Honorary President: Fr Albert Carette SDB (1932-37)
Chairman: Peter Roebuck (1953-59)
Secretary: Mike Kilduff (1953-59)
Treasurer: David Murphy (1961-65)
Minutes Secretary/IT Coordinator: Eric Baggaley (1946-53)
Events Coordinator: Bernard O’Neill (1958-62)
Co-opted Member (Scotland): John Bergin (1965-70)
Co-opted Member (South of England): Paul Barnes (1954-57)
Chairman’s Message
Welcome to the second edition of our new-style Newsletter.
In addition to planning the forthcoming Annual Re- Union (19-21st September), your Committee, as promised, has been getting about the country in an effort to enable as many members as possible to join in its discussions. We met at Savio House in December; at Easterhouse in Glasgow in January; and, for the benefit of members in southern England, at Great Missenden, just north of London, in early July. By this means members have contributed to decision-making across the year. We shall continue to operate in this way and to arrange social and other events (of the kind we enjoyed in January and July) around committee meetings whenever possible.
If you have not already done so, following his request in the Spring Newsletter, please send Mike Kilduff your latest contact details, together with an indication of the level of mailing you would prefer. Armed with these details, and with the help of our hugely improved website, we can then keep in touch with you much more effectively. If you want to publish something in the Newsletter and/or on our website, let us know.
We very much hope to see you at the 2008 Re-Union. Though focussed on, and organised by, the class of 1958, as always it is of course open to everyone. Next year there will be a number of anniversaries to mark: it will be 80 years since Shrigley’s foundation, 75 years since Don Bosco’s canonisation and the cutting of the first sod of the Shrigley Church.
Peter Roebuck
From the Secretary
This second edition of the newsletter in this format will be an unusual one for those of you who are on the internet and who regularly visit the Shrigley Association website. Much of what we have to report will have appeared there already, so sending it to you again may be a duplication of information you already have.
The Committee now regards the website as a most important means of communicating with our members. The Spring Newsletter was sent out to over four hundred members listed in the Directory. However, less than a third of you received this in the conventional ‘snail-mail’ format, through the post. We have over two hundred and seventy e-mail addresses which we used to send out the last Newsletter as an attachment.
There were problems for a number of reasons. The list of addresses contained some errors, particularly in my transcription of them to my computer; some of you had changed addresses; some of you have restrictions on the amount of mail you can receive, or your mail boxes were full so that error messages came back saying the mail could not be delivered. So we do not know how many of you we have reached.
The same can be said of those of you to whom a written report was sent. We do not know how many of our letters are not getting through.
To be honest, we do not know whether everyone who is in our Directory welcomes our communications. We know that some are not able, or do not wish, to be active attending members of the Association. This question was addressed frankly at our last committee meeting held in Great Missenden at the beginning of July. Minutes of this meeting are available on the website. The Committee initiated a review of our finances and a redrafting of the Constitution to address this and associated questions.
Prompted by an incisive analysis from Tony Calway (1949-54), the Committee adopted what it considers to be a realistic stance. We have a definition of people who are entitled to Shrigley Association membership, by reason of their Shrigley experience, or relationship with a person with a Shrigley connection, and we record as many as we can possibly find in our Directory. Not all those entitled to membership choose to take up what we are calling ‘enrolled’, i.e. active, voting, attending, membership.
The problem is to identify which of the former choose to become the latter. We intend to solve this by defining the latter as those who are subscription-paying. For the first time, we are sending a proforma, inviting subscription by standing order, though this is obviously not the only way to pay. In recent years arrangements for collecting subscriptions have been a touch haphazard, and the low level of subscription has been compensated for by the generous level of donations made by some members.
This year has seen a fall in income with both subscriptions and donations well down on the previous year. However, this has been met with a corresponding fall in expenditure and economies put in place by the current committee seem to be bearing fruit. We have shown a surplus on the year of £360 compared with £55 on the previous year. Our bank balance remains at over £3000 in line with previous years.
However, we need to address the issue of falling income by both paying subscriptions and encouraging others to do so. Also any donations to cover general running costs will be welcome.
A full report will be delivered at the AGM.
David Murphy
David Murphy has opened a new bank account for the Association and we now have a proforma (here)for those who wish to pay their annual subscriptions by Standing Order. Those who wish to pay by cheque are asked to make them payable to the Shrigley Association and post them to David at the address given.
The redrafted Constitution, (here) which acknowledges this change of approach, will be made available at the Annual General Meeting in September to be discussed and voted on.
Recently I delivered to Louise Davenport at the Shrigley Hall Hotel, at their request, a number of enlarged photographs from our archive which I hope they will frame and put on permanent display before our Reunion this year.
The only twinge of sadness I have when I visit Shrigley is that the effects of the big storm of January 2007 are still evident in the cemetery. So many trees were destroyed in that storm that the cosy cocoon that used to surround the cemetery has been lost. The path leading up from the church to the cemetery has the look of a river bed as so much rain water runs off from the car park above through the slope of the cemetery approach.
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However, on my last visit in the car park above there was parked a beautiful old red single-decker bus, a restored vehicle from the North Western Road Car Company of Stockport, of the type that used to pass the Shrigley drive 50 years ago. I could not resist a photo for old times’ sake.
Apologies to our younger members who arrived and left Shrigley in much more sophisticated transport!
The mention of 50 years ago is a lead in to reminding you that this year’s Reunion is being organized by the Class of ’58, half a century after they entered Shrigley. The event is, of course, not only for those who caught a red bus to Shrigley in September 1958, but for all Shrigley Boys and their families. Bernard O’Neill is the Event Co-ordinator, assisted by Keith Dransfield (1958-63) and Fr Bernard Parkes (1958-63), all members of that cohort.
Details are available from Bernard at 63, Clifton Road, Wokingham, Berks RG41 1NL (Tel: 0781 769 2021) or from me at the address above (Tel: 0161 881 6780).
One of the highlights of the weekend is expected to be the Reminiscences of Shrigley session to which members are invited to contribute on the Saturday afternoon. If you can’t be there, but wish to record a reminiscence, send it to Bernard, as he is intending to publish all contributions. In fact, I think he said at the last meeting he has more offers of reminiscences from those who will be absent, than from members who will make live contributions. He also invites items for the Saturday evening concert at Savio House.
Please follow these links to find details of Subscription payments and Nominations and Voting for this year’s elections for the committee. (To facilitate printing each link will open in a new window)
Mike Kilduff
R.I.P.
Since the last newsletter, we have heard of the deaths of the following Shrigley Old Boys:
Donald Bishop (1946-49)
Vincent Donnelly (1943-49)
Michael Heron (1947-52)
Fr Dan Lyons SDB (1929-33)
Hugh O’Rourke (1935-40)
Arthur Pace (1939-42)
May they rest in peace.
October 4th will be the 50th Anniversary of the death of
Damien Cocksey
the last boy to die and be buried at Shrigley.
Enjoy our site, and keep
in touch!
Please send comments and items for inclusion on the website to the Minutes Secretary/IT Coordinator,
Eric Baggaley.