Old Boys in the news

9/12/2008

Steve Hayward

* Steve Hayward (1971-75) is the Otago Primary School Principals’ Association President and has been reported this week as being happy with the near-perfect zero in the number of supplementary reviews conducted by the Education Review Office through the province. Reviews are generally undertaken when ERO has concerns about a school and signals a follow-up examination within 12 months.

* Neville Grubb (1966), the Managing Director of Trail Journeys, is the new owner of Middlemarch Motors. While the pumps will still run, the site will also be a second base for Neville’s Clyde-based business which hires bikes and runs tours on the Otago Central Rail Trail.

* Forbury Park Trotting Club Life Members Harrison Hellyer (1942-43) and Viv Anngow (1939-41) have been viewed lately in the Otago Daily Times at the induction of new Life Member Fergus Mathieson.

Emeritus Professor Roy Kerr

* Emeritus Professor Roy Kerr (1946), a world-leading scientist in the field of relativity, was in the city recently. Roy is internationally acclaimed for finding the solution of Einstein's equations which describes the space outside a rotating star or black hole, with his study described as "the most important exact solution to any equation in physics". Shortly after Einstein wrote down his gravitational field equations in 1915, Karl Schwarzschild found a solution which describes a non-rotating spherical star or black hole. However, it is known that all stars rotate, and that Schwarzschild's solution is at best an approximation. Kerr's achievement of finding an exact solution for the rotating case - something many had doubted could be done and was hailed as a revolution in astrophysics. Roy was in Dunedin for a gathering of Rutherford medallists, which formed part of a science symposium at the University of Otago organised by Dr Allan Blackman (1977-81).

* John Christie (1982-87), the Chief Executive of the Otago Chamber of Commerce, has urged the Dunedin City Council to take a lead in stimulating the city economy by bringing forward planned spending and to ‘combat economic climate change’.

* Ian Dickison (1965-69) has been named the premier representative of the first 100 years of the Dunedin Bowls Centre, the rankings being published in a comprehensive history this month. Ian won the Australian Games singles title in 1985, the Commonwealth Games singles gold in Edinburgh in 1986, and gold in the triples and silver in the fours at the World Championships in 1988. He also took out 11 Dunedin Centre titles. Paul Girdler (1977-80), who played 192 tests for New Zealand between 1998 and 2004, was named at number 3.

Robin Bates

* Robin Bates (1969-70), Dunedin’s Crown Prosecutor, has successfully led his team in the conviction of two of the city’s businessmen on charges of defrauding the Otago District Health Board of almost $17 million. It is believed to be the largest employee fraud case to come before a New Zealand court.