JULY 2021 MAILOUT NEWSLETTER
CELEBRATE 105 YEARS OF COBURG HIGH SCHOOL!
All former students and staff of Coburg High School from the 1940s to the present are invited to a special celebration – the 105th birthday of our school.
This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet old friends, enjoy the beautiful campus, tour the buildings of the new school, and enjoy each other’s company.
SATURDAY 16th OCTOBER, 2021 from 11AM to 4PM
PLACE: COBURG HIGH SCHOOL, 101 URQUHART ST COBURG. (Behind McDonald Reserve)
You'll be able to book through
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/coburg-high-school-105th-anniversary-tickets-156854743761
Put this date in your diary now and spread the word to friends and contemporaries through your personal networks and social media.
Further details and updates available on the CHSHG website coburghighhistorical.org.
GREETINGS TO FORMER STUDENTS & TEACHERS OF CHS
We trust that you are keeping well and that life has settled down after the rigours of 2020. Despite protracted lockdowns and travel restrictions, the CHSHG committee continued to meet (online) and plan for the future. Since late in Term 1, we have been able to meet again on school premises and resume work in our H. P. Bennett Room in Building A.
CONNECTIONS WITH THE RE-BORN COBURG HIGH SCHOOL
During 2020, our links with the school grew even stronger. Encouraged by Principal Stewart Milner, several of us from the 1940s to 1970s made a group video message for Year 12 students about to sit final exams. There is a link to this message on the Home page of our website www.coburghighhistorical.org We also contributed several pages to the first Coburg High School Year Book in December 2020.Following this, we were invited to attend the long-delayed CHS Year 12 Home Coming on 1st March 2021, where renowned alumnus and epidemiologist, Emeritus Professor John Mathews (CHS 1952-57), addressed the 2020 Year 12s, the first group to complete six years of secondary education at Coburg High School in many years. . https://newsletters.naavi.com/i/6NAQL9N/issue-1/page/1
Doris Jessie Carter OBE (b. 1912, d. 1999, CHS 1923-28) Trophy Rescue
Many of us know a little about Doris Carter OBE, after whom Carter House (formerly Green) was named in 1961. The first Australian female track and field athlete (high jump) to make an Olympic Games final (Berlin, 1936), military officer (pilot), public servant and sports administrator, she excelled in many fields. She was honoured with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1957 and co-led the Anzac Day Parade in Melbourne in 1996 at the age of 84.
In January this year, an anonymous donor presented then-Acting Principal Gary Vella with a collection of 12 battered trophies awarded to the young Doris Carter and dating back to her time as CHS Sports Champion in 1926 and spanning over ten years as she dominated athletics in Victoria. By a stroke of good luck and keen observation, this generous individual had rescued them from certain destruction in a Melbourne scrap metal yard. Expertly restored to their former glory by committee member Martin Clements, and accompanied by an outline of Doris’s career, they are now installed in a display cabinet in the school foyer.
Plans are underway to expand the display and present a more detailed account of the life and career of this extraordinary woman.
VALE BRUCE HENSHALL (CHS 1937-1941)
We were saddened in April this year by the death of Bruce Henshall, at the age of 95. A distinguished metallurgist at ICI for many years and married to fellow CHS student June Bowen for 72 years, Bruce was the last of the original Coburg High School Historical Group.
In 1993, this small group of alumni from 1941-1947 – Rex Harcourt, Dr. Ern Aldred and Don Lugg – salvaged what they could of Coburg High School’s 70 years of records when the school relocated from Bell Street to the former RMIT site. Thanks to their determined efforts, the CHSHG committee members are custodians of Coburg High’s precious records and memorabilia for the benefit of present and future generations. Bruce remained an active and valued member of the present committee, attending meetings regularly until recent times. He will be very much missed.
IMPORTANT ANOUNCEMENT
With the exception of ex-students who are Life or Annual members, this newsletter will be our last contact by mail. As much as we would like to keep you informed of our activities, this decision is due to increased postage costs and lack of personnel on our part.
Details about membership and benefits are in this newsletter.
The most cost-effective way of distributing our newsletters is by email.
If you now have an email address or that of a family member, please send it to alumni@coburg.vic.edu.au so that we can include you in all future newsletters.
How You Can Help Us to Preserve the History and Spirit of Coburg High School.
The benefits to your family of a repository of your school’s history are there long after you are gone.
Send us an email alumni@coburg.edu.vic.au or call our hotline 0472568359 and tell us what you would like to do. Any contribution you can make will be greatly appreciated by generations of students, past, present and future.
