It was a pleasure to welcome Sarah Capewell, our new Head, as I became the new Chair of Governors at the start of September.

By way of background, I passed the 11+ and started at Stockport Grammar School in 1976, which, sadly for my parents, was the year that SGS was no longer a direct grant school and became an independent fee paying school. I also experienced the transformation to become a fully co-educational school in 1980, including the purchase of the Convent School and integration of the Woodsmoor and Hallam sites. The Governors and Senior Leadership team of the time demonstrated remarkable vision and judgement. I hope that the current team is able to chart its way through the challenges and opportunities that we will face, over the coming years, with such alacrity.

I was a very active sportsman at school and particularly enjoyed rugby and athletics. I am an extremely keen proponent of efforts to boost the provision of transformational bursaries at SGS and so thought that trying to raise funds, by completing the Valencia Half Marathon next month, would help to raise the profile of the SGS Bursary Fund. 

My last distance run was completing the Jersey Marathon in 2018 but I completely blew up and have suffered from Achilles tendon and calf muscle problems that stopped me running since then, until several weeks ago. Carrying 20% more body mass since schooldays is clearly not helping! Despite my physical decline since school, I can't escape the competitive nature engendered by school sports and it pains me that at rival schools locally, the levels of giving to bursary endowments and hence the percentage of students benefiting from the transformational bursaries, are considerably greater than at SGS. 

This is something that I hope every Old Stopfordian, many of whom enjoyed a free Grammar School education themselves, will be very keen to put right. I hope to see a step change in the number of Old Stopfordians who become regular donors during my time as Chair.

As a start, if anyone would like to sponsor me to complete the event, which takes place on 22nd October, I would be incredibly grateful.

I will be at the Remembrance Service on the 10th November and at the Old Stops' Dinner on Saturday 16 March, I look forward to meeting those Old Stops who are also in attendance.

Jonathan Lee (OS 1983)
Chair of Governors