(Unsigned, 1931)
A year has passed, in which the School has achieved much, and having lost has not done so without a struggle. Each success is greeted with acclamation; but do we stop to think what we, as a whole, have done towards it? Those who have been in the team responsible have given of their best mentally and physically, but too many are content to wait until all is over before committing themselves. Everyone cannot be in every team, but all can assist by giving their support both before a match and during its progress. A certain lack of interest has been manifested by the poor attendance at many School matches, and for a team playing on its own ground to find its supporters in the minority is hardly conducive to the will to win.
A school without the interest of sport and the keenness which it begets is not worthy of the name, and is little but a factory manufacturing examination certificates. It is the sporting side of school activities which has the most pronounced and beneficial effects upon the characters of those taking part in them. The scholastic side is important, and we have a high standard of attainment to uphold; but a common interest in sport is essential for the cohesion which alone will enable us to preserve the spirit which made us one of Australia's great schools.
Anyone who has left can lose this interest and injure no one but himself, but those who are still at school must never do so. Everything we can say or do affects the School, and we have inherited traditions which are ours to make or mar. Whether we hand them on tarnished or brightened is a question which we alone can answer, and for the sake of those who come afterwards it must be answered rightly.
The thirty-third Annual General Meeting of the Old Boys' Association was held in the Master Builders' Association Rooms, Wharf Street, on Monday, 17th August, at 8 p.m. The attendance was not as large as might reasonably have been expected. The President, Mr. H. M. Russell, M.L.A., was in the chair, and present were Messrs. W. T. Evans (Vice-President), J. G. Nowlan (Hon. Secretary and Treasurer), S. Stephenson (Headmaster), R. S. Stephenson, F. R. C. Smith, L. G. Catt, G. Carson-Cooling, C. W. Macnish, H. F. McGrath, O. T. Cantor, S. I. Backstrom, P. Newman Wilson, N. C. Nevitt, Mervyn C. Williamson, A. T. Fullagar, G. K. Barnes, C. W. Thom, C. E. Grigg, K. R. M. Barker, A. G. Eadie and D. C. Thomson. Apologies were received from Messrs. L. R. McIntyre, C. Schindler, Junr., and Rev. C. S. C. Arkell.
Moving the adoption of the 33rd Annual Report and Financial Statement, the President said they had passed through a strenuous year, but it was satisfactory to note that membership was still maintained on a high level. There had been a few withdrawals and, fortunately, not very many deaths, yet the Association had ended the year with 1,700 members. The balance sheet showed the Association in a healthy condition financially: they had started the year with a credit balance of £81/8/1 and closed it with a credit balance of £108/17/4, in spite of the bad times. These payments included £138/18/9 off the B.G.S. Magazine account and £47/15/6 off the B.G.S. Annals debt. He congratulated the Honorary Secretary, Mr. Nowlan, on his great activity in securing the payment of subscriptions, remarking that "actually, Mr. Nowlan had done all the work, and he had merely been regarded as a sort of ornament."
The President drew attention to a proposal to hold a rally during the coming year. Mr. S. Stephenson noted that it was fifty years since the School Hall was opened; the Jubilee of the opening of the present School site would occur that year, and it had been suggested they should seize the opportunity of holding a big rally of past and present pupils. As the Annual Dinner had not been held the previous year (the committee thinking it inadvisable to ask members to spend so much in hard times), they now suggested a dinner on a less extravagant scale, within the reach of all Old Boys. He noted progress on the "New Turf," for which the School owed a debt of gratitude to Mr. Stephenson, and reported that the debt on the publication of the School Annals had been reduced to £150 — "a debt of honour" they hoped to extinguish in the coming year, after which Mr. Stephenson would issue the supplement.
The President was particularly pleased with the success of the Literary and Debating Society: "There was no institution of greater value for the Old Boys to join than a really live debating society.. In times such as these it behoved the boys of the School.. to endeavour to lead the public, by giving expression to their ideas, and in this way to render service to the State." Referring to honours gained by Old Boys, he said that "wherever they went, they found boys of the old School occupying positions of honour and distinction," and that "among the great public schools of Australia, the Brisbane Grammar School stood second to none."
Mr. W. T. Evans seconded the motion and welcomed Mr. N. C. Nevitt, recently transferred from Fanning Island to Sydney with the Cable Service. Mr. Nevitt, attending his first Annual Meeting, said that wherever he had gone — up and down the Pacific between Australia and Canada — he had come across Old Boys of the School.
(The issue also recorded the Old Boys' Association Ball and extensive Old Boys' news/jottings, not reproduced here.)
Note on the School Captain: The 1931 magazine has no separate "School Captain's report". The Prefects that year were C. Skerman, J. B. Moffatt, P. M. Silcock, J. V. Hobson, R. G. B. Cameron and R. Bond (C. Skerman first-named as senior prefect). The football captain was Morrow (later Heaslop). The Editorial — unsigned — is reproduced below as the senior-school voice of the year.
In this era, an Old Boy's year designation was the year he entered Grammar; the convention today is the year he finished. A boy who started in 1993 and finished in 1997 was (93) but is now '97.
Brisbane Grammar School Old Boys' Association · Old Boys History. Part of the OBA Knowledge Project.
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