Abingdon News No.50

www.abingdon.org.uk 23 Abingdon OA Club www.abingdon.org.uk/oa/forthcoming_events Any questions, please call: 01235 849074 OA Football OAs gathered at Tilsley Park for the annual OA football match. The play was impressively energetic, with a team of 2011, 2013 and 2017 leavers set against 2004, 2015 and 2018 leavers. The match proved to be competitive, with goals scored from both sides but the 2011, 2013 and 2017 team clinched victory finishing 5-4. The afternoon culminated with plenty of socialising over well-earned refreshments at the Tilsley Park bar. Hugh Morris, director of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) treated our choristers to a choral workshop when he visited Abingdon on Monday 11 March. As CEO of this national and international charity since August 2018, the role combines the strands of music, education and the church which have threaded through his life over the last 20 years. A Cambridge degree led on to a series of posts in churches and schools, from Northumberland to the Dorset coastline, moving with his family to Derbyshire in 2015, as he took up the position of Director of Music at Derby Cathedral. Hugh remarked: “I’ve taken a few bold steps into the unknown over the years, and as a musician have inevitably worked for only modest financial gain; the payback is in the great fulfilment of the work itself. I can say, with absolute certainty, that I would never have travelled the journey I have without Abingdon; it began with me joining the Chapel Choir in the First Form. When you’re at a school, you perhaps don’t realise how fortunate you are. I think that as pupils, we all assumed to an extent that all schools had the same amazingly rich extra-curricular life. Not so: and it is something both to celebrate and to embrace as an Abingdon pupil. Who knows where it might take you?” Forthcoming OA Events: 50s, 60s Dinner Friday 10 May, Salisbury Cathedral OA Golf Day Monday 13 May, Frilford Heath Golf Club OA Croquet Saturday 15 June, Abingdon School Year Group Reunions - (1949, 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009, 2017) Saturday 15 June, Abingdon School OA Cricket Friday 21 June, Abingdon School OA Tennis Saturday 22 June Henley Royal Regatta Friday 5 and Saturday 6 July OA Rugby Saturday 31 August, Abingdon School Choral Workshop with Hugh Morris (OA 1995) “ Whatever the style, it’s important that music is done well, worshipfully, and with skill ”