Introduction
Well, it has been a busy start to the Association’s 2017-18 Year. Meeting our members at events in London, Liverpool and Cambridge has been so enjoyable. At the time of writing, I am looking forward to our Wessex, York and Edinburgh events and to seeing our friends from the Old Girls Association, from Old Merchant Taylors’ Northwood and Wolverhampton Grammar School’s Old Boys and Old Girls, as part of the whole Merchant Taylors’ Family.
It means so much personally to me to have been chosen to take this role. I value the friendship of my colleagues on our Council, who have proposed me, and the work and leadership which they have provided to MTOBA. There is an illustrious list of Past Presidents, many of whom I have had the opportunity to work with or to meet in recent years, plus those from decades past of whom many had distinguished lives and careers. I feel privileged to wear the President’s badge.
Our Association
I have had the chance to meet so many Members at these events and in my role in organising the Crosby Dinner in recent years. Yet there are very many more members who I have not been able to meet, so I hope that this column will give you a flavour of the points I have been reporting at our events.
It really is a team effort. Our immediate Past President, Philip Marshall QC, was tireless in coming to Crosby from London where he is eminent in the Family Law Bar, and I look forward to handing over to our Senior VP, David Cairns, who should be President before he is forty! Our long-serving Hon Treasurer, Paul White, and Hon Secretary David Holroyd – taking on the role straight from the Presidency – are key players along with our Hon Membership Secretary, Ian Duckett. We are in constant liaison with each other, and with the teaching and administrative staff at MTS without whom we simply could not get our message out to members and to organise successful events.
Appreciating our good fortune
The good fortune which we each enjoyed in attending MTS has given us lifelong development. This benefit becomes more and more apparent as we go through life and as we encounter others who were less fortunate in their educational experience and opportunities, and underlines the debt we owe to MTS.
This means MTOBA tries to make a tangible difference. Let me take two examples. First, our Association’s Charitable Trust makes contributions to the fees of our Boys and Girls who – through bereavement or divorce or redundancy – cannot pay all or part of their fees. Those contributions enable them to stay at MTS instead of having to leave at points vital for their education. Second, MTOBA contributed half of the cost of MTS’s publication of “To Honour Duty’s Call”. Prepared by MTS’s Archivist, Trevor Hildrey. It honours in detail each Old Boy of MTS who died in the First World War.
Initiatives
I hope that in this Presidential Year I can consult Members and encourage participation in MTOBA and how it might benefit MTS and its past and present students. Several of us have welcomed past and present students from both the Boys and Girls Schools into our workplaces to offer vital short experiences. We will be working with the Schools’ Careers’ Manager and Alumni Relations Officer to develop a mentoring scheme and I would encourage all members to offer some assistance to those who are trying to take making the first steps in their career paths.
Our alumni groups also give us the opportunity to see our opposite numbers from Merchant Taylors’ Northwood and from Wolverhampton Grammar School. We are not rival schools and we should take each opportunity when it comes to consult and perhaps benefit from the respective experiences at each School. This informal linkage came to mind when I was a Guest at Wolverhampton’s dinner this March. I was chatting with the Development Officer who I was then able to put in touch with the MTS Development and Marketing team.
Conclusion
It is natural that our leavers want to spread their wings away from MTS before deciding to visit and take up old links. When that time comes, MTOBA is here for all Members, and I hope that many reading this article will find the opportunity to attend events and perhaps to play roles within MTOBA. A warm welcome awaits you.
I am looking forward to meeting many more of you in the coming months, and then to helping MTOBA as it looks ahead to celebrating MTS’s four hundredth anniversary in 2020.
With very best wishes
David Cairns
