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This year’s careers fair was held in the Great Hall on the 7th of November. The formal part of the evening ran from 7-8.30pm and brought together members of the Old King’s Club whom were interested in presenting. We had volunteers presenting careers in the following areas:

– Psychology

– Chartered Accounting/ CPA

– Computing, including cyber security

– Biomedical scientists

– Biochemists

– Biotechnologists

– Design Engineers 

– Physicists

– Digital content industry

– Sports Industry

– The Arts – actors, artists, graphic artists, musicians, photographers, curators

– Sports Industry 

– Marketing, including social media marketing

David Buckley (OK1980), Honorary Secretary, hosted autumn drinks for around 100 OKs at the Naval Club in Mayfair.

I’m pleased to report that we managed to retain the Old King’s Club v. Old Kingstonians trophy on 18 September by a score of 3-2. Quite an exciting day, as we were level until the end of the last match.

As the OKs remarked, this was the closest they have come to winning the trophy. It now has OKC as the winner for every year we have played for it since ints inception in 2013. In fact we have won the match with/without the trophy since we first met in 2010.

Individual results were:

Druckman and Phillips – Won 4 and 3

Taylor and Gregory – Lost 6 and 5 to a very fine performance by their captain, Richard Wickerson – no shame here!

Gems and Damon – Lost 2 and 1

Grover and Messent – Won by 2 holes

McGinn and Lovett – Won 4 and 2

/ Peter Taylor (OK 1961)

This year’s competition was played at Bramley GC with a shot-gun start for the 72 players. The weather was beautiful being hot with a light breeze and the course was in fine condition despite not having seen any rain for ages. The star of our team was Lance Condon with 37 points, which made him runner up to the best score on the day of 42 – well played Lance. Jonathan Poole had a good round scoring 32 points but the other three, myself included, failed to get into the thirties.

The winning team was from the Old Tiffinians with 175 points from five players, which is a remarkable average of 35 points. Bramley provided an excellent lunch for us all and one of the organising team, Brian Collison, set up a bar tab for every player’s first drink -thank you very much Brian and Martin. The competition will be organised by the O T’s next year and the year after at a venue to be decided by them.

Graham Cox   July 2018

The Wimbledon Guild, the local charity that provides people in Merton with help and support in times of need, has linked up with King’s College School Lodge Number 4257.

KCS Lodge, an accredited activity of King’s College School’s Old King’s Club, has chosen Wimbledon Guild to be one of their non-masonic charities. Speaking about the partnership, Wendy Pridmore, chief executive, Wimbledon Guild, said: “Linking up with local organisations and companies is key to helping us in terms of raising awareness of our services, fundraising and increasing our volunteer base. Our services help people throughout the borough of Merton in a variety of ways, particularly assisting those who are lonely and isolated through our outreach team and befriending service. With over 120 activities a month we encourage people to get out-and-about and be part of new social groups and take up new pastimes. We also help many who are struggling to deal with everything that life can throw at us through our counselling services and bereavement support team. In addition, through our small grants programme we can help those in desperate need to purchase essential goods they cannot afford. Support from groups such as KCS Lodge is vital for us to continue to provide these services and we very much appreciate the support and help they will give us.”

Richard Criddle, a member of the KCS Lodge and Treasurer of the Old King’s Club, explained why they have chosen Wimbledon Guild as one of their supported charities: “The excellent community support and services run by the Wimbledon Guild resonate with Freemasons in Surrey – and in particular the members of King’s College School Lodge who are part of the local community and keen to do their bit through charitable giving and voluntary work. The Lodge is very proud to support the Wimbledon Guild wherever possible, and we hope this is just the beginning of our long-term patronage of their work.”

The Triangular Match between OKC, Kingston Grammar School OB’s and Raynes Park OB’s was played at Surrey Downs GC on 24^th April. The course is relatively new and was the venue for last year’s match, receiving good reports from the players. The weather was excellent for golf but we were outplayed by the KGS team. For the 18-hole stableford match we scored myself 36, Graham Morris 34, Lance Condon 30 and Micky King and Andrew Copeman both 29 – total 158. The winners were the KGS team with 38, 36, 34, 33 and 30 – total 171. The star on the day was Brian Vennard of the Raynes Park OB team with a magnificent 42 points and he walked away with the Martin Fielding cup. Oddly enough he happened to have with him his handicap certificate – I wonder why?

The Spring Meeting was at Malden GC on 24^th May with 15 OB’s teeing off. I played with Michael Choong whose handicap is 3. Playing with someone of this level of skill is a new experience for me and it was rather humbling, since I have played quite well recently with mid 30 scores on several occasions off my 18 handicap. Michael’s saw every stroke of less then 200 yds as a possibility to get close to the pin for a birdie. This he achieved four times in the first nine holes but he also got three bogeys thus scoring one under par for his round with 70. Naturally he won the Blades Cup.

The stableford Bill Cox Cup was a very closely fought matter. M. C. got 40 points but was not eligible, since he had already won a cup. The scores were very close with Peter Messent 36, Neil Price and Lance Condon both on 35, Graham Morris and Peter Taylor both on 34 and John Oliver on 33. Next came Chris Diacon on 32 and Fred Grover and David Cross were both on 31.

The Blades Cup was initiated by George Rowland Blades (1868-1953), who lived in Sydenham, Kent and was a pupil at KCS (in the Strand at that time) leaving in 1886 to join his family printing business, rising to become its chairman. In 1913 he was elected to the Corporation of London, he served as Sheriff of London from 1917-1918 and was Knighted during his term of office. In 1918 he was elected to Parliament for Epsom until 1928, he was created Baronet of Ebbisham, which is the old name of Epsom, in 1922. He was Lord Mayor of London from 1926 to 1927 and was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in 1927.

The Blades Cup is actually ‘The Old Kings Golf Society Challenge Cup Presented by G R Blades Esq. 1910’ and has a Birmingham hallmark made in in 1910. He won the cup in 1911. George R. Blades was a founder member of the KCS Lodge in 1921 and presented the Lodge with a Bible dated 1622. The first “King James” Bible was published in 1611. The first Bible in modern English was published in the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547).

Graham Cox May 2018