SGHS

SGHS Old Girls' Assn Wellington Branch Celebrates 60 Years

A wonderful gathering of thirty SGHS ‘old’ girls along with a few husbands and two daughters took place at a celebratory lunch on a bright and sunny day at the Angus Inn in Lower Hutt on Saturday, October 28, 2017.

President, Veronica Simonsen (Leask) in appropriate red shoes, welcomed everyone with a particular reference to those who had travelled some distance to attend – Dunedin, Hawkes Bay and Nelson. The School Song, written many years ago by the Aunt of one of the luncheon attendees, was sung unaccompanied and judging by the volume, was well remembered after all these years.

The Toast to Absent Friends was proposed by Wynnis Trippner (McNaughton) and the Toast to the School by Hilary Young (Poole). Hilary gave us a potted history of the school including the march from Forth Street in which many of those in the audience took part. Hilary concluded with -

“History is a living thing. The school is still making it and so are we as an Old Girls’ branch. Woven through the changing decades is the strong thread of the motto given to us in the first decade- ‘Non Scholae Sed Vitae Discimus’, ‘not for school but for life we are learning’, a motto as relevant today as it was all those years ago.

Southland Girls’ High School will remain ‘our school’. We value our time there, the lessons learnt, the friendships we made, some of which continue today among the ex-pupils gathered here to mark our milestone.”

A letter of congratulation received from the current Principal of Southland Girls’, Yvonne Browning, was read in reply by Shirley Baker (Milliken). In part it read –

“Congratulations to you all, 60 years is a marvellous milestone and is an incredible and enduring achievement for your Association. As an Old Girl of the School, I too feel the love for this School as you all obviously do. I feel immensely proud when I tell people that the School has Old Girl Associations spread throughout New Zealand. It is through such Associations that the SGHS influence and reputation continues to grow.

I am fond of saying ‘Once a Southland Girls’ High School Girl, always a Southland Girls’ High School Girl’. You are living proof that this is true.”

Leadership Team

Leadership Team

Yvonne Browning - Principal (on Sabbatical Term 3 2017)

Noreen Melvin -Acting Principal

Erin Pickering

Acting Deputy Principal

Diane Fletcher - Assistant Principal

Jane Bell - Acting Head of Junior School

Rowana Skelt - Assistant Principal