Rhubarb Issue 12: November 2023

THE beyond teddies TEAM It has been a busy year for the Beyond Teddies team with many new team members and lots of activity across all three areas that we look after:

Partnership

Community

Fundraising

BEYOND TEDDIES

wearing their new Cup & Dagger pins and are doing what they can at accessible levels to support the School. Our Simeon Society also goes from strength to strength under the management of David Smart (Field House, 1968-1972) and the Simeon Society Committee to whom we are very grateful.The Society is, for one year initially, covering the cost of supporting OSE and parents in writing their Wills through Bequeathed who provide a brilliant free service. Stephen Sparrow (Mac’s, 1983-1988) and Nataliia Poberezhna complete our fundraising team. Stephen

Back row: Stephen Sparrow, David Smart, Nataliia Poberezhna, Kate Chipchase, Rachel Moffatt, Sean Thomson, John Wiggins Front row: Emma Grounds, Rachael Henshilwood, Emily Rowbotham, Courtney O’Keefe

supports me on the major gifts side as we embark on amazing transformational projects benefitting our whole community over the next few years and Nataliia assists with Trust and Foundation applications and team administration. Nataliia is a Ukrainian refugee with a phenomenal educational track record. Her son Artem moved into Fourth Form this year. Artem won the Adam’s Shell and German prizes at Gaudy last year (having not enjoyed maths and never having spoken German before starting at Teddies a year ago!) There is much momentum building at your old School and I am proud to be leading such a brilliant team engaged in so much energetic activity across so many critical areas of the School. As the political landscape becomes increasingly challenging, what the School delivers through the Beyond Teddies team becomes even more important, so I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you who support us whether financially, on a committee, as an ambassador, by attending our events or feeding back through the surveys.Your commitment to Teddies and to its success and impact on the widest possible community, is what we do it for.

Rhubarb aims to cover what we’ve been doing for our OSE community, but we’ve also been busy looking after our current parents and former parents too! Kate Chipchase , our new OSE Co-ordinator, is supporting Emily Rowbotham , Community Manager, and together they are enabling us to deliver more events and are planning some fantastic new business and networking initiatives next year which you can read about on pages 70 and 95. Everything we strive to do is based on the feedback that you are providing through the OSE Surveys and in your communications to us during the year so if we’re not providing something you would like to attend or read, please tell us! Our Partnerships team has been strengthened by Courtney O’Keefe , Partnerships Co-ordinator, who runs our new Teddies Collaborates programme, the new timetabled service initiative for all Lower Sixth pupils. Courtney has also joined Field House as Resident Tutor in September this year as we welcomed girls into Field House with their new Housemaster Rob Cotterill. The partnership work this brilliant team achieves does not cease to amaze me, so do read more about this on page 12. On the fundraising side our team has also been boosted by Sean Thomson who is running our brand new regular-giving programme, the Cup & Dagger Club, which you’ll read more about overleaf. Many parents, staff and OSE are proudly

Rachael Henshilwood Director of Partnerships and Development henshilwoodr @ stedwardsoxford.org

9