New members
You will be aware that the Association has for three years now been run by Bill King, Mike Dodden and myself. As our numbers grow, so we have felt it appropriate to grow our band of organisers. We recently had a team gathering where new faces joined us. I'm delighted to say that Peter Ruddock, Gavin Morris, Ralph Sealey and our much respected former sports master Mal Davies joined our throng and we had one or two others unable to join us because of other commitments. Hopefully Ray Haines, a great source of tales from the Crush Hall, and Ron Peberdy will join us next time round. Having grown our committee, we now look to yourselves to help us grow the membership. We have allowed 200 places for the dinner this September and at the time of writing half of those places are gone. We have capacity this year which we lacked in previous years thanks to the bigger venue. So we need you all to consider who else could come along. If each of you could invite just one more old boy, we will fill the place to capacity once again.

Fresh ideas
Thanks to the intake of fresh committee members, we have bounced around some new ideas. One idea is a Spring Ball with partners. Another idea is to organise visits to West End shows with a weekend away or an evening trip to a Bristol show when a West End one comes to our region.
Let us know what you think. Perhaps you could give feedback to one of the committee members or email me with your thoughts.

Tales from the Crush Hall
Barry Morgan will regret the confession he recently made to me when he reads this. He'd left his membership form behind at the dinner and had to call me to get a new one. He confessed to having had one drink too many and thus explained leaving the form behind. It may also explain his behaviour towards Pete Bevan.
The story goes back twenty five years to an inter-house cricket match. Cromwell were favourites to win, with eight of the school team in their side, but Hopton were to be no push overs. (Personally I can't understand why Fairfax aren't involved in this story).
Barry Morgan had taken six wickets, with Dave Crosier mopping up the other four. Cromwell had scored 20 runs.
With Hopton in to bat and down to the final wicket, the score stood at 19. Pete Bevan, as a lower order batsman, was facing the bowling. Catching an outside edge, the ball went through slips for four runs. Barry Morgan was so excited he wanted to kiss Pete Bevan, but that wasn't the way boys behaved at Dr. Morgan's.
And so on the night of our last dinner, a well lubricated and uninhibited Barry Morgan fulfilled his 25 year long ambition much to the surprise of Pete Bevan. I hasten to add, the now Reverend Peter Bevan was innocent in this affair with insufficient time to take evasive action and deserves all our sympathy!
Your committee is now considering a detention period for Barry Morgan in order to permit him time to reflect. As a Fairfax lad, I think he deserves everything he gets!
When Roger Richards read the story of Jack Lawrence in our Christmas newsletter and the alleged 'shooting', it reminded him of a near miss with a javelin. Ian Mitchell was throwing the javelin and achieving distances well beyond the usual standard for the school. What he failed to realise was that just beyond the horizon, where the ground level dipped away, was Mike Stanton, one of our masters. The realisation of his presence came only when Mr. Stanton popped up like a rabbit from over the brow declaring 'We lose a lot of PE masters like that!'. The javelin had missed him by just two feet.
Once again, give me a ring or drop me a line if you have any tales to tell and I'll include them in future editions.

Roger Evans, Bill King and Mike Dodden