Ben Wilson, Tim Bain, Class of 66 Reunion

2012 SBHS Head Boy and Dux Ben Wilson has been awarded the $25,000 New Zealand France Friendship Fund Excellence Scholarship for 2016. This will enable him to complete a PhD in supramolecular chemistry at the University of Bordeaux and the University of Canterbury.

Ben is fluent in French after studying the language at Shirley for five years. He has selected the CNRS Institutes, the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, CRPP, and the Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée, ICMCB, based at the University of Bordeaux, for their expertise and knowledge of magneto-chemistry. He will be jointly supervised by Professor Kruger at the University of Canterbury as well as Dr Rodolphe Clérac and Professor Corine Mathonière from the University of Bordeaux. This will further strengthen the ongoing international collaboration between the research groups.

The Scholarship was established in 2009 to support a New Zealand postgraduate student wishing to study at PhD or Master’s level in France. It is reciprocal and each year a French postgraduate is given the opportunity to study in New Zealand.

Tim Bain, 2009 Head Boy, shown below with his parents, receiving the Gold Medal for being the top UC Law Graduate in 2015. Not awarded every year but awarded to the student who is the best graduate of their year, and is considered to have achieved the level of academic excellence worthy of such recognition. First awarded to a Canterbury Law graduate in 1883. Tim is intending to be admitted to the High Court as a Barrister and Solicitor in December this year. He is currently working in Wellington as a Judges Clerk to the Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias.

During his time at Shirley, Tim achieved five Scholarship passes (including one in Biology), while in Year 12. He led the debating team to victory in the Press Cup Debating Challenge in 2009, the same year he was School Dux.

Congratulations Tim!

Class of 66 Reunion

Last weekend (11-12 June) some forty Shirley Old Boys held a reunion of ‘The Class of 66’, being the students who joined the School as Third Formers (Year 9s) in 1966 and went on to become Seniors in 1969/70.

Organised by John Gallagher, the son of the first Headmaster Charles Gallagher, and Head Boy 1970, this was most successful, capped off by a visit to the School Archives and a tour around the school.

As Old Boy Les Basher writes:

‘It was great finding out what people have done with their lives and the reminiscences about school days made for lots of laughs. The school visit today was pretty special and again bought back lots of good memories. The archival collection was amazing and helped recall a lot of things about our school days. I was encouraged that many people's memories were as bad as my own, but between us we remembered lots of things (the mind, and body, are not what they used to be!)’