Message from the OF Coordinator

Vivienne Clark (Staff 2020–present)

Starting a new job at any time is an exciting and nerveracking experience. Add a global pandemic into the mix and it creates a whole other dimension, but the team at Fettes College and the OFA Committee could not have been more welcoming. It has been nearly a year since I joined the Development Team on 24th August 2020 and what a year it has been. Tucked away in our offices under the Old Music Room, we have been busy planning virtual events, creating podcasts, sharing updates on social media and engaging with Old Fettesians and the wider Fettes community. I would have loved to have met more of you in person this year but hopefully I will get the opportunity to do this soon.

A few months before I joined the team, the Fettes Community Portal was launched, and we now have over 1,800 members signed up. One of the focuses of my work since I joined is helping OFs to connect and engage across the regions. To do that I have been having some wonderful conversations with OF Regional Representatives and setting up regional groups on the portal where OFs can plan events and share memories. There are always more groups being added so make sure you keep an eye out for your regional group appearing on Fettes Community. Thank you to all the OF Regional Reps for their help and support with this project.

Being the OF Coordinator in the year in which we have celebrated the 150th anniversary of Fettes and 50 years of girls joining the school has been a privilege and required me to hit the ground running. In the week leading up to 11th September 2020, the 50th anniversary of welcoming our first girl, I prepared and published 18 posts across Twitter and Facebook. The final anniversary image of the flag flying was also shared on LinkedIn, where there were 4,563 impressions, 167 reactions and 19 new followers as a result. Less than a month later, it was time to celebrate the 150th birthday of Fettes College. The anniversary weekend was not as we had originally planned as we would have loved to have the campus filled with OFs, but the 5th October was a special day nonetheless. You can read all about how we celebrated from page 34. One standout moment for me during this day was the first school photo re-enactment. In the afternoon, we gathered 53 Third Form students and the Senior Leadership Team in front of the West arcades. While they all arranged themselves into position, armed with a blown-up copy of the original image, I set about finding the exact angle the original photograph was taken from. After some deliberation with the school photographer, I settled on the final spot. Standing on the exact spot the photographer would have stood on 150 years ago was a poignant moment. I paused to reflect on what Fettes would have been like in those days, how the carvings remained largely the same bar a bit of weather damage, and how many Fettesians would have walked along those arcades in the last 150 years during their daily life. That type of moment is hard to recreate and will be one that stays with me for a long time.

One of my favourite aspects of the job, and one of the main reasons I applied to join Fettes, is connecting with OFs. When Roger Muirhead MBE MRCVS (Mo 1935–1939), the oldest OF we are in touch with, turned 100 on 17th April 2021, I sent him a letter, a card and a gift to wish him happy birthday from everyone at Fettes. He wrote a wonderful letter back which you can see on page 12, and a few weeks later I had a conversation with Roger on the telephone. Speaking to someone who had been at the school in the late 1930s, fought through WWII and then had a remarkable career is very special and something I would never have imagined doing before I myself became a member of this warm and generous Fettes community.

As we move through into the next academic year, the lay of the land here in Edinburgh is still uncertain and we cannot say for sure when we will be able to welcome OFs back to our beautiful campus. However, regardless of restrictions moving forward, we are planning to offer a range of virtual events to allow OFs from across the globe to join in. In the future we hope our virtual event programme will run alongside our physical events calendar. The return of gatherings on campus, such as the all-important Commem weekend, will happen when we are safely able to run them and I, for one, cannot wait for that day.

My main goal overarching everything I do is to help keep OFs connected to each other and to Fettes. If there is ever anything you think I can do to help with that, please do not hesitate to get in touch using the details below.

With my very best wishes,

Vivienne Clark, OF Coordinator ofa@fettes.com +44 (0)131 311 6741