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We started the weekend
with a delightful concert at the school on Friday evening and
finished with a delicious lunch there on Sunday.  As has been
usual for the last few years, the MOSA Reunion coincided with
Parents Weekend. So we were able to see (and buy from) stalls
selling all manner of things from plants to face painting and of
course lots of sticky things to eat. If we had children or
grandchildren with us, we were able to share the use of a bouncy
castle and other amusements. More importantly, after our AGM, we
enjoyed hearing the head girl’s account of the school year and we
then held a well attended reception in the Hall for leavers and
their parents. A number of people gathered in their year groups
for lunch on Saturday and then came in their groups to the dinner at
the Racecourse in the evening.
 After hearing reports from both
Mount and Bootham heads in the school, we enjoyed listening to our
President (Ruth Finnegan) give a very interesting talk at the
dinner. The main difference this weekend was the
absence of the Sunday afternoon Garden Party. Some
of us shed a tear as we remembered times past, but truth to tell the
numbers at the Garden Party have been very thin in recent years, and
we have been discussing ways in which we might improve the weekend
so that it is attractive to more Old Scholars. Any
suggestions or comments on the weekend would be gratefully received.
Next year we are
going to experiment with having the AGM in March to coincide both
with a MOSA general committee meeting and with a school concert or
play. We have for some years felt that we have not had sufficient
time at our AGM for questions and discussion, and feel that this
might be a better way of doing things.
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We were delighted to
welcome Ruth (Finnegan) Murray, our president elect, at the
committee meeting on March 22nd. Ruth started life as a
classicist, and happy memories were exchanged of lessons with Miss
Shepherd in the 50s. She then turned her attention to anthropology
and has had a fascinating career as writer and professor of
anthropology at the Open University. Lovely to see you back with
Old Scholars, Ruth, and we look forward to hearing your address at
the Reunion weekend.
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Anne Bolton, the Bursar at
the Mount, has now taken up the reins as our new treasurer.
Especial thanks are due to Julie Davis in Anne’s office, who has
worked so hard on our accounts, and will field all enquiries. Our
money is in safe hands!
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Support the website! Joy
Saunders will pass on your news and information to Jim Porteous,
who has designed the site and will keep it updated for us.
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The up-to-date address
list can be obtained from
the bursar's office at the
school. Please send her a cheque for £5 made out to MOSA.
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We welcome Beverley
Wilson, on the staff at the Mount, who will co-edit the next
Report. We plan a new-look Report, shared by the School and Old
Scholars. This will avoid some of the present overlap, and enable
us to have a really interesting and professional report. Rest
assured, we shall still have lots of space for our news etc. So
keep writing in with information.
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Stewart Whitaker, Joy Saunders and Michael Crook enjoy a joke at the
Mount and Bootham Old Scholars' dinner.
Our
new chairman, Susan (Vipont Brown) Hartshorne, with Anne (Mills)
Whitaker
Hester (Mounsey) Willink, Ruth Allott chatting with our new
President, Ruth Finnegan.
MOUNT OLD SCHOLARS’ ASSOCIATION
Outgoing Chairman’s
Report to the Annual General Meeting, 10th May 2003
It was a sad/glad moment when I laid down the
reins and handed over to a new chairman in May. It was a year marked
by tragedy, but also a year of achievement. First of all, our
treasurer, Anne Thompson, died in June after fighting off illness
for some months. We sent messages of sympathy to her husband, and if
anyone one would like to send a contribution to Cancer Research in
her memory, please send it directly to Clive Thompson. Ruth Yates,
our Report Editor, had a major operation just before Christmas, but
somehow she triumphed over adversity. We would like to thank her for
her hard work when she was still so unwell and wish her good health
in the future.
I, too, was unwell for a time, and all these
problems encouraged us to accelerate a process which we had already
begun when the School Committee became our Trustees. Anne Bolton
offered the services of the Bursar’s Office to take over all our
bookkeeping. Her miracle-working assistant, Julie Davis, quickly
galloped to the rescue and sorted out the accounts with amazing
speed. I can not thank her enough! The School Office is also taking
over the address list – many thanks to Sarah Johnson for her work on
it this year.
We should soon feel the benefit of the new
system of paying the life membership fee. From September, all pupils
have been paying a termly amount to the Old Scholars, and
automatically become members of Old Scholars, unless they choose to
opt out.
Another major move has been the development of
the MOSA website, prominently displayed on the School website. Jim
Porteous, the father of an OS, has designed it, and it looks just
wonderful. Please send me a good flow of information to put on it –
nothing is too short or trivial to include. Part of the fun is
reading the news snippets – and you can access it from
friendsreunited as well.
Looking back on my years as chairman, I am only
too aware of many things left undone, and several initiatives which
fell by the wayside. However, despite a few small disappointments, I
look back with such gratitude to all the people whose company I have
enjoyed. It has been a great privilege to be chairman. It has also
been great fun to meet up with old friends, to make new friends, and
to see MOSA develop ever closer contacts with the School where I was
so happy. My especial thanks are due to Diana Gant, who has welcomed
me so warmly as a friend and colleague, and also to the MOSA
Committee, both past and present, who have worked so hard alongside
me. Of them all I can truly say that they are ‘fidelis in parvo
et in multo’.
Joy Saunders
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