NBHSOBA REPORTS - NBHS OBA - Newcastle Boys' High School Old Boys' Association

I hope that the past year has been an easy one for you all and you and your families are in good health. No doubt we are all affected in some way by increases in the cost of living but I trust none are suffering unduly from it.

ANNUAL DINNER
Please be sure you note the change in venue and time for this Year’s event. We have also had to change from the second Saturday in August to the third Saturday due a to the unavailability of the event room at South’s Leagues Club on our preferred date. It would appear that if we stay with this venue and time this date change will be permanent.

THANKS to COMMITTEE
As always, my thanks to all the Committee members for their hard work during the last year. I would especially mention Greg Kentish for the tremendous amount of work he has done on the Old Boy’s website. The site now includes a list of all who served in the armed forces. It really is a very good source of information about the original NHS, NBHS, NGHS and as well as Old Boys activities.

EMAIL CONTACTS
We continue to push for email contact with members to reduce our costs and for easier maintenance of records. Hence no paper copies of the dinner invitation and reports are being sent by mail to any nonfinancial members. Where an email address is available, we will continue to send the annual documentation to them by this method but we cannot put any effort into locating them if the emails bounce. The documents will always be available on our website. Please ensure we have your current
email address and that it is kept up to date whether you are financial or not.

GUEST SPEAKER
The guest speaker last year, Associate Professor Ross Kerridge, was by all reports well received and suitably entertaining. This year’s speaker from the Year of ’74 has also had a very interesting life since finishing his HSC at Boys High and promises to be just as entertaining.

PHOTOS & MAGAZINES
A reminder call again for any members who have items which may be of historical significance, including photos and magazines, please contact Dick Sanders at dicksanders@optusnet.com.au with a view to either providing them to the OBA or at least having their whereabouts noted.

CATALOGUING MEMORABILIA
The cataloguing of memorabilia at Newcastle Library is continuing and a significant amount has been completed. We would appreciate
members assistance to provide missing names on Class photos, additional Staff or Group photos, as well as any relevant memorabilia (e.g. programs for Sports’ Days, Speech Nights Plays etc). Our webmaster, Greg Kentish, is also constantly updating our website and all of the Novocastrian Magazines that were produced are available there. In fact, this is a very good site for anybody interested in events and stories etc related to the School.

OBITUARIES
We have added more obituaries of deceased Old Boys to our website which are quite interesting. If you know of anyone whose family would not mind having theirs added please forward them to our webmaster to gkentish@gmail.com.

FINANCIAL MEMBERSHIP
Our financial Membership has decreased slightly to 952 due to the passing of Old Boys. However, there is still a significant number of non-financial members and we would appreciate their renewing their commitment to the Association. We are still hoping that some “champions” will come forward for each year to encourage attendance at the dinners and/or to obtain memorabilia. If there are it would be appreciated if they could make themselves known to me during the night of the Dinner.

THE FUTURE
We get nearer to the time when there will be no further years to draw membership, or year specific Guest Speakers, from when the Year of ’78 is reached in 4 years. It is therefore important that we look to increasing our membership from the ‘younger brigade’ of former students and we seek your assistance in this regard.

SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
A lack of other commitments meant that I was able to attend the School Presentations, in tandem with John Beach at Waratah High, last year. It is always interesting hearing about the achievements of many of the students we award prizes to. We have reinstated a prize at Newcastle East primary school as recorded below.

The prize recipients were:

NEWCASTLE HIGH SCHOOL

Roy Davis Prize for School Community Achievement $200 Lachlan Burns

Lewis Keys Bursary $1000 – George Allman

Keys Family Prize for Best Science Student Year 10 $200 Rodrigo Raya

Dr Allen Knott Scholarship $1000 Annika Sommer

Margaret Howard Bursary $1000 Alexander Walker

Caesar Smith Prize for Creative Writing (Junior) $200 Poppy Fenning

Caesar Smith Prize for Creative Writing (Senior) $200 Kite Stephen

OBA President’s Prize for Legal Studies $200 Ruby Crane

Colin Keys Dux of the School(2022) $1000 Lara White

WARATAH CAMPUS OF CALLAGHAN COLLEGE

F.H. Beard Prize for School Community Achievement $200 Zanetta Hanwright

Brian Donegan Prize for Most Improved Mathematics Student Yr 7 $100 Oliver Diamond

Brian Donegan Prize for Most Improved Mathematics Student Yr 8 $100 Charlotte Smith

