Association of Past Physical Education Students of I M Marsh College

APS Reunion 2024

Friday and Saturday 4th and 5th October 2024

Liverpool has been the venue for the APS Reunion for the past few years and it always brings back memories of the times that we were all there as students. Many of the conversations between attendees focus on times they spent there and some venture out during the weekend to look at the city and see which parts of it they remember, and which are totally changed. For the past 3 years circumstances have threatened to disrupt our reunions; closures of Lime Street Station, the strike by RMT members and changes to dates having to be made due to hotels being fully occupied for the Labour Party Conference. So, this year it seemed like a novelty to have clear passage through to Liverpool and a short walk across from Lime Street Station to the Holiday Inn Hotel.

Forty-five students were expected to attend the reunion on Saturday and many of those had already arrived by Friday evening. There was lots of laughter and the buzz of conversation as people gathered in the bar before the evening meal and much catching up with the lives of people who had not seen each other for a while.

By Saturday morning the remaining attendees had arrived and following coffee and badge collection everyone gathered in the Liverpool Suite Conference Room to start the 2024 APS Day.

Our President, Barbara Graham (Holmes), welcomed everyone and outlined the programme for the start of the day. Linda Bond (Ward) introduced us to her famous ‘shuffle session” to make sure that everyone had the chance to integrate and get to know others. This involved a ‘Fruit Salad’ game where each person had been given a card with a picture of a fruit on it. The aim being to gather a group together which had one of each of these fruits. As groups began to gather there were various requests being called out for missing items; “we need a strawberry, we are missing an orange”! There was much competition between groups to secure a full Fruit Salad! The resultant groups were then given a topic to discuss which prompted lively and animated story telling with individual group members explaining their experience of their interview for college. Much discussion ensued as people told their stories to their group and reminisced about their interviews; everything from having to improvise dance movements whilst playing a percussion instrument to feeling very small and intimidated when seated on a very low chair whilst being interviewed by Miss Crabbe. The second part of the group activity was to talk about experiences of other interviews such as ones for jobs. There was much lively discussion and laughter about these experiences and our conversations continued through the mid-morning coffee break. Some of these stories might find their way into the journal next year.

After coffee we returned to the conference room where Professor Sheila Wigmore gave a presentation entitled, “Welcome to the Mystery Talk”. Sheila posed the question to the audience regarding who we thought founded the Modern Olympic Movement. Many of the attendees remembered their history of P.E. and thought that Baron Pierre de Coubertin was the person behind this movement, but our Mystery. Talk gave us more detailed facts about the involvement of other, and more local people in this.

Sheila shared with the audience details of a fascinating series of events which were held in Much Wenlock, Shropshire as early as 1850 with Dr William Penny Brookes (1809-1895) establishing the Much Wenlock Olympian Society in 1850.He organised The Shropshire Olympian Society in 1861.

John Hulley (1832-1875) from Liverpool established the Liverpool Gymnasium in 1865 and along with Dr William Penny Brookes (1809-1895) and Ernst Ravenstein (1834-1913) of the German Gymnasium in London they founded the National Olympian Association and organised the first National Olympian Games in 1866.Baron Pierre de Coubertin visited Much Wenlock in 1890 and was inspired by Dr Brookes; he went on to establish the International Olympic Committee in 1894.Thank you to Professor Wigmore for a fascinating and informative presentation.

At the end of the morning everyone adjourned for lunch in the restaurant before returning to the conference room for the AGM.

Our President Barbara Graham (Holmes) welcomed everyone to the meeting and began by thanking members of the Committee and Set Representatives for their work and support throughout the year,

Treasurer’s Report

Kath Dowthwaite, Treasurer, informed us that there was a loss this year of £423.27 which was mainly due to additional website costs and the increase in the costs of posting journals. A decision had been taken by the Committee in March 2024 to increase subscriptions from November 1st, 2024, due to these increasing costs.

