Your Support is Key

As I approach my fourth Christmas with the School, it is opportune to reflect on the tremendous trajectory that Campaign 2015 – 2020 centre of excellence for performing and visual arts has travelled thus far.

In 2013 the School saved one of the most beautiful buildings in the city, and Campaign 2015 – 2020 was born. Following a twoyear quiet phase, the School embarked on this major capital campaign which will conclude its public phase on 31 December 2020.

The Brief

Built in 1898 in the French Renaissance style and designed by the Office of Works architect Walter Wood Robertson, the city’s historic former Head Post Office building will be sensitively adapted and enhanced to create a stunning centre of excellence for performing and visual arts; and we are privileged to have attracted the expertise of an inspirational design realised by the globally-impactful firm, Page\Park Architects.

The building is truly inspiring and the generations of children its facilities will cultivate will contribute in perpetuity to the regeneration of the culture, climate and character of this City of Discoveries and its young people.

This centre presents the lucent gift of knowledge, and will brighten our whole community. It will create learning and teaching environments bespoke to the needs of Art & Design, Culinary Arts, Drama, and Music, as well as a main School Auditorium, Refectory, and ancillary administrative and social facilities for pupils and staff.

Andrew Carnegie spoke of the difference between charity and philanthropy remarking that with charity one is giving through a sense of religious obligation, sincerity, sympathy, or pity. But in so doing, one is not involved in the investment of societal advancement and causes, but in symptoms. For me, philanthropy is best described as an investment, rather than an expenditure. Campaign 2015 – 2020 now seeks the support of like-minded philanthropists who want to invest in a positive change, propelling the School and the city into their interplaited future.

Fees only cover the School’s recurring expenditure. This transformative project has a scale and scope which is far exceeded by the promise of what this facility will provide. I am a donor to this Campaign, and look to you to stand with me and make your contribution to this exceptional project.

It is my privilege to offer directly this amazing philanthropic opportunity to the global community of the School on a daily basis: to our former pupils, donors, associates and friends, and to you right now. I am asking you to join me in recognising that we have all received more than we have given, so we must continue giving.

With your help we can turn this project from the Harline and Washington jazz standard full of ‘wish[ing]… as dreamers do’ into a finite destination we can travel towards together.

Mr. Oliver A. Jackson Hutt Director of Development

The imaginative idea of a centre of excellence for performing and visual arts has now evolved into an exciting, challenging project for the High School of Dundee.

With the purchase of the prominent former General Post Office building, the idea has become an inspirational reality. A reality that will greatly inspire and indeed enhance the lives of not only generations of pupils, but also generations of citizens of the City of Discovery.

Like any progressive institution, the fabric of the High School is changing, but at its heart it remains true to its core values.

In order to finance this centre of excellence, Campaign 2015 – 2020 was launched both in London and Dundee in the summer of 2015 to give all constituencies within the global High School community an opportunity to invest in this aspirational and transformative project. As a donor myself, I respectfully ask you to join me in giving, so that this unique, innovative resource can be created.

Your donation, along with mine, will be a truly amazing gift to future generations. Let us make an idea, a vision, become an everlasting reality!

Mrs Sheena N Leadbitter Foundation Chair