The 16th Annual General Meeting and Dinner of the Green, Maroon & Black Patrons' Club was held at the Kelvin Club on Wednesday 16th June 2010. Our guest speaker was Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld, Director Neurosurgery at the Alfred Hospital.

The Principal Mr Jeremy Ludowyke also presented his annual address.

Mr Isaac Apel was inducted as a newly joined member of the patrons' club.

The elected executive positions for 2010-2011 are

Patron-in-Chief: Dechlan Ellis
Deputy P-i-C: Scott Green
Secretary: Knowles Tivendale
Treasurer: Mark Wood

The Executive Officer is Mr Colin Green.

The chairmen of the various committees, together with the Immediate Past P-i-C John Dodd, make up the executive.

Full details of the meeting are attached, as is the AGM Report. There were 39 members present with numerous apologies.

The spoken version of the P-i-C John Dodd's address is as follows:

Patron in Chief’s Address

GMB-AGM – Kelvin Club-16 June 2010

Good Evening Gentlemen.

My annual report is before you and I must confirm that it has been a most successful year for our organization

I would like to expand on some of the outstanding achievements and highlights of this past year

First –The Student Mentoring Scheme

This is going from success to success due to the dedication and skills of Jack Warhaft with Ron Beasley’s help.

It has been so successful that it has almost reached its optimum size.

The feedback from the students has been that the scheme is excellent. However it cannot now be expanded.

As far as we know we are the only school that mentors its students in this way. 

The word has now got around and we have been approached by other schools and tertiary institutions to advise them on setting up similar schemes.

We are currently investigating ways that other organizations can adopt our system and pay for the privilege.

This project was initiated by the GMB with Jack and Ron currently administering it and GMB members Dechlan Ellis, Bruce Hartnett, Kwong Lee Dow and Brian Howe assisting.

Second – the MHSOBA  Centre

The refurbished offices and extensions to the Unicorn Club are now part of the normal operations of the MHSOBA.

These modern facilities encourage more social events and create amiable and efficient working conditions.

Already these offices house the part time secretary for the Foundation and will eventually be the base for all its activities.

The new complex is a place that MHSOBA members can be rightfully proud and visitor comments confirm this.

We are still continuing to appeal for additional funds to pay for these necessary improvements.

We ask for your support from you and any other Old Boys to help us to eliminate this debt.

If people feel that they can help us in some way could you contact Colin Green and he will be glad to hear from donors and contributions are tax deductible.

Administration

It would be remiss of me not to comment on the difficult time that our administrative people have had over the last few months.

Although this problem has now been resolved it has had a detrimental effect on the permanent staff and their smooth operations.

All of us have to remember that we give our time and effort to help and guide our school to remain at the forefront of education in Australia.

Anything that deflects us from these objectives is to be avoided at all costs.

I hope that each and every one of us keeps this in mind in the future

I must thank the Principal Jeremy Ludowyke for his guidance and help over the last year.

As I have said in my report we acknowledge his vision for the school and pledge our support to achieve it.

The engine room of our organization is its administration staff and so on behalf of our members I thank our Executive Officer Colin and naturally his secretary/PA Margie for their sterling work and patience over the last year in supporting us.

Thanks to all the executive members for their support and hard work again. Their dedication is to be admired.

Conclusion

Finally I would like to thank you the members for your help over the last two years that I have been Patron in Chief.

I was proud to follow in the footsteps of those who have held this position before and it is with great pleasure and high optimism that I will be handing over to the new executive nominated P-I-C  of this fine group of Old Boys.