The Sequal Trust had thanked us for the donation from the 2023 Reunion raffle which was £100 in memory of Hilary Pole.

Membership Coordinator’s Report

Kath Simpson (Fahey) our Membership Secretary told us that we have 283 full members and 7 ordinary members with 2 new members. In December 2023 there were 29 members who were placed on the forced resignation list having not paid since 2021.In March 2024 there were 39 members who did not receive their journals due to unpaid subscriptions; some of these have now caught up.

The Committee reluctantly agreed to increase the cost of subscriptions   due to increasing postage and other costs and from 1st November 2024 these will be as follows:

1.Members living in UK – £12

2.Members living in Europe – £15

3.Members living in Rest of the World – £18

Journal Editor’s Report

Linda Bond (Ward) our Journal Editor gave a reminder that e mailed news needed to be sent in as a Word document attached to and e mail either to Set Reps or directly to herself. The deadline for receipt of news by Linda will be 30thNovember, anything received after that date will not be published.

237 journals were posted out with 11 of these being sent abroad.

Website Coordinator’s Report

Julie Spratt our Website Coordinator thanked Ann Walker (Hodkin), the previous Website Coordinator, for her help and support in ensuring that the transition process ran as smoothly as possible. She said that most tasks have involved requests from the “contact us” form on the website. These are generally concerning membership and information about the Annual Reunion. The website manager has confirmed that he is willing to continue in his role.

It was reported that Professor Wigmore was monitoring the Face book page.

 

Liaison Report

Professor Phil Vickerman, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Student Experience) is the liaison between the Committee and Liverpool John Mores University. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend due to a prior commitment but had sent in a report which was read out by Barbara Graham.

Liverpool John Moores University have provided regular updates to the Committee regarding the currently disused I.M. Marsh Campus. The Sport and Education facilities moved to Liverpool city centre sites in 2021.Given the challenging financial pressure for all UK universities for the past 12 years the university has had to consider all its plans up to 2023. Since 2021 the university has been considering selling the campus and/or retaining it for future use. A number of estates projects have been postponed or modified given this challenging financial position. The decision has therefore been made not to retain the I.M Marsh Campus, although there are no specific plans on what may happen with the Campus.

 

Election of Officers and Committee Members

4 members of the Committee had reached the end of their terms and Meg Maunder, Sylvia Ellis and Liz Shea confirmed that they were willing to stand again; they were nominated and re-elected. Jackie Wright (Hughes) decided that she wished to stand down. Barbara. congratulated those who were re-elected and thanked Jackie for her work and support throughout the time that she has served on the committee. Jackie was presented with a card and gift to thank her for her contributions throughout her term -particularly her display of excellent sales techniques in selling raffle tickets for the Sequal Trust donation!

Reunion 2025

The 2025 Reunion will be a very special one as it will be 125 years since I.M. Marsh was established and it is important that we celebrate and recognise the unique contribution that the College has made. It was felt that the format for the Reunion in 2025 will need to be changed from the usual programme in order to make the event a special one. The date for the Annual Reunion will be Friday 3rd of October and Saturday 4th October at the Holiday Inn, Lime Street Liverpool. Further details of the format for the Reunion and booking forms will be in the Journal in March 2025 for members and available for non-members via requesting forms through the ‘Contact Us’ section on the website. It is hoped that this special anniversary and the changed format will encourage more past students to attend the Reunion and share in the celebration over the weekend.

Barbara closed the AGM wishing everyone a safe journey home and encouraging them to register for the Annual Reunion in 2025 when details are published.

Following the closure of the AGM there was plenty of time for people to gather in the lounge and bar to catch up and chat with friends before the evening dinner. A silver service dinner was enjoyed by all of those who were able to stay. The food was good, and staff were friendly and helpful. It was a perfect ending to a successful weekend. There was no singing this year and it felt like we were missing our usual choir leaders to get us going -we are hoping that we will all be in good voice for the 2025 reunion.