Rector’s eNews 38: 27 November 2024

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As we come to the end of 2024, we reflect on a year of tremendous endeavour and achievement at all levels by the boys and a year in which the happy sounds of their playing out on the fields, on the tennis, padel or squash courts and elsewhere have been matched more recently by their quiet focus in their dorms and exam halls. It has been a year of great highs and one of sadness, too, of growth in your sons in the academic realm, in sport and cultural activities. It has also been a year of growth for many in their spiritual lives, in the aspects of the boys that you may not be able to see so readily, in their values and in the things for which they stand. And now there is much to which they can look forward – the smell of the summer holiday is upon us all.

For our staff, too, this is a time when they contemplate spending more time with their families and there are also staff retiring or moving on to fresh challenges. I have spoken previously about those servants of Michaelhouse who have given, in some cases, as many as 35 years of their lives to live alongside boys and to seek to play a role in their development. Their roles have differed from teaching in the classroom to washing the clothes of the boys or being a shoulder to cry on. Each part of the body has a function and so it is in a school.

We honour those who are retiring such as Mrs Miriam Mlotshwa and Mrs Shakila Moola, along with Mr Richard McMichael and those who are moving on to new challenges in their lives such as Mr Gerry Noel, Ms Aldi Smith, Mr Joshua Turnbull and interns who will be, for the most part, taking up the challenge of full time teaching for the first time: Mr Anele Cebo, Mr Robert Pike, Mr Max Becker, Mr Minenhle Ngubane, Mr Mvelase Mbambisa, Mr Sinethemba Mabaleka and Mr David Pachonick. Others such as Mr Isaac Jarvis, Ms Sindi Mnikathi and Mrs Thando Khanyile are headed in different directions.

We thank them all for their Michaelhouse years and wish them further fulfilment and reward in the future.

We look forward to Christmas, a time of celebration of the birth of Christ over 2000 years ago, of togetherness with family and friends and of giving thanks for our many blessings.

It is appropriate here to share with you news of the development of the Chapel as it goes up, brick by brick, to honour our Christian heritage and to be once again the central and focal point of the school.

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