Master Plan Update
SomerFields Ground Breaking Ceremony
On Tuesday (19 July) invited guests attended the Ground Breaking Ceremony at Dunn Road, Rocklea, to commence the Stage One development of SomerFields. It was an historic day for the School and Song-Woman Maroochy Barambah opened the occasion with a traditional welcoming ceremony. Maroochy Barambah is an Australian Aboriginal song-woman, law-woman and elder of the Turrbal people.
We acknowledge and thank Old Girl Ms Bethwyn Todd (Class of 1989) for her generous contribution of half a million dollars, matched by the generous support from the Somerville House Foundation, which enabled the School to reallocate funds to bring the hard courts forward into the Stage One development.
In this week’s newsletter, I share my address and some photographs of this ground breaking occasion.
Thank you to P&F Association
On behalf of all students engaged in the Robotics program, I extend appreciation and thanks to the Parents and Friends Association, for their provision of $20,000 to enable the purchase of a laser printer. The Somerville House Robotics program has celebrated wonderful success on the international stage and we are very proud of their achievements.
The School was also pleased to accept the contribution of $10,000 from the Parents and Friends Association as provision for the acquisition of a Mobile Electronic Scoreboard & Display (MESD) for use on the pool deck at the Murray Evans Sports Centre. This will certainly be beneficial to many students across a range of water sports.
Master Plan Update
I provide parents with an update on three elements of our Master Plan.
- A Block (The Fewings Building) - Coping with the unseasonal wet weather has had an impact on the final elements of the internal building works, with works completed on Level 6, while Levels 4 and 5 are close to completion. The contractor is now scheduled to complete construction at the end of July. Furniture deliveries are booked for the first week of August and we hope to take occupation of the refurbished spaces from mid to late August.
- SomerFields - JMAC Constructions were awarded the contract for Stage One of SomerFields. As a result of a very generous donation from Ms Bethwyn Todd, matched by our Foundation, the Stage One scope has been expanded from the initial six fields, temporary facilities and supporting infrastructure to include ten hard courts and cricket nets. The contractors commenced works on site earlier this month and we were pleased to celebrate with the recent Ground Breaking Ceremony. Site stripping and tree clearing is currently underway. It is anticipated that the facility will be available for use from Term 3, 2023. The second stage of the project will involve the construction of the Clubhouse and is forecast to commence in 2026.
- Senior School Building - There has been much in the news over the last six months regarding the challenges facing the building industry with material and labour shortages and escalating material costs, creating significant issues. Over the last twelve months, the School has been working closely with BSPN Architecture to advance the design in anticipation of commencing the new building later this year. However, given the current instability of the market it has been decided to defer the commencement of the project until the latter half of 2023. Given the importance of this building, the Project Control Group will use the additional time to review and optimise the design and the demolition of B and C blocks to minimise the impact on the operations of the School.
Mrs Kim Kiepe
Principal