Honouring Our Past, Inspiring Our Future
In my last column I promised to report back on our 40th Foundation Day Assembly. The stories below are adapted and shortened version of my address to students that morning, and I wanted to share them with our families too.
Forty years ago, All Saints was a headmaster, a paddock and a dream. On 2 November 1986, our first families gathered in that paddock as the Archbishop of Brisbane laid our Foundation Stone.
There was a problem. With no buildings on site, the Archbishop needed a tent, and the grass was far too long to put one up. So Bryan Adamson, our first groundsman, brought his own ride-on mower from home and cut a patch just big enough.
That stone now sits in the wall of H Block. Bryan's patch of grass is long gone. Nobody gave a speech about it and nobody took a photo. But without it, there would have been no ceremony.
That is the thing about foundations. They are the part you never see once the building goes up, and yet everything stands on them.
The headmaster who laid that stone was the Reverend Len Nairn. In 1986 he moved his family to the Gold Coast to lead a school with no classrooms, no teachers and no students. The land had not even been bought.
Len set up an office above the shops in Mudgeeraba and went looking for families. One parent remembered him outside the newsagency: “Len was on his soapbox, selling his wares. The only trouble was that he didn't have anything to sell.”
On 28 January 1987 the doors opened, on time, with 179 students and ten staff.
Len gave us the words on our crest: Truth, Faith and Compassion. And he lived them. That first year, a nine-year-old named David had been turned away by three schools. His sister had a place here; he didn't. Len rang David's mum, said he didn't like seeing siblings split up, and squeezed David into Grade 4. Nine years later, David stood up as School Captain and thanked Mr Nairn “for finding that spare desk.”
Len passed away earlier this year. We hold his wife Vada and the Nairn family in our prayers.
Len did not build All Saints alone. More than twenty families put their own money on the line, promising to repay the school's loan if it failed. Before opening, Len called a working bee hoping for twenty people. More than a hundred turned up to lay turf and plant trees, most of whom had never met. Within a year, they were old friends.
That spirit lives on in our P&F, our volunteers and the countless quiet hours families give across the school. It lives in our Chairman, John Fradgley, who has led our School Council for 24 years. Most of his work happens where you never see it, but every one of us stands on it.
We don't do it because someone is watching. We do it because someone did it for us.
40TH ALUMNI EVENT
If Foundation Day told the story of our foundations, last Saturday showed us what was built on them. Around 200 past students and long serving staff returned for our 40th Alumni Gathering, which also doubled as the 10, 20 and 30 year reunions for the classes of 2016, 2006 and 1996. It was pure joy.
Some had not been back since graduation. Others had travelled from afar. At 40 years, we have alumni who genuinely want to come home, and we intend to make this an annual event.
On the day, I invited our alumni to come back and share their stories and the lessons from their lives and careers with our students. Many have already taken up the offer, and I look forward to welcoming them back.
Soon our Class of 2026 will join them as alumni. It is a strange feeling walking the grounds without our Year 12s as they sit their final examinations, and our hearts and minds are with them and their families. One day, we hope they will be the ones coming home to tell their stories.
Happy 40th, All Saints. I have enjoyed the start to our celebration and awards season and hope to see many of you over the coming weeks.
Matt Corbett
Principal
