Prizegiving 2012

School NEWS

Prizegiving 2012

Headmaster Hal Hannaford chose for his Prizegiving message a theme of legacy. The class of 2012 was, no doubt, an outstanding one, displaying a capacity for leadership and a spirit of camaraderie that is rarely seen in this or any school.

“However you want to define legacy, there is no doubt this graduating class has left one...and a legacy that will be with us for years and years,” said Mr. Hannaford. “Their strength, passion, desire has, in fact, changed Selwyn House School and changed us for the better.”

As Mr. Hannaford pointed out, the quality of leadership was best exemplified by the Student Leadership Conference held at the school on April 17-21. At the Conference, sponsored by Canadian Accredited Independent Schools, 150 student leaders from 30 private schools across Canada came together in Montreal for a five-day workshop aimed at cultivating leadership skills. Working mostly on their own, members of the class of 2012 accomplished a tour de force of organizational skill and motivational spirit that was an inspiration to all the visiting students who took part.

“You have the ability to affect change,”Headmaster Hannaford continued. “You have a voice that needs to be heard...so keep using that voice in a respectful and responsible fashion.”

In his valedictorian speech, Head Prefect Nicolas Vit was respectful and responsible, but fondly recalled the wild and crazy times that also characterized the Class of 2012. “Selwyn House is not normal,” he confessed. “The students are not normal. The people who teach here are not normal. The things that happen here are certainly not normal. But don’t you dare for a moment think that this lack of normality is a bad thing. One does not simply be normal at Selwyn House.”

“It’s the good times I’ve had that really speak to me,” he continued. “It’s the moments where everything seems to stop when I take a deep breath and in my head I go ‘Wow, I am not going to forget this. This is life.’”

On a more serious note, he mentioned that his grandfather, a “lifer” who graduated from Selwyn House in the Class of 1943, still tells him stories of his days at the school. “My grandfather, who is one of the main reasons I’m here, still loves this place more then anything, and certainly as much as I have come to love it.

“That original group of thirty-two boys has changed a bit. There have been some additions, some of us have left, but all in all we have remained a group, a brotherhood, a fraternity.”

“We have left our impact on the school as a class. We will be missed, but life here at Selwyn will go on. Now it is our turn to leave an impact on the real world, without ever forgetting what this place has done for us.

“Though this may be the last time we’re all in one room together, you’re going to find, in the end, we’re never going to be that far apart.” ■