Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96Sometime during 2015 an e-mail dropped into my inbox inviting me to a School Reunion …. ‘They must have got the wrong e-mail address’, I thought, it was only a few months ago I was picking up my A-level results! How wrong could I be - in a blink of an eye 10 years seemed to have passed us by and I had, in fact, been invited to the class of ‘99 School Reunion. I am very fortunate that the majority of my close friends from school are still my close friends to this day. When we were next all together, we debated whether to attend the reunion. ‘What have we got to show for 10 years’ some of us thought, ‘but we still see those we want to see’ others thought. In the end we unanimously agreed that we would all attend. April 16th 2016 arrived and, at around lunch time, a group of about 15 of us gathered at the Sixth Form Centre to be greeted by some very familiar teachers. From there we had a tour of the school, where we noticed that, the desks appeared to have shrunk (nothing to do with us growing!). We also visited the very impressive swimming pool complex, which, despite promised, wasn’t built until after we left! Following the tour, we returned to the Sixth Form Centre where we were treated to tea, cakes and nostalgia, with many members of our year group whom we hadn’t seen for some time. In the evening we returned to the school hall but instead of an assembly we were greeted with a drinks reception, and met with many more fondly remembered teachers and fellow leavers. Following the drinks reception, we were led through to the dining room - set up much more formally than we remembered from school dinner days! We enjoyed a lovely three course meal whilst reminiscing on our time at school, and also finding out what has changed for our old classmates in the decade since we departed. It honestly felt as if we had just returned from a school summer holiday, not 10 years apart! After the meal, we listened to speeches from Mr Slack and the current Head Girl. This was followed by heart-warming memories of the late Amandeep Gill from two of his close friends, Lauren Sewell and Lewis Hua and to finish, we were entertained with some hilarious stories, including revisiting our leaver’s book, from former Head Girl, Kelly Ormsby. Without much persuasion, she managed to involve everyone in a repeat performance of our year’s leavers’ song - many people were able to recite the words without looking at prompt sheets! As the time got later and later, we were slowly encouraged to leave, I’m sure it was never that difficult to get us out of the doors when we were pupils. Our old Headmaster, Mr Fisher, described us to have been ‘a sociable year, perhaps at the expense of our A Levels’, so in true class of 99 style, we ended our evening in the pub! All in all, we had an absolutely fantastic day and evening,. If your reunion is coming up and you are having the same debates we were, I would hugely encourage you to go, if for nothing else, to make you feel 18 again for the day. Thank you on behalf of all of the attendees to those that work so hard to ensure these events are a success. Emma Young (‘99) message from The Chairman This year has been another busy one for the Old Coventrians: so far this year we have run another of our usual very successful Annual Dinners and an excellent Class of 1999 Dinner. In terms of Sports, we had the Annual Bowls Tournament and we hosted and put out a team in the AROPS Cup for Girls Hockey. We again organised the Crackley Run; had teams at the Thames Hare and Hounds, and the highlight was probably the wonderful Hockey and Netball Fest where several teams of old girls competed at both sports. We are hoping shortly to be having another Youth versus Experience cricket match and are preparing teams to play against the School Teams at hockey, netball and possibly rugby early in the next academic year. We have struggled where a couple of events haven’t got off the ground – sevens rugby and golf didn’t quite get over the line, but we have learnt from those and I am sure we will deliver something next year. Other events that actually happened include the successful London Drinks 1 and 2 (an opportunity for those Old Boys and Girls living in London just to meet for a drink after work and reminisce), but the planned Lawyers Networking event also had to be postponed – but should be happening in October. Additionally, we participated in the Celebrate 40 Years of Co-education (excellently organized by Helen Cooper) and the Heritage Open Weekend, as well as participating in various tours and open days. In total our events this year have been attended by well over 400 different Old Coventrians from a huge range of different years – which is certainly a good starting point for our continuing to push the “Community for Life” message that we want to foster. In this we have been helped by the School to continue to update our database – we now have the names of virtually all the 10,000 pupils who have attended the School since the 1940s and more importantly some 2,900 Email addresses, so we can send out links to our Newsletter (which can also be found on the website) and notifications of our events. Our Social media profile is rising with over 1,000 each of Facebook and LinkedIn Group members, which is a far cry from Jeff Vent’s typewriter and address book. As always we rely on the help, support and considerable energy of a small band of Committee members and helpers – without them nothing would get done, and we must say a tremendous thank you to them. If you would like to help or get involved, please contact Amanda Garman, the Alumni Officer at Alumni@khviii.net, or check out our website and come and join in. Paul Fernandez – Montes (Class of ’73) Chairman Class of ‘99 reunion 38 | The CovenTrian