Long Service Celebration

On Friday 30th August we unveiled our new Long Service Boards, to honour and celebrate long-serving members of Wellington staff.  

Up until now, long-serving members of the teaching staff were commemorated with a stone plaque in Chapel, but only after their death, while most other members of College staff received no memorial, no matter how long their service. Recognising this, the College has created these boards to celebrate all staff serving for fifteen years or more, with a separate board for those who have achieved twenty-five years. We took the new millennium as our starting point, hoping to include all those who have achieved these milestones since the year 2000.  

Identifying, tracing and contacting all those eligible to appear on the boards has been a long and painstaking task for our Human Resources Department and our Archivist, greatly aided by many others who suggested names and provided contact details. Over 200 names now appear on the boards, with staff from all areas of the College listed alongside one another. Last Friday, around 70 current Wellington staff were joined by 50 past employees and their guests for the unveiling in Combermere Quad, where the boards are placed right outside the Master’s Office.

At the event, the Master, James Dahl, said to those present, ‘It is genuinely humbling just to consider for one moment the magnitude of service we are talking about here. Everything which every one of you did to make the College what it is today.’

The longest-serving individual named on the board is Wellington legend Chris Potter (C 65), who has just chalked up 50 years’ service to the College – 32 as a teacher followed by 18 as Liaison with Old Wellingtonians. He is followed by Jimmy Mason, who completed a staggering 46 years dealing with the Dining Hall’s dirty plates, and Reg Busby, who completed 42 years in the Works Department, and whose son Steve is also on the board. The longest-serving member of Common Room is Music Teacher Jeff Oakes. New names will be added each year in an ongoing appreciation of all those who have contributed so much to College life.  

It was a wonderful evening, and we would like to thank you to all those who came. To see the photographs from the event please click HERE.