Welcome to the September edition of the ONU eNews – North American USA Edition.

You all would have recently received the Alumni eNews from the ONU which brought you up to date with what has been happening at Newington over the past few months.

To say it has been a busy few months would be an understatement.

The highlight of course, was the Royal Visit in July by Their Majesties, the King and Queen of Tonga, to officially open the Tupou College Centre, the Drama Centre, Pearson Cadet Centre and Davidson Health Centre. A fantastic day in Newington’s history and one that will further cement the strong relationship between Newington and Tupou College and Tonga generally.

By the end of this year, we will have completed the last building project on the Stanmore campus, the new pedestrian entrance and upgrade of the Memorial Drive and Millner and Dixon Gates.

The new pedestrian entrance will be at the foot of the overhead pedestrian bridge opposite Holt Street. We are removing three panels of the sandstone fence and paving and landscaping that area through to the Memorial Drive and Cowlishaw Drive intersection. This will create a car free entrance for the Boys to access the grounds and provide a more attractive entrance to the College generally.

This year marks the 80^th Anniversary of the Memorial Drive and Millner Gates. Both were donated to the College by Col T G Millner (ON 1904), the Gates in memory of his father and the Drive as a Memorial to those Old Boys who made the ultimate sacrifice during WW1. On 30^th November, the Millner Family will be returning to the College to preside over the rededication ceremonies.

Rod Bosman, our Community and Development Officer will bring you up to date on all these developments and more when he speaks at both of our USA Reunions coming up on 25 September in San Francisco and 1 October in New York. See details in our next story….

Finally, on his way to the US, Rod will be hosting a reunion of our Hong Kong based Alumni, including current and future parents next Tuesday 20 September. We have over 40 attending and the night is being hosted by Ron Lu (ON 1962) and his wife Stella. This will be the third annual Hong Kong Reunion for Old Boys and current and future parents and we already have the Headmaster Dr David Mulford lined up to host the 2017 Reunion in March.

The College is very honoured to have these opportunities to reach out to our overseas Alumni and we know that those who attend enjoy the chance to catch up with mates and hear how well their old school is going.