The Benefactors’ Garden Party 2018

On Saturday 30 June, the school welcomed its benefactors to the Arts Festival marquee for a celebrative garden party in their honour.

Through the rose garden and over MCS’s iconic white bridges, more than 250 guests gathered in the sun-drenched marquee for a relaxed afternoon of vibrant conversation and merriment.

All in attendance had donated to the school in some way, whether through a monetary gift, an offer of their time for a talk, or a pledge to furnish a pupil with careers advice. The Benefactors’ Garden Party is now an annual event, and we are delighted that we are able to reward and commemorate our donors in this way.

While guests mingled at the beginning of the party, a film, made up of footage from the school’s Archive, played on a loop, portraying MCS’s physical transformation over the years, culminating in the completion of the new Richard Record Sixth Form Centre.

And it was to this latest addition to the Cowley Place site that the Master turned during her speech.

After immediately thanking the benefactors for their extraordinary generosity, Helen Pike spoke of the Sixth Form Campaign, a fundraising project that began in May 2017 – during her speech, she revealed that the campaign had raised more than three million pounds towards the buildings fund and bursaries, in large part thanks to the guests in the room. So that this kindness might be immortalised, a donor board has been erected in the foyer of the Sixth Form Centre, as a tangible reminder of how lucky the school is to have such a gregarious network of donors. A copy of the board was positioned in the tent so that guests might see how their names will appear, while next to it, providing a dose of comic relief that might seem antithetical to his ecclesiastic lifestyle, stood a six-foot print of Bishop William of Waynflete.

The Master finished her speech by introducing a short film which depicted an elderly Old Waynflete, complete with angelic wings, ascending to heaven. This, in turn, commenced a scene, written by the school’s Head of Drama Alex Thomas, concerning HOWs, or Heavenly Old Waynfletes, and the space that they now occupy in the afterlife. For this entertainment, a troupe of young OWs played a celestial community of their somewhat more ancient kin, including such esteemed names as Waynflete himself, Ivor Novello and Sir Thomas More. OW Martin Bowley (1955) kindly sponsored the playlet.

Following the performance, guests were once again free to mingle and converse. At the Party’s end, Director of the Waynflete Office Susie Baker introduced a recording of the school’s Close Harmony group and their adaptation of Chris Cornell’s ‘You Know My Name’ from Casino Royale, first performed at MCS’s Jazz and Blues evening in May. Once this final film had concluded, our benefactors stepped out into the glorious early evening air to further enjoy their day at the Art Festival’s behest, with some guests staying on to watch a screening of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin from Garsington Opera on School Field.

We at MCS are exceedingly grateful for the immense generosity of our benefactors, and we hope that they enjoyed this convivial afternoon, and look forward to seeing them again next year.