Brian Donegan Prize for Most Improved Mathematics Student Yr 9 $100 Noah Rounce

Brian Donegan Prize for Most Improved Mathematics Student Yr 10 $100 Mee Lee

Charles Goffet Prize for Creative Writing Yr 7 $50 Peter Geluk

Charles Goffet Prize for Creative Writing Yr 8 $50 Zoe Andrean

Charles Goffet Prize for Creative Writing Yr 9 $50 Anne Christina

Charles Goffet Prize for Creative Writing Yr 10 $50 Baseera Khalil

Keys Family Prize for Best Mathematics Student Yr 10 $100 Daniel Nikic

Dr David Stewart Scholarship $500 Jemima Kellett

NEWCASTLE EAST PUBLIC SCHOOL

Dux of School $100 Sachin Kana

PROFESSOR LEWIS KEYS
A note on the prizes above. As we sadly lost a major prize donor with the passing of Old Boy Professor Lewis Keys, and our funds are dwindling as more members unfortunately also pass, we are regularly reviewing the value of them.

BEQUESTS ARE WELCOMED
Your donations largely go to this part of the reason for our existence so we are always grateful for any you make. We would also be very grateful for any bequests you may wish to leave in your Wills no matter how small.

CONDOLENCES
The Committee extends its sincere condolences to the family and friends of Old Boys who have passed away since our last Dinner. We are always appreciative of any information you can pass on about any of your cohorts that have passed away so we can keep our records up to date. It can be distressful for the families if we unknowingly attempt to contact a deceased member about the dinners.

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
Please supply our Membership Officer, Greg Wilson via email to gawilson@bigpond.com with any information.

AGM
Please attend the AGM if possible and note it will be held in the Fredman Hall below the Newcastle Synagogue, 122 Tyrrell St, Newcastle. We would more than welcome some new blood. I wish all of our members good health for the remainder of 2024 and on.

Remis Velisque
Norm Rodgers (President) 1 May, 2024

Historical Sub-Committee
June 2024 AGMPHOTOS, OBITUARIES & NEWS
The main activity of the sub-committee continues to be the collection of photos (group and class), obituaries, and news of members, for addition to the website (www.nbhsoba.net). This will continue into the foreseeable future. For anyone supplying photos by email, please digitise to at least 500kb to ensure a quality image (or just send the photos to Dick by mail, and they will be returned after digitisation).Dick’s job is made easier if names are given in row order, with any unnamed students clearly shown (please see the photos on the nbhsoba.net web site for examples).ANECDOTES
We would again like to encourage the various yearly cohorts to write down their anecdotes, so that they can be included on the website (only those from the year of 1957 are there so far). These anecdotes will provide a human face for the school for future generations.REGINAL LIBRARY
Our activities at the Regional Library in the past year have resulted in: Transferring a full set of our group photos (staff, prefects, sporting teams, etc) to the Library in the format required for addition to the Hunter Photo Bank; this duplication of these photos offers a greater chance that they will be available into the long term future. These are now in the Hunter Photo Bank, and Greg has placed a link on our website. We have endeavoured to correct errors, and add names where possible; any suggestions for corrections, please send to Peter Scaife. Cataloguing of cassette tapes used to record interviews with ex-students (NHS, NGHS and NBHS) used by Audrey Armitage in writing the 75 Year book; this was undertaken by Judy Lindsay from the NGHS ESU.The remaining issues to be addressed with the Library/Museum are:
 Cataloguing items given to the Museum, which were not catalogued previously; a large number of items are catalogued and are available through our website (see “Caesar Smith Collection” under the History tab). Transferring to the Library the oral history DVDs and documents associated with the 7 NBHS and 3 NGHS ex-students; Judy has produced the summaries required for addition to the Museum/Library, but work is still required to digitise some of the information for our website.Details of all NBHS and NGHS participants in the World Wars, as well as in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the VDC, have been located by Bill, and one-page records of each added to our website (see Home page, under War Service, Those Who Served tab).

The NBHS Old Boys Facebook site (with use continuing to increase) is maintained by Greg Kentish, and this has become a useful communication medium for the Old Boys and Senior Ladies, and is also useful to members of the public who have had relatives at the schools. Greg’s efforts in maintaining and enhancing the website and Facebook page are again gratefully acknowledged.

We have a limited time to set up our legacy. If there are any photos, programs of school events, physical artefacts that you would like to contribute, now is the time.
Peter Scaife (petersc@exemail.com.au); 49 432 738
Bill Storer (wjstorer@ozemail.com.au); 49 42 3515
Dick Sanders (dicksanders@optusnet.com.au); 49 43 2358