President’s Welcome

Welcome to the first ever edition of our OCA online newsletter. We hope to maintain what we all loved in the OCA Magazine but present it in a condensed and interactive format!

I took on the OCA Presidency recently, following my election at the Annual General Meeting on Thursday 2 December. I started at Cranbrook at St Michael’s in Kindergarten and graduated in the Class of 1998. I have a passion for seeing the School and its alumni thrive.

I would like to thank Jason Graham-Nye for his three years of service as President. Jason will continue to be a member of the OCA Committee and a leader of our community. Jason took over the Presidency in one of the most difficult moments the OCA has faced and has done a stellar job in rebuilding the relationship with the School and the trust of our members.

While the Global Pandemic did disrupt the OCA’s normal cadence of events such as year group reunions and, in particular, caused us to postpone the Centenary Sports Day, we have been able to deliver some successful and high impact virtual events, none more so than the conversation between Mike Cannon-Brookes and Ed Cowan for our first ever virtual Business Breakfast.

COVID has provided us the space to think deeply about the kind of Alumni association we want to be. Like our peer group organisations a lot of focus has been placed on mental health and wellbeing, a topic that COVID has shone a light on.

We will be launching a new OCA mentoring platform in 2022 which we hope will be used in 1:1 mentoring, group mentoring and potentially the delivery of mental wellness programs. While catching up with old friends and classmates will always be an important part of our mission, we hope to evolve into an organisation that can support Old Cranbrookians, no matter how old or young, in a holistic way and keep them connected to each other and to the School. These are all priorities that I know that Jason, the Committee and I share.

2022 presents as a year of executing many of the exciting events and ideas that we conceived under Jason’s leadership. The MP2 Project and its resultant buildings at the main School campus will provide the opportunity for us to reimagine some of these events in spaces that are uniquely ours.

On behalf of the Old Cranbrookians’ Association Committee, I offer you the best wishes for the festive season and a happy, healthy and fulfilling New Year.

Joe Karsay (OC 1998)
President, Old Cranbrookians’ Association

OC of the Year Awards

The Old Cranbrookian and Young Old Cranbrookian of the Year Awards allows the acknowledgement of two recipients annually who are making powerful and positive differences in our community, and around the world.

Winners of the Awards were announced at the Senior School Prize Giving event in December to both live and live streamed audiences. The OCA Committee is thrilled with the success of this new Awards format and is looking forward to working with our 2022 Award recipients over the course of next year.

These two Old Cranbrookians marry personal fulfilment with professional success with ethical citizenship, are fabulous exemplars of the Old Cranbrookian ethos and we congratulate them on their success.

Nicholas Sampson, Headmaster

Generational Connections

Each year, Cranbrook seeks to acknowledge those families who have a longstanding connection with the School at a special Handover Ceremony, to recognise and honour these generational links. Sadly, the School was unable to hold this ceremony this year. In readiness for 2022, we started to reach out to families to better understand their longstanding links with Cranbrook School.

Currently, there are close to 280 boys who are either the son or grandson of an Old Cranbrookian at the School.

Sarah Landman, current parent

Sons Paul (Year 1), Joseph (Year 3), Jack (Year 6), father, Paul (OC 1954) and cousin, Angus McNiven (OC 2015).

My Dad (Dr Paul Knight OC’54) attended Cranbrook from 4 years of age, 1 July 1944 until 12 December 1955. He always spoke so fondly of his education, completing the Leaving Certificate twice, as was common at the time, first in 1954 and then again in 1955. I recall Dad mentioning he repeated his final certificate and now I can rest easy that he wasn’t telling us any tales about his place in the first XV.

He remained best of friends with his Cranbrook classmates and four of them delivered his eulogy in 2015. He would be so proud to see his school honouring this connection.

I really enjoy reading about Dad’s time at Cranbrook and sharing it with my family; particularly my own boys. It’s incredible to see the resemblance between a young Paul Knight and some of his grandsons. He would be so proud to know they are attending ‘his school’.  Dad’s school friendships remained strong until his death. I was speaking with a friend (an old Cranbrookian) and he credits his very large and solid friendship base to his school network. I think it’s very important to remain friends with those who knew you when you were young and it makes me so happy my boys may enjoy the same long-lasting relationships. 

Picture L-R: Jack Landman (Year 6) Angus McNiven (OC 2015), Dr Paul Knight (OC ’54) and Jack McNiven

Back to the Future – First XV 1987

Five members of the 1st XV team in 1987 have recently had sons at the School. Their sons share their fathers’ passion for the game.

