The Chronicle 2022

that he was able to return to play at the end of the season. Thomas de Lange was a Craven Week representative; a modest boy with a great heart and not somebody to mess with. Ayabonga Zakwe, sometimes got his conversions over, and sometimes hit the upright. Unlike Jack Martin who had a 98% success rate with his conversions for the fifth XV. Josh Haswell has been the one to break records in the swimming pool and Sam Berchowitz, our water polo captain, did well to play in the Maccabi International Water Polo Tournament in Israel. Kamohelo Rathepe captained our first hockey team and Kevin Smith achieved soccer honours having represented KwaZulu-Natal schools, and there are few in this province who would beat him over 50 meters. Jeremy Foss was a key player in both cricket and hockey teams and Josh Kirsten gave 100% in all he did, particularly when bowling. Ross Rhodes is a versatile all-rounder, a sparkling personality and one who is destined for great things; while Jack Shooter will be remembered for his success in canoeing. A typical assembly announcement might go: “results of the U18 K1 event – in first place, well me, in second place…” A determined boy and a modest one. Well done too, to Josh Heath who powered his way to the top in tennis, and to Ben Frost who has been a great example to so many and will challenge for our dux award. My disclaimer was that I could not give a biographical sketch of every A Blocker, but I will end up with the boys known as the twins, the Davies-Webb brothers, Duncan and Mitchell. Duncan wore blue shoes to the matric dance and Mitchell brown shoes. Or was it actually the other way around? Here are a couple of young men who represent the heart of Michaelhouse. They, along with others, some mentioned and some not, have been hugely valued during the course of their school careers here. Guiding, directing, inspiring, teaching, disciplining, coaching, counselling and ultimately nurturing these and other boys are the staff, academic, administrative and operational and I want to pay tribute to this body of men and women without whom the school would not run as effectively: teachers are vitally important to making things happen within the school and so are those who clean the Houses, mark the cricket pitches and serve the community. I want to congratulate all of our staff today on what each of you has achieved this year and to thank you for your sterling efforts in helping boys to understand concepts a little better, in helping develop their linguistic capacity, and the enthusiasm with which you have refereed water polo, adjudicated a debate, accompanied a choir or marimba band – in short thank you for providing the holistic education we treasure. Some staff are less in the limelight, as I have already indicated, but perform an incredibly important role in the school. One such person is Thulisile Jane Mlotshwa who has graced Michaelhouse for thirty years. I ask her to come up to receive her long service award. Retiring this year are Cecilia Zondi and Irene Hlela who have served in the laundry here for 35 and 36 years respectively. Thank you to them for their Michaelhouse years. Inevitably some of the staff of Michaelhouse are destined to move on to other schools, almost always on promotion, and we know that Michaelhouse will have acted as a springboard for those promotions. We thank those staff who have shown enormous commitment to Michaelhouse, and now understandably, are upwardly mobile. Dean Forword, Senior Housemaster and Housemaster of Founders acted as Deputy Rector: Pupils during the first couple of terms and has been HoD Accounting as well as

playing a major role in the coaching of cricket and rugby. Dean the Machine as some boys call him, an outstanding sportsman himself, will be sorely missed, but we congratulate him on his appointment to a Deputy Headship at Uplands College. We will shortly say bon voyage to him and his wife, Rachel, and family. Uplands College has been a little greedy in also appointing Mark Blew, Housemaster of Ralfe, to a further Deputy Headship there and so, in due course, we also will say farewell and thank you to Mark Blew, Economics teacher and cricket and rugby coach and to his wife, Gemma, who has taught English with distinction at Michaelhouse. Mark and Gemma came to Michaelhouse from Pretoria Boys’ High School and over some four years have made a considerable impact here. Paul McKay has been with us for five years during which time he has been Housemaster of Farfield, IEB examiner for Geography, refereed rugby and has been involved with Clubs and Societies. Paul moves on to the Deputy Principalship (Boarding) at Clifton College in Durban and we wish him and Catherine well on their move. Richard McMichael steps down as the Housemaster of Baines at the end of the year and we thank him for his nine year tenure during which time Baines has been wonderfully refurbished. We also wish those Housemasters-elect Herman Visagie, Paul Snyman and Doug Rodger and Matt Higginson well as they take over these important roles. During the course of the year, we also bade farewell to our former bursar, Damien Rautenbach as he left us to move to Clifton Prep School where he is the Business Manager; Damien served Michaelhouse with integrity and was immensely hard working. We wish him well on his move up the road. We are extremely fortunate at Michaelhouse that when teachers and other administrative staff leave us we are able to attract excellent replacements and, whilst we can never be complacent in this regard, we are in a very strong position to do so and have some outstanding people joining us next year. Turning to the support of Old Boys for the school, this phenomenon remains a key factor in the success of Michaelhouse over the years. There are very few schools worldwide which attract such support and very few will know of the breadth and depth of the contribution, financial and otherwise, of our Old Boys through the Chairman’s Club and in a host of other ways. Donations have enabled the enhancement of our boarding facilities, our science provision, our sport and in other areas. The Makan Centre, adjoining our Media Centre is nearing completion thanks to the Makan family and this will be a centre for futuristic thinking in line with our desire to move beyond the confines of subjects and syllabi and to broaden the impact of what our boys research as we encourage them to develop as innovators. This centre will be in use from January and officially opened late in the first quarter, 2023. Most recently, Sean Lumley, an Old Boy of 1994 who is also the Vice President of the Old Boys’ Club has led an initiative in his role as Chairman of our Fundraising Committee related to an Annual Giving Day. The eight causes were well set out and those associated with the school were invited to participate with certain objectives, including engaging with as many of our community worldwide as possible. The results were impressive and we thank those in our community who have made donations for the good causes defined in the ask. Of course, there are other important causes, too, which we as a school are ambitious to fulfil and one of the projects not included in the Giving Day was the development of the new Tatham. The importance of creating a new Tatham needs to be seen partially in the light of the strategic importance of having

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