John Carpenter Club President, Mark Stockton’s address to the City of London School Senior Sixth form – 2nd May 2017
Head, Members of the Common Room, Gentlemen,
It is my great pleasure and privilege as President of the John Carpenter Club to be with you today as you embark on the second week of your final term at this very special school.
The next few weeks will race by in a blur of nervous energy and adrenalin as you complete your exams and then head off for a well-deserved summer break and a new and exciting future. This school will have equipped you very well for the new challenges that lie ahead.
You have been fortunate to have received a first-class academic education, stimulated by a liberal, supportive pastoral environment which has encouraged you to be resilient, to think creatively but has also imbued you with a strong social conscience, respect for the views of your peers and concern for the welfare of others. Through sport, charitable endeavours and group activities you will have learned the importance of teamwork. You will leave CLS as worldly-wise, at ease in a diverse environment, polite, well-balanced young men, self-confident and upbeat but not arrogant. These are great attributes to take with you on life’s journey, in your new capacity as Old Citizens and we recognise these as traits for which Old Citizens are known.
For although you will be leaving the school you will entitled to join a new club, the John Carpenter Club (“JCC”), your alumni association, as a pre-paid life member. This is a wonderful way in which to keep in touch with not only your year group but also to embrace the fellowship of Old Citizens of all generations. We all share the same schooling DNA and the values that we learnt there.
The John Carpenter Club was founded in 1851 and we have been sending out a regular magazine since 1898. We hold a rich archive of articles and photographs and we keep this up-to-date as new members join us. We are a forward-looking body and this is reflected in the club’s main purposes which are four-fold:-
Firstly, to support boys and OCs throughout every stage of their professional lives. As alumni we passionately want to give back to recent school-leavers and senior pupils at the school by providing work experience and potential internship opportunities to past and present pupils. In your case this is achieved by keeping in touch with you, offering careers advice and mentoring and professional and industry networking. There are Old Citizens in many different industries and professions, and members of the Club can offer useful information and contacts to current students and recent leavers in a variety of career sectors.
Secondly, to update members with OC and CLS news and to facilitate contact between OCs, using the most modern media: website, social media and the Gazette (both print and digital). We aim to act as the fulcrum for maintaining contact between Old Citizens of all ages, including Year Group Reunions, University Visits & social drinks (starting for London University students in 2017 and expanding to Oxford, Cambridge and others in 2018) and via professional and common interest groups. We already have dedicated groups for Architects, Lawyers, Medics, Finance, Property and with access to your accurate contact details we can filter circulation lists based on your own areas of interest. Our alumni relations officer, Cami Patel, who is here this morning can explain this to you in more detail.
We also hold a number of themed JCC dinners including the 2017 Society, Lodge & Chapter and AGM Dinner.
Thirdly, the club works in partnership with the school and in particular Jackie Lancaster to raise funds for financially-disadvantaged boys for which the club currently contributes 5 half-bursaries from its own member’s resources. We also have a hardship fund which can react quickly to channel urgent funds in special needy circumstances, notably when other avenues are not available. Old Citizens continue to endow the school with new facilities, including the Winterflood Theatre and most recently the wonderful Levene Learning Centre.
The fourth leg of the club, and a very important one to boot, if you’ll pardon the pun, is our range of sporting activities. These include Soccer, Cricket, Golf, Fives, Water Polo where the club puts out teams on a regular basis. We play soccer in the Public Schools Arthurian League, Fives in Divs 2 & 3 of the national league, Water Polo in the Thameside league and golf where we play in the annual Halford Hewitt Cup at Deal representing CLS (10 players / 5 pairs in 4-somes match play against some of the best amateur golfers in GB) and Cyril Gray tournament at Worplesdon (over-50s). Our cricketers boast some fine players (Sam Packer, a 2013 leaver, turns out for us) and they play a good standard of very enjoyable non-league fixtures around the London area. We also have an annual sporting dinner where all clubs are invited and this took place recently. Although we play to win we always enjoy the camaraderie of the occasion and win or lose we prize the opportunity to spend time with fellow Old Citizens. We also seek to support and subsidise where possible school sport, with a focus on the provision of coaching. There is also no reason why you cannot start up your own sports club in future, perhaps Table Tennis, Basketball or Fencing.
It is in this vein that I encourage each of you to seize any prospect of meeting up with members of the John Carpenter Club where you will receive a very warm welcome. This does not have to be necessarily via sponsored events or sporting fixtures and works equally well through social media contact and informal gatherings which are easy to circulate and arrange today. Indeed the club is currently updating its’ members website area to facilitate the self-update of contact details which will help us all keep in touch. The club aims to deliver modern connectivity with our members that will endure for future generations.
So I have told you about some of the things that you can expect from your club and you might be asking yourselves what you need to do to avail yourselves of these opportunities. Well, not much yet but there is one that we do need you to do for us today:-
In order to comply with current Data Protection requirements it is imperative that you affirm your express agreement to join the John Carpenter Club by signing the “Opt-In” form that has been provided to you. Only by you doing this now does the club have the ability to contact you in future. Incidentally this is also the only way that your School can communicate with you in future and hold your data after you leave the school. Please do ensure that you hand back your signed form to Jackie or Cami as you leave the theatre this morning
Grouch Marks, the comic actor, once quoted “I would not want to be a member of any club which would accept me as a member”. I know that you do not share his view regarding the JCC, but the reality is that if we cannot contact you, you won’t feel like a member.
You might wonder how the JCC is structured. The JCC annually elects a President from its number (currently me) and he chairs its General Committee. This is the body that sets the organisation’s overall strategy and the Head is always invited to and regularly attends its meetings. There is also an Executive Committee, a sub-group of 6 senior members who carry out the day-to-day work of the JCC, including regular communications with the school Head, Bursar, Jackie & Cami, who manages e-bulletins and magazine, in her capacity as the Alumni Relations Officer (ARO).
The JCC is totally committed to the ambition that the School should be a beacon of sustained inclusive excellence. It has undertaken major changes in recent years to ensure it is best placed to support the School and its pupils and to reach out effectively to all its members and particularly its younger members. The John Carpenter Club considers that an important characteristic of a successful school is a strong and vibrant alumni body, which whilst independent, seeks to liaise closely with the Head, Common Room and Governors in order to align its focus to the School’s vision and long-term plans.
It is vital too that we offer the school and its pupils both career “shop window” experience, guidance and mentoring and in so doing provide current pupils and new leavers with some of the many opportunities afforded to us in the past.
It is traditional for the President to have a theme for his year in office and mine is “City Links”. When I left school I was sponsored by JCC members to obtain my Freedom of the City of London and subsequently to become a Liveryman of the Makers of Playing Cards. It would be wonderful if more young Old Citizens followed this path in order to become liverymen and thus maintain their interest and connection with the City and its 800-year civic traditions. The JCC can play a role in making this happen. I feel that we share an affinity with the charitable purposes at the heart of City livery companies activities, reminding us of our school roots and its foundation by John Carpenter. CLS boys past and present have consistently proved their aptitude for successful charitable fund-raising.
I have very much enjoyed the opportunity to address you this morning and I hope that you will want to take full advantage of your shortly to be acquired status as Old Citizens and as life members of the John Carpenter Club. I look forward to keeping in touch with you as you chart your future course.
-------------