Thanks firstly to all those OA members who joined our Biennial General Meeting on 25th May, 2023 as, despite our school closing 28 years ago, we continue to grow in membership and activity.
All existing members were re-elected on to the OA Committee apart from Peter West (1967) who has stepped down but continues in the role of Archivist. Keith Fenton (1984) replaces Jason Savage (1976) as one of the Vice Chairman and the BGM elected two additional members, Andrew Heap (1984) and Charles Brough (1966). Our Treasurer, Bob Bridger also takes on the role of Membership Secretary too.
One of the major OA projects, let by our Archivist, Peter West, is nearing completion as all the School Magazines will be digitised and posted on our website later this summer. This has been a long and painstaking exercise but has been more than worth it as it means we can all access magazines from the late 19th century onwards until the school closed in 1995.
Another key project is the Ursuline College Support Group, where we have been working with the Ursuline Alumnae and College to find ways of helping wha became our successor school. Both our President, Chris Horsburgh (1967) and I, have been representing the OAs at these meetings.
At the time of the last BGM in May 2021, our activities were almost non-existent as Covid curtailed them. Since then, we have held two Westgate lunches, a Black-tie dinner at the National Liberal Club, London, Two Remembrance Services at Ramsgate and a lunch in London, in most cases getting record attendances.
Over the next two years we will be holding more events representing all the generations of OAs and so you have them for your diary, here are the gatherings listed for the remaining of this year:
Tuesday 11th July - St. Benedict's Day - Memorial Mass and lunch in Central London held in Memory of our former President, Martin Morton. We hope that Madeley Court OAs will be able to attend but all OAs will be welcome.
Saturday 15th July - Ursuline and Augustinian Alumni Reunion at the Ursuline College, 225 Canterbury Road, Westgate on Sea. More details can be found on our EVENTS Page on our website. There will be a Reunion Mass, lunch and tour. A new Ursuline Alumni group will be set up open to OAs.
Saturday 30th September - Old Augustinian Reunion Lunch at the former school premises, St. Augustine's 125, Canterbury Road, Westgate on Sea.
Saturday 11th November - OA Remembrance Mass at St. Augustine's Church, St Augustine's Road, Ramsgate followed by reception and lunch.
More details of all these events will be circulated shortly...
Lastly a plea from the OA Committee. The OAs are a not-for-profit unincorporated membership organisation. We totally rely on membership subs and donations. All our events are not for profit and we often subsidise them too. Due to good financial stewardship and hard work put in by OA Officers hehind the scenes, we have been able to fund such projects as digitising the Archives, a cost-of living crisis grant to help Ursuline College students in need and smaller donations such as for St. Augustine's church Visitors Centre in Ramsgate, Ursuline College prizes as well as our costs of our website management and administration, the latter two costs are kept to an absolute minimum.
Many of our members have taken our life membership, so consequently this will influence annual revenue, unless we get more members from a shrinking pool to recruit from, as we sadly lose friends year by year. Without members, we cannot service the OAs, nor can we carry on giving donations to the causes we believe in.
Our Facebook Group has over 500 members but less than 20% are actually paid-up members of the OAs. We have nearly 300 on our Mailing list but less than half are paid-up members.
This is a good time to join. Annual Membership is £20 or you can join at the discounted Life Membership rate which is £100. It is easy to join - it will keep us going... Here is the link to our Membership Page:-
Join Us
Thanks and I look forward to meeting you at a future OA event and thanks to in anticipation of you support.
With best wishes, Andrew