All former students and staff of Coburg High School from the 1940s to the present are invited to a special celebration – the 105th birthday of our school.
This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet old friends, enjoy the beautiful campus, tour the buildings of the new school, and enjoy each other’s company.
SATURDAY 16th OCTOBER, 2021 from 11AM to 4PM
PLACE: COBURG HIGH SCHOOL, 101 URQUHART ST COBURG. (Behind McDonald Reserve)
You'll be able to book through
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/coburg-high-school-105th-anniversary-tickets-156854743761
Put this date in your diary now and spread the word to friends and contemporaries through your personal networks and social media.
Further details and updates available on the CHSHG website coburghighhistorical.org.
GREETINGS TO FORMER STUDENTS & TEACHERS OF CHS
We trust that you are keeping well and that life has settled down after the rigours of 2020. Despite protracted lockdowns and travel restrictions, the CHSHG committee continued to meet (online) and plan for the future. Since late in Term 1, we have been able to meet again on school premises and resume work in our H. P. Bennett Room in Building A.
CONNECTIONS WITH THE RE-BORN COBURG HIGH SCHOOL
During 2020, our links with the school grew even stronger. Encouraged by Principal Stewart Milner, several of us from the 1940s to 1970s made a group video message for Year 12 students about to sit final exams. There is a link to this message on the Home page of our website www.coburghighhistorical.org We also contributed several pages to the first Coburg High School Year Book in December 2020.Following this, we were invited to attend the long-delayed CHS Year 12 Home Coming on 1st March 2021, where renowned alumnus and epidemiologist, Emeritus Professor John Mathews (CHS 1952-57), addressed the 2020 Year 12s, the first group to complete six years of secondary education at Coburg High School in many years. . https://newsletters.naavi.com/i/6NAQL9N/issue-1/page/1
Doris Jessie Carter OBE (b. 1912, d. 1999, CHS 1923-28) Trophy Rescue
Many of us know a little about Doris Carter OBE, after whom Carter House (formerly Green) was named in 1961. The first Australian female track and field athlete (high jump) to make an Olympic Games final (Berlin, 1936), military officer (pilot), public servant and sports administrator, she excelled in many fields. She was honoured with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1957 and co-led the Anzac Day Parade in Melbourne in 1996 at the age of 84.
In January this year, an anonymous donor presented then-Acting Principal Gary Vella with a collection of 12 battered trophies awarded to the young Doris Carter and dating back to her time as CHS Sports Champion in 1926 and spanning over ten years as she dominated athletics in Victoria. By a stroke of good luck and keen observation, this generous individual had rescued them from certain destruction in a Melbourne scrap metal yard. Expertly restored to their former glory by committee member Martin Clements, and accompanied by an outline of Doris’s career, they are now installed in a display cabinet in the school foyer.
Plans are underway to expand the display and present a more detailed account of the life and career of this extraordinary woman.
VALE BRUCE HENSHALL (CHS 1937-1941)
We were saddened in April this year by the death of Bruce Henshall, at the age of 95. A distinguished metallurgist at ICI for many years and married to fellow CHS student June Bowen for 72 years, Bruce was the last of the original Coburg High School Historical Group.
In 1993, this small group of alumni from 1941-1947 – Rex Harcourt, Dr. Ern Aldred and Don Lugg – salvaged what they could of Coburg High School’s 70 years of records when the school relocated from Bell Street to the former RMIT site. Thanks to their determined efforts, the CHSHG committee members are custodians of Coburg High’s precious records and memorabilia for the benefit of present and future generations. Bruce remained an active and valued member of the present committee, attending meetings regularly until recent times. He will be very much missed.
IMPORTANT ANOUNCEMENT
With the exception of ex-students who are Life or Annual members, this newsletter will be our last contact by mail. As much as we would like to keep you informed of our activities, this decision is due to increased postage costs and lack of personnel on our part.
Details about membership and benefits are in this newsletter.
The most cost-effective way of distributing our newsletters is by email.
If you now have an email address or that of a family member, please send it to alumni@coburg.vic.edu.au so that we can include you in all future newsletters.
How You Can Help Us to Preserve the History and Spirit of Coburg High School.
The benefits to your family of a repository of your school’s history are there long after you are gone.
- Join the Coburg High School Historical Group
- Make a donation or a bequest.
- Be a part of the Archive Team
- Buy a copy of the CHS history
- Donate a book to the recently established Library at Coburg High School.
Send us an email alumni@coburg.edu.vic.au or call our hotline 0472568359 and tell us what you would like to do. Any contribution you can make will be greatly appreciated by generations of students, past, present and future.