The 111th Annual Dinner took place on Saturday 20th November from 6:30 pm for 7:30 pm until 11:30 pm in the Oldfield Hall, King Charles I School, hosted by President Martin Wall.
If we'd been blessed with 20/20 vision at the 110th Annual Dinner in 2019 and looked forward to the 2020 dinner, we'd have seen nothing!
So, it was on Saturday 20th November 2021, under the Presidency of Martin ('Max' hereafter) Wall that about seventy diners – comprising members of the Old Carolians Association, the Hartlebury Old Elizabethans' Association and the Kidderminster High School for Girls Old Girls Association, plus guests – met in the Oldfield Hall for a long overdue reunion.
The formal part of the evening started with grace, said by the Rev Simon Archer representing St Mary's and All Saints' Church, and the meal was then served. The toast to the Queen was followed by a change to our normal procedure: Max read a list of those members and close friends of the Association that were no longer with us.
In the absence of Jamie Butler, Headteacher, his report was read by Association Secretary and ex-Headteacher Tim Gulliver. Tim presented the report with the same level of pride as if he'd still been Headteacher! He explained how the school had continued to work as well as it had been allowed to during the pandemic and had achieved excellent results, and he gave special mention to pupils with high academic achievement. We were reminded that events and trips that would have taken place in normal times just couldn't happen, but that the School had still been able to raise money for charities. He then proposed the toast to the Old Carolians Association.
In response, Max recalled the missing year and paid tribute to Stephen Wyer for the two years' service that he had undertaken as President. He commented that Zoom had become 'the new norm' and wondered, tongue in cheek, what had happened to 'the old norm'. Our Magazine Editor was too busy thinking of a response to the first part of the joke to hear the punchline!
Max continued by wondering how pupils had suffered, and would continue to suffer, owing to the lack of education enforced on them during the pandemic. 'Resilience' was the keyword. He explained how, in his speciality, music, he had seen wonderful new compositions in many musical formats, from folk to jazz, produced by students using modern technology not dreamt of when he was studying A-level music. The positive use of these technologies, he was sure, would be a saviour.
Max finished by proposing a toast to King Charles I School, and, then, showing his versatility, played the 'leaning' piano for the National Anthem. The evening finished with a rousing rendition of 'Auld Lang Syne'.
Richard Woolley, Annual Dinner Correspondent and Cheese Connoisseur