Welcome to summer!

The new mentoring scheme is taking off, thanks to Emilie’s hard work, and we’ve already successfully paired off several mentor/mentees and are looking forward to hearing how they get on. We have lots of mentors, from all walks of life, so if you are interested in finding yourself a mentor, please do get in touch or look on the King's Bruton Community website mentoring page to find out more.

I had the pleasure of meeting the newest cohort of Old Brutonians on the last day of term, and for the first time we made a little presentation to welcome them into the Association, telling them more about what they can gain from becoming an OB and we also gave them a little gift (a lovely OBA wine stopper, not that we’re known for our proclivities for drinking, are we?!) which, given there were a few grey hungover faces after their last night at school, seemed appropriate! I vividly remember my last night at King's - we snuck out of the basement in Wellesley en masse and partied the night away up at King Alfred’s tower, sneaking guiltily back in at dawn past Matron. I gather there were some high jinks this year - stories abound - and I’m sure you all have some too! Do share them, we love the old memories.

We’ve also been looking at other ways to stay in touch with the younger crowd of OBs who don’t really use email or Facebook and have the beginnings of WhatsApp community through which we can broadcast news and events - more will be coming about this soon so do look out.

As another academic year draws to a close, I just want to round off by saying an enormous Thank You to all the team who keep the OBA running:

Emilie for her tireless and always super helpful energy in pushing the Association forward - so much goes on behind the scenes that we don’t see and I am hugely grateful to her and all her efforts in setting up the mentoring scheme in particular. Thank You also to Ed Tickner (Hon OB) who stands aside after 6 years as Editor of the magazine, having produced a wonderful farewell edition which I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading, whether online or in hard copy. He is handing the reins to Chris Biddle (P56/58) and we are looking forward to seeing what direction Chris takes it.

Michael West (O49/55), Rose Vigers (Hon OB), Janey de Borchgrave d’Altena (W95/97), Dom Haigh (L88/93), David Fleming (B73/76), Peter Dobson(O60/65) and Nigel McCrea (O61/66) - thank you all for your energies on the committee and we’re thrilled to announce that when Janey takes up the post of President at next year’s AGM, Dom will also take up the post of Vice-President in her footsteps and I’m sure they will make a dream leadership team.

Have a wonderful summer and see you in the Autumn.