Head Editor’s Report 2013 This year’s Portmuthian Team began working in the second half of the Autumn term, so we had a considerable backlog to work through from the first half-term. Despite this setback, our team has always been brimming with creative energy, ever ready to suggest new ideas and to voice strong, individual opinions. Hopefully, I have managed to distil some of that quirkiness into the minutes, which I took on this year, trying to present the essential information efficiently (colour coding!) whilst still retaining the “banter” so beloved of the team. Any poorly worded request, hypocrisy or absence was leapt upon with unrestrained vigour. We started with a rather large team, both in Year 12 and below, but, over time we have been left with only the most dedicated members, a delightful, close-knit group. I would like to thank Naeve Molho, Cicely Podmore and Charlie Henderson for sticking by the team in their roles as Year 8, 9 and 10 correspondents, respectively. This last half-term has been particularly challenging as Ms Hart has been on an exciting sabbatical, researching early women’s fiction at Chawton House Library. This was the former home of Jane Austen’s brother and is now a haven for women’s literature. Because of her absence, as well as the plethora of end of term events and the incredible amount of work left to do in a short space of time, meetings were replaced by a frenzy of emails, Facebook messages and individual conversations, trying to pin down anyone we could to write an article. Now for a confession. My title for this year’s magazine is, in fact, Deputy Head Editor, not Head Editor. That title belongs to Georgina Boxall, who due to her very demanding IB workload has been unable to attend meetings for the summer term. IB results were the best ever for PGS so congratulations, Georgie!
Next year, I am delighted to be sharing the Head Editorship with Zoe Rundle. Zoe has really taken up the baton over the past term by chairing meetings, emailing left, right and centre, and generally organising everyone, and I’m sure that we will have a great time running the Portmuthian team (with Ms Hart’s guidance, of course!). Usually, the main body of the Portmuthian team changes each year, being composed of successive Year 12 groups, but for the 2014 edition, Ms Hart has decided to keep on all our current members to build on the experience we gained this academic year. Furthermore, we hope to gain some additional faces to bring in innovative and fresh ideas. I would like to thank Ms Hart for all the hours she has spent organising the team, and guiding our youthful energy into productive output! Thanks must also go to Ali Gray for tackling the Music section, and I think we’ll have to provide him with some support next year if he is to survive Portmuthian 2014! Thanks also to Ellie Burr-Lonnon, Ali Gray and Dan Rollins and Ms Hart who have sacrificed the first week of the summer holiday to edit all the articles, whilst I leave for the Classics trip to Rome and Minori, which I will be reporting on (you may have already read it)! Hopefully my holiday diary won’t need any editing, as I will return after the theoretical deadline for sending articles to the designer! I would like to take this opportunity to thank the whole team for all their work over the year, for coming up with some ingenious design ideas (Ellie’s map of string!), for finding obliging teachers and students who were willing to write for us, and of course for producing some wonderful articles which are well worth your perusal.
Gregory Walton-Green
The Portmuthian Team 2013 Ms Bryony Hart – The Boss (and she ate the wedges … but they were good) Gregory Walton-Green – Head Editor (minute-maker guru) Zoe Rundle – Writer (Queen-Awesome and makes jolly good cakes) Charlie Henderson – Writer (future Portmuthian Head Editor) Daniel Rollins – Photography Consultant (champion pizza-scoffer – and you ate the edges) Ellie Burr-Lonnon – Editor and Interviewer (156.5cms tall and all-time OCD organiser) Sampad Sengupta – Writer and Interviewer (all-round awesome) Sebastian McCue – Writer (PGS’ resident Basil Fawlty) Joshua Rampton – Writer (late-comer but reliable!) Alastair Gray – Editor and Music Correspondent (obsessed by pizza) Benjamin Schofield – Interviewer (looks good in a dress) Thomas Harper – Writer and Interviewer (please do the Native American dance for us again!) Verity Summers – Writer (tight-borrower) Melissa Smith – ‘The Elusive Contributor’ Cicely Podmore – Writer (comes to meetings without fail and completely awesome) Naeve Molho – Writer (awesome … and last-minute articles) Joseph Bradley – Writer and regular With special thanks to Georgina Boxall who contributed valuable knowledge in our early meetings. Editorial Team 2013