The official opening of the new school gym situated on Bowdens Field took place on Friday 1 February, attended by major sponsors, donors, parents, old boys and staff.
This functional training concept has taken off in many schools around the country and WBHS is extremely grateful for the financial contributions received for the development of this new facility.
Head of School for 2019, Daniel Trevethan, thanked the donors on behalf of the entire school body, and emphasised the huge impact that this new gym would have for all our sportsmen. Special thanks were conveyed to Mrs Petru Blewett, a current parent who freely contributed her expertise in designing and driving this project.
This initiative by the WBHS Foundation would not have been possible without the financial drive launched by the Old Boys of 1988 under the leadership of Craig Coombe and Matthew Blewett. Within days of the launch, an amount of R500k had rolled in. This has continued to grow with further contributions by parents, Westville Old Boys’ Association (WOBA) and old boys of various vintages, and corporate sponsors. Special thanks to Ms Pam Hayward from the WBHS Foundation and Mrs Petru Blewett who managed the project and made this dream into a reality!
A similar but smaller gym concept was launched on Commons Field earlier this year by WOBA Chairman, Dieter Kriese. This has made a huge positive difference to the training and practices of our Under 14 and 15 teams. There is no doubt that semi-professionalism in school sport seems to be a fact of life today, and it is important that our coaches are able to directly observe the conditional routines of our boys, particularly in the contact sports.
