The 2023 Chronicle

SPEECH DAY

ADDRESS BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, MR ANDREW SCHAEFER

13 OCTOBER 2023

talk later about the construction status and occupation planning for new Tatham. An integral part of this project, apart from modernizing Tatham to match the upgraded standard of the other new Houses, and also to achieve a Housemaster’s house adjacent to Tatham, has been to create a staging house at old Tatham, to facilitate the rotational renovation of the old Houses. It is a priority objective to modernize and standardize all the boarding houses to match McCormick and Ralfe, and thereby achieve world-class boarding facilities across Michaelhouse. Given the scope of the necessary renovations, construction timing will extend beyond a single holiday and hence the need to rotate through the old Tatham while renovations are completed. Budgets have been quantified and agreed, to commence with the next round of renovations from early 2024, commencing with Pascoe and thereafter Farfield, with the other Houses to follow. The outcome will be a boarding house standard which is nothing short of world class, and incorporating a significant focus on energy and water efficiency. The addition of Ralfe and McCormick as two new Houses, has naturally led to increased numbers, expanding Michaelhouse from about 500 learners to around 620. This growth has placed significant capacity pressure on many facilities across Michaelhouse, in particular the Chapel and the dining halls. A chapel expansion has been agreed in principle by the Board, and has also been supported in writing by the bishop. Plans drawn up by the outstanding school architect Nick Grice have been approved in writing by the Anglican Diocese Property Manager and will shortly be submitted to the Heritage Council in KZN for approval. Once approved, Jamie Inglis, prior chairman of the Board, has generously offered to undertake a personal and targeted fundraising exercise to support the expansion of the Chapel to seat over 700 congregants. This would support the full school and staff body convening in congregation in a single sitting, which is deemed vitally important from a school worship and culture point of view. It would also facilitate broader inclusion of the local community and local schools, which are important objectives. Renovation timing would be approximately a year and it is hoped that the project may commence early next year. Energy security is a top priority for Michaelhouse to address increasing breakdown risks to the generators, which have been running excessively through higher stages of load shedding this year. Extensive design planning has been facilitated by Joni Warburton, Michaelhouse’s financial director, supported by an experienced professional team, to construct a solar farm and battery system, to provide battery power continuity during load shedding, linked to maximised solar installation across the campus. A screened site for the solar farm has been identified and the professional team is finalizing the project scope and service-provider selection to move ahead with funding plans.

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ood afternoon, ladies and gentleman, boys of Michaelhouse, and in particular to our distinguished guest speaker Andrew Cook and his family. I am very pleased to be the first of three Andrews to address you this afternoon, with Andrew Woodland and Andrew Cook to follow the Rector and me. It is especially meaningful for me to be sitting and talking alongside Andrew Cook today. He was my English teacher for two of my five years at Michaelhouse, including matric, and also somebody I have held in the highest regard at school and since. Andrew was unquestionably an exceptional English teacher and mentor, and I was never dissuaded that he was a Hilton old boy and also Pascoe Housemaster. We have bumped into each other a few times over the years, including once on a remote beach at Kobb Inn on the Wild Coast, and have always had warm and meaningful conversations, such is Andrew’s style and manner. I am also extremely appreciative of the integral role he has played in making an innovative career development platform called Eduvelopment freely available to the Michaelhouse Community Partnerships schools, which have not previously had such services available to them. As a result of this, 53% of the matrics in our partner schools have applied for tertiary studies in 2024, which is a substantial increase on prior years. By the way, you can decide today, based on this address, how well my English teaching experience went. I attended my youngest daughter’s speech day last year, which was an important and nostalgic milestone for our family reaching the end of our collective schooldays. There may be some parents today also going through this separation anxiety. The headmaster and chairman of council spoke for an hour and ten minutes in Ted Talk style with chinos and blazers and strap-on microphones, presenting a PowerPoint slide deck of the outcomes of a recent off-site strategic planning workshop. My daughter said to me after the speech: ‘Dad, why did they spend so very, very long telling us about the school’s plans going forward, when we’re leaving?’ You may be pleased to hear that Ant Clark and I have been allocated a carefully choreographed ten minutes each, so we will save our Ted Talk presentation for a date still to be announced, which may require a much smaller audience venue. I explained to my daughter that, as somebody soon to be an old girl, she should be interested in the future of her school, which may well be where she chooses to send her children, and also visit as an old girl. Murray Witherspoon released one of his popular campus walkabout videos last week, which mentioned that 41% of boys at Michaelhouse are either old boys’ sons or have a close relative who is an old boy. With the likelihood of this trend continuing, the evolution of Michaelhouse will be relevant to many of you.

I would like to summarise a few important matters pertaining to the planning and evolution of Michaelhouse. Ant Clark will

I wrote to the Michaelhouse community at the beginning of the

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