Kia ora, Talofa, Malo e lelei, Kia Orana, Fakaalofa lahi atu, and Greetings.
The Alumni is progressing well at present although the Alumni Board would dearly love to see the membership of 70 to date, renew and grow substantially over the next 11 months before the 60th Year Reunion Celebrations commence on Friday evening 2 October 2026. For those of you who are not aware, The Alumni Board is an interim one until the election of the next one during the 60th Year Reunion Celebration. Currently we have 7 members sitting on the Board: Gary Peach Chair, Erin Poa (nee Cooper) Secretary/Finance, Jazmine Mautairi-Greig (Vice Chair/Finance), Rhonda Kite (Merchandise), Sharon Thom (Merchandise), Peter Theodore (Kaumatua) and Robyn Russell (nee Knapper) (Constitution).
Alumni Merchandise
The Alumni will have merchandise available very soon as we are currently awaiting the samples to come through from the Manufacturers. These will be advertised asap.
Catch-up Corner
It was wonderful to receive a profile story from Arthur Falkner (Te Whitu – Hillary College 1969-1971 and this is now featured on the Website.
OC,HC,SEHC Alumni Constitution
Robyn Russell (nee Knapper) and I are working on writing the OC,HC,SEHC Alumni Constitution and also investigating the Alumni becoming a fully Incorporated Society to allow us a better chance of securing some funding streams available for our types of organisations. The Constitution will be shared sometime next year for all, who are interested, to see.
SEHC Principals Meeting
I recently had another meeting with the three Principals of Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate (SEHC), and they were still very excited and supportive of the OC,HC,SEHC Alumni and upcoming 60th Year Reunion Celebration. SEHC Junior School Principal is ex Hillary College student, Vasati Vaiova, SEHC Middle School Principal is Estear Peautau and the newly appointed SEHC Principal for 2026 and beyond is ex Tangaroa College Deputy Principal, Christine Pili. They all expressed an interest in hosting the entire Reunion, including the Saturday night Dinner Function but there is a high chance this may not be possible due to some vital maintenance work which the Gymnasium (would-be venue) requires. A discussion also took place around what the Alumni will look like post the 60th Year Reunion Celebration as this Reunion is for all Otara College, Hillary College and Sir Edmund Hillary College Years 9 to 13 students, Staff and Parents of those students. As the school now encompasses Clydmore Primary School, Bairds Intermediate School Otara/Hillary Colleges and SEHC senior school (Year 9-13), the Principals agreed that we need to “unite” The Junior and Intermediate Schools into our Alumni somehow. It was suggested that this decision be discussed and the logistics worked out by the 3 Principals in conjunction with the OC,HC,SEHC Alumni Board after the 60th Year Reunion Celebration.
The newly appointed Principal of SEHC Senior School, Christine Pili, asked me if we (the Alumni) had received any funding as a “kick start” for the 60th Year Reunion Celebration to which the answer was “no”. Christine intimated she would investigate if any budget has been set aside for this purpose in the SEHC Senior School 2026 Budget.
Alumni Space at SEHC
Before the meeting with the three SEHCA Principals, I was shown the location at SEHC where the Alumni will operate out of and be able to store all our current archives, memorabilia, and upcoming Alumni merchandise as well as the 60th Year Reunion Celebration merchandise. For those members who attended Otara / Hillary College back all those years ago, the room allocated to the Alumni is what was known back then as A1 in the big “Nelson Block” closest to the side where the Otara Scorpions Rugby League Club are situated. SEHC has been very generous to the Alumni and we thank Donna Tupaea-Petero (Acting Senior Principal) and her senior management team), very sincerely for making this happen.
Alumni Membership Fees Due
Alumni Membership Fees ($20) – To maintain your Membership with the Alumni, can you please renew your membership for 2026 before December 31 2025 please? A reminder to all that your $20 goes towards the administration costs (including website maintenance) for our Alumni to operate. We would greatly appreciate your continued financial support for this to happen.
Erin will send an update out once we hear back from our IT people on how we can efficiently carry this out. We were hoping to have this sorted by this report; however it has been quite tricky and we didn’t want to delay this update any further.
Happy holidays!