boys still like to join TechCrew rather than strut their stuff on stage, and this will allow them to operate safely.


Completion of the project is scheduled for late summer, with opening events in the autumn and spring terms.

Next week MGS groups will be travelling as far afield as China and St Kitts. Wherever you are, enjoy Easter.

Mufti, and more OM awards

Visitors to school today will be baffled to see a uniform-less community. As a reward for their fundraising hard work, the High Master has approved a Year 13 students' plan to charge pupils and staff £2 today for the honour of attending in 'own clothes'. We shall divide the income half and half between our in-house charity, the Bursary Fund, and the external groups we support, notably an up-country school in Uganda.

Oddly, clothing has been something of a Development Office theme this week, as we are arranging to purchase a new supply of Old Mancunian ties - sourced, inevitably it seems, from the Far East (what do they make of Old Boys ties there?). Silk not polyester, existing wearers will be glad to know. Julie is also helping the Year 13 leavers with their orders for 'hoodies' - a relatively new MGS tradition by which the leavers have their school nickname and 'MGS Class 2010' embroidered on a navy-blue training top. They're worn on their last day at school and thereafter as a memento. Meanwhile Jane appears to be running an accommodation agency from her desk as the OMs coming to the Reunion on May 8 gradually fill up all the hotels we know in south Manchester.

I had an exchange of emails with Mike Atherton to congratulate him on his double award of Sportswriters' Columnist and Writer of the Year (having won the Specialist Correspondent award last year). As he proves in The Times and his books, Mike can not only write stylishly but can reliably come up with interesting and original material. My mind goes back to an earlier existence as an English teacher here when I had the good fortune to teach a Middle School class in which Mike, Mark Crawley and Gary Yates sat together - all of them going on to first-class cricket careers.

Looking forward - a week on Monday we are hosting an 8-a-side Chess match between some of the best MGS players of today and yesteryear. Peter Webster has again worked hard to put the OM side together, persuading them to take time off and travel north (in most cases) to test our younger generation of players.

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.