AVING
weathered the workload associated with the 2008 reunion, we are expecting 2009 and 2010 to be years to consolidate the OLO website and implement many changes that have been identified. Some of these are of a techical nature; making changes to the recommended form of software that underpins the OLO website. This requires several months rewriting and testing our programs. Maintenance to meet new standards are an ever-present problem.
Our current Membership Secrtary, Eric Mears, has begun acting as Deputy Webmaster with a view to taking over in late 2010. He has already had some experience of running his own website so he should be able to learn the more tricky stuff in just over a year. He now has the necessary publications on such delights as XHTML, PHP and MySQL and will get the occasional tutorial from me when necessary. There is also lots of help available on the internet.
The proposed provision of space on the website for use by the Old Girls of LCGSG has developed - albeit rather slowly. Not having a well developed organisation or website it has not been easy for them to decide what they wanted to do with our offer. In the event we (the OLO) decided that running two organisations on one website was not practical. We therefore decided, unilaterally, to open the OLO to Old Girls and Old Boys on an equal footing with one common data base. For the next year or two we will introduce various items of interest to the Old Girls. The number of Old Girls signing up for OLO membership has so far been quite small - mostly wives or sisters of Old Boys! We have every confidence that it will increase more rapidly when the word speads through the grapevine.
E
have learned that the Chairman and the Chapel trustees are considering having another reunion in September next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the LCGSB Chapel. It also happens to be the 80th anniversary of the opening of the boys school in 1930. We had assumed that reunions every four years were becoming the norm. After some doubts about holding another reunion after such a short interval we have agreed to make this known to members and see how they respond. The extra work involved will undoubtedly delay the plans for changess to the website and the induction of a new webmaster.
A necessary preliminary to a reunion in 2010 will be to get back in contact with about two hundred members who have disappeared off our radar in the last few years. Some move, some change email address, others get hospitalised and many have died. We do have a system for trying to re-estabish contact using free off-peak phone calls but it is a time consuming task. This will begin before Xmas and extend into the new year.
We have already received a few panoramic photos taken at the Girls Grammar School. These will be integrated in the "Name Faces" facility. We hope that this will become a compelling attraction for the Old Girls. We also plan to show the LCGSG "Chronicle" magazine if and when they are discovered.
We are pleased to report that total membership has recovered, after finding quite few "Lost" members and recruiting several Old Girls. We are now at about a nine hundred and we anticipate growth to about eleven hundred by next summer.