Giving at Friends'

Thank you to our Wonderful Volunteers

In the last week of November we held a Thank You BBQ to give back to our Volunteers who give us so much of their time and expertise.

Senior members of staff manned the Barbeques and we were all treated to a beautiful performance by the Morris Majors. 

Our volunteers are involved in so many areas of the School and we honestly couldn't offer our students as many opportunities as we do without the hard work and support provided by our volunteers. 

We have volunteers working in classroom support roles, with music and the arts, with sports and coaching and in other areas such as our Archives. 

Thank you to everyone who volunteered at The Friends' School this year. 

Taiko Drums - thanks to the P&F

Thanks to the Parents’ and Friends’ Association who recently assisted in the purchase of two Taiko Drums.  The Morris Primary Year Six Students raised approximately $500 toward this purchase and the P&F agreed to cover the difference with approximately $800.  Thanks to all those who have helped with P&F fundraising activities and enabled the students to enjoy these wonderful musical instruments.

Pictured: P&F Association Committee members Jane Gorman, Anna Shannon and Nigel Reeves with Morris - Friends' Primary Years Students.

Transformational gift for Friends’ in honour of Helen Reeves (1947)

Patricia Reeves (Cooper), top centre, standing; Helen Reeves (Cooper), seated third from right.

Community members Stephanie Reeves and David Reeves have given a transformational gift of $200,000 to the School to assist with the upcoming Campus Redevelopment. The gift was given in honour of their late mother Helen Reeves (Cooper) and continues a tradition of generosity by the Cooper family dating back many generations.

Cooper, the name remembered in one of the Houses in Morris, Friends’ Primary Years, recognises the contribution to Friends’ of William Carlyle Cooper, appointed as the first Chairman of the first Australian Board of the School in 1923. Despite the specific naming, it is also a way to mark the generosity of the Cooper family to the School through a number of generations.

The William Cooper Scholarship, awarded on merit to a student entering Year 7, was named in honour of William Livingstone Cooper, son of William Carlyle Cooper and a Board Member for 50 years, retiring in 1948.

William Livingstone Cooper’s children, Patricia and Helen, both attended Friends’ and in 1947 Patricia became the first School Librarian at Friends’. It was in Patricia’s memory that her husband, Doug Steane, gifted the beautiful land at Orford to the School.

After graduating from the University of Tasmania, Helen worked for a number of years with Bill Oats. Ultimately she moved to Canberra where she raised her own family with her husband Peter Reeves. Helen passed away in 2018 and it is in her and Peter’s honour that her children, Stephanie Reeves and David Reeves, have now given a gift of $200,000 to the School to assist with the revitalisation of the built environment at Friends’. Specifically, this gift will assist with the development of the new Year 7- 10 Learning Centre in the High School as part of Phase 1 of our Campus Redevelopment.

We thank Stephanie and David for their generosity. Their gift will be transformational for Friends’ and will impact the learning outcomes of generations of Friends’ students.