We are proud to belong to a school with so much history. We have an active alumni association with members ranging in age from 19 to 102 years old.
The Old Alleynians host a regular dinner and maintain an interest in the development of our academy.
Letter To Leavers
Dear Leaver,
Most of us try to keep in touch with some of our old school friends, and we all enjoy a reunion now and then. This Association is all about doing that – but also about keeping in touch with the school too, and supporting it when we can.
Like the school, we have been around a long time. The first Former Pupils vs School cricket match was in the late 1840s and the first Old Boys’ Dinner was at the White Lion in January, 1914. This Association was founded in 1926 to raise money for Memorial Gates in remembrance of the school’s former students who fell in the Great War – some of whom had attended that first dinner, whilst others had still been at the school.
Our oldest Members left the School in the 1930s.We have over 1600 Members aged 17 to 96, living in 16 different countries. We often receive requests to track down long-lost classmates; we usually succeed in finding them.
We organise reunions, small and large, including our Annual Dinner, usually held at The Cromwell in June. Sometimes we have two or even three generations from the same family attending, but always there are old friends who may not have seen each other for many years, and younger ones who see each other often but fancy something different.
We aim to publish Newsletters twice a year, with roughly half the contents about news from the school and projects for the Association, and the rest devoted to news from, gossip about and insults to individual Members. Banter, basically. It’s something that seems to link every generation at the school.
In order to support the school and students, the Association has supplied gym mats, rugby shirts, athletic vests, library books, musical instruments, computer software and make-up for drama productions. We have also made contributions to the Minibus Fund, and in 2001 we refurbished the stonework, ironwork and lead shields to the Memorial Gates.
We donated £1,000 to support the School’s successful bid for Specialist Science College status, we will continue to fund various items of Heritage Work around the site. We fund School Prizes, which some of you have won in the past. We will also be expanding our role in supporting each other. One of our projects is to compile a database of Members’ jobs and skills, and another is to have our own Facebook page (and to maintain it).
You can join us by completing the attached slip. We hope you will.
Richard Stephens (1970-77)
Association Secretary
richardstephens4@aol.com