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Around the Campus

At Cranbrook, the New Year will be enhanced by the completion of the new buildings, set for the first half of 2022.   This has been transformative project.  The School has been the subject of a few additions in past decades but nothing compares with this project, which will include the new Centenary Building, replacing the War Memorial Hall and incorporates a great hall, theatre spaces, sports courts, dining commons, tiered learning stairs, a Chapel, orchestral rehearsal room and house areas. This building will overlook the newly re-laid Hordern Oval. Underneath the Oval will be the new Cranbrook School Aquatic & Fitness Centre which comprises a 50-metre Olympic swimming pool, Learn-to-Swim pool, fitness centre and multipurpose court.

To see how this build has progressed during 2021, watch the short video below.

Nick Robertson (OC 1989)

Wakehurst

How did Cranbrook set you up for life after school:

Cranbrook set me up for willingness to engage and an open mindedness to embrace change.

Favourite memory/teacher/moment at Cranbrook:

There are so many fantastic memories, but one of my favourites would had to have been the 1989 Rugby Tour to Argentina with the dynamic coaching duo of Mr Greg Stone and Dr David Thomas.

University/College:

After leaving Cranbrook I spent a number of years working in the film industry as a camera attachment before heading off to film school at UCLA in California.

Current Occupation:

Film and Commercial Director.

Career Highlight:

Shooting in remote places like the Gobi Desert, the foothills of the Himalayas and the jungles of Malaysia.

What motivates you in your work:

I’m motivated by my family first and the people I work with in the creative field of film. They are drawn from the kaleidoscope of life and I find the process of film making highly invigorating. It’s an industry that’s always changing and very challenging.

Tell us something about yourself that no one really knows:

Some things are best left to the imagination.

What would you have liked to achieve in the next ten years:

In ten years time I hope to be forging forward on many new and exciting film projects or surfing down the line at some out of the way point break!

What advice would you give your Year 7 self:

Change your wet socks on Outward Bound (CITF)!

Luke Johnson (OC 1987)

Cutler

How did Cranbrook set you up for life after school:

I was born in Papua New Guinea and the experience of living there until I was 7 and a half years old shaped me in ways that Cranbrook expanded upon positively. Thanks to a really creative older sister, I was already engaged with drawing, painting and making things when I walked through the New South Head Road Gates for the first time. However I was very fortunate that at Cranbrook there was an established culture of teaching and learning that valued creative arts. It was at Cranbrook that I experienced the excellent art teaching of Mrs Ulm in the Junior School and then Mr Gregory in the Senior School. Both of these teachers equipped me with creative insights and technical skills that I have drawn upon throughout my post-school life.

Favourite memory/teacher/moment at Cranbrook:

I retain many strong memories from eleven years of schooling at Cranbrook. One memory that comes back to me often is walking into an art class (in the now demolished Mansfield Building) and seeing my art teacher, Mr Richard Gregory, drawing a large format chalk illustration on the blackboard of a significant building from architectural history. I was struck by the three-dimensional quality of the drawing and at the same time I had a sense of the inevitable, that I could do that kind of drawing too. That single memorable experience from Cranbrook often returns to me when I am doing a large scale architectural drawing across a white board or screen.

University/College:

School of Architecture, University of NSW

Current Occupation:

Designer of complex built environments. Some people call it Architecture but for me it encompasses architecture, landscape architecture and urban design as well.

Career Highlight:

Architecture is absolutely a collaborative art form so any career highlight is intimately connected with the contributions of many others: my architecture colleagues, engineers, builders and clients. A recurring highlight for me is returning again and again to a favourite building that we realised and experiencing how that building continues to get better with age. It’s like revisiting a friend. With completed buildings in Australia and Japan, I have these kind of friends in many interesting places.

What motivates you in your work:

Creating built environments that connect with their specific place. Buildings generally don’t move around. They are physically embedded in their surrounding context so it follows that built environments are best realised when they have a positive relationship with their context. That is, when they intrinsically belong to their place.

Tell us something about yourself that no one really knows:

I can eskimo roll a sea kayak ten kilometres off the coastline.

What would you have liked to achieve in the next ten years:

As a parent of three boys who will all be at Cranbrook together next year (!!!) I am really looking forward to their achievements over the next ten years. Seeing them develop into independent adults with purposeful lives is the aim that I look forward to each of them achieving in their own unique ways.

What advice would you give your Year 7 self:

Keep drawing. It’s a beautiful and rewarding endeavour.

Cranbrook Living Histories Podcast

with Dr David Thomas

Episode One: Dr Thomas talks to Anthony Abrahams (OC 1962)

Cranbrook isn’t just superficially committed to esse quam videri, I think that it actually lives it. My impression right throughout my life has been that Cranbrook was a more evolved school from the point of view of looking at the whole man.

Anthony Abrahams (OC 1962)