Should alumni have a say on a pride flag at a school?

Chairing the St Andrew’s Bloemfontein Old Boys’ Association has been helluva fun. If nothing else, I finally have mastered the art of where to place apostrophes but it’s mainly been a lesson in accepting limited scope – Look at the constitution. What does it say? Do that.

On paper, it’s the simplest 3-stage managerial decision rubric I’ve ever been charged with. In reality dealing with the diverse array of ages, races, interests, political dispensations and wealth makes for some robust engagements. While some avoid their alumni associations because they’re perceived as raging fundraisers others ponder why the same alumni aren’t doing more for their school.

Some had a great time at school while others didn’t and it’s a mix of those who want to be active alumni. Some want to relive. Others want to forget. A couple want to retry. You’re not going to get satisfaction from all of them.

Pride flag at Bishops

I’m confident that one wouldn’t get satisfaction from the full body of any association that they lead, so why make it even more difficult? Following the goings on at Bishops has been enlightening, though it begs a number of questions on the separation of school and old boys. Most reflectively – unless the school is a cookie cutter institution, can one expect broad agreement on external matters? I don’t think so. I don’t think we’d even get agreement on whether the school flying a pride flag is an internal or external matter.

What you will get is… well, what’s happened. But these are smart men and one would have to see the blowout coming so why take the decision? Perhaps there was some strong arming, maybe somebody threatened to pull funding. We’ll probably never really know but alumni associations need to be aware of why they exist and stick to that.

Alumni not there to run schools

Given our age of moral righteousness, it would be impossible to get everybody on the same side of every issue and it’s not something alumni associations should aspire to anyway. Just getting the guys to a reunion is tough enough. Now you want to increase the game difficulty to include moral platitudes.

It may seem surreal to the kids of today but we’re talking about the old kids… and they should know that one doesn’t need to have a position on everything. One certainly doesn’t need to meddle in the affairs of a school.

This is where so many of us get it wrong. We are not the headmaster. The headmaster is there and has a job to do. We can engage, support, comment, but it’s not our school to run. Incidentally, it never was ours to run even when we were schoolchildren. Even if it were, take your entire matric class, put 10 questions to each them asking how the school should be run and you’d be far from a distinction in consensus.

There’s just no way that alumni associations are set up to engage in the subject of governance. There are instances where co-operation is functional; typically, where it’s codified and has an extra layer. These situations often manifest in having seats for alumni on the governing body or structured engagement between school and association but the idea that the old boys should collectively have a say in how a school is run; that’s ambitious and prone to failure.

Do alumni have influence over their school? Absolutely! There’s no way of getting around it. How that influence should be exercised is the debate.

We’ll have our reunions and we’ll have our memories. That we can do collectively. Having a position on how the school should be run… that is something that should be carefully considered because if not even three people can agree, certainly three generations won’t either.