News of OGG - March 2022
Thursday, 24 March 2022


News of OGG Lauren Ryan (Cl'16) (pictured), Frankie Beggs (Fairbairn, Clyde '60), Andrew Lemon (FB'67), Fiona Brockhoff (Je ’81), Toby Yates (FB'92), Penny Whitehead (Agar, A'94) and Harry Hart (P'21) is featured this month.




Frankie Beggs (Fairbairn, Clyde '60)

Two years after the Black Summer bushfires, Southern Grampians Emergency Services volunteer Frankie Beggs has been honoured for her contribution to the communities of Mallacoota and Corryong during the disaster, being awarded a medal of service.

Frankie has been a member of the Red Cross for more than 40 years and part of their emergency response team for much of that time. She was part of the first Red Cross team deployed to the relief centre in Corryong in late-December 2019. “We were responsible for registering those evacuating, or returning, for the Register. Find. Reunite. database, assisting them to apply for Red Cross grants and administering ‘psychological first aid’,” Frankie said. “Which is really just listening to people; allowing them to pour it all out.” The importance of psychological first aid was emphasised by the obstacles faced in terms of technology. “It was quite a performance! Power in Corryong was supplied by a solitary generator, so residents couldn’t return until power was restored, while there was internet and phone outages, which made things a bit difficult when it came to data entry.”

Frankie travelled more than 650km from her home in Nareeb to Corryong and, later, to Mallacoota to help the recovery, a large portion of which as part of an SES convoy due to the volume of road closures in the region. “I find it rewarding... giving support to people who are going through a terrible time,” Frankie said. “I’m lucky enough to be able to do that.”




Andrew Lemon (FB'67)

Recently published, Andrew’s latest book The Pebbled Beach at Pentecost: A Novel is his first venture into historical fiction. Based on a true colonial story set in England, Melbourne, Sydney and the Pacific in the 1870s and 1880s, the book is described as a unique fusion of authentic history and informed invention – a tragic story of colonialism in Australia and the Pacific, told with compassion, humour and a deep understanding of time and place. Vernon Lee Walker, a young Englishman from industrial Wolverhampton, meets his death on a beach on Pentecost Island in the South Pacific on the eve of Christmas 1887. Why did Vernon die, in what circumstances, and who was responsible? Was he, as once branded, simply a ‘bad colonist’? Or was he a candide, an innocent abroad, mixing invisibly with the rich and famous, manipulated by a calculating brother, unable to change the world around him?

Andrew has published widely in Australian history, winning literary and historical awards and commendations. He is best known known for his epic three volume 'The History of Australian Thoroughbred Racing'. His co-authored 'Poor Souls, They Perished' won the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Wilke Award, and 'The Master Gardener' was long-listed for the 2018 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award. A past president of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Andrew holds the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Letters from the University of Melbourne.




Fiona Brockhoff (Je ’81)

Fiona is one of Australia’s most celebrated landscape designers, a field she has been immersed in for the past 35 years. After completing her university studies at Burnley College, earning a degree in applied science, she set herself the task of learning how to design gardens that were uniquely Australian. To understand our complex and varied ecosystem, she worked on revegetation projects in alpine and coastal areas, and on country gardens in north-eastern Victoria with limited resources. Ever since, her consistent values have been to relate the garden to its setting, and to ensure that it is relevant and practical for the owners’ needs. She is renowned for her creative use of indigenous plants, often shaping and sculpting them to create unique forms. Hew own garden, Karkalla, on the Mornington Peninsula and adjacent to the national park, is a realisation of her ambition to design and build a garden that sits comfortably within the wider landscape.  
 
www.fionabrockhoffdesign.com 




Toby Yates (FB'92)

With a history in business development, sales and marketing in the luxury hotel industry including at the Marriott, Hyatt and Sofitel, Toby recently accepted the position of Business Development Director (pre-opening) at the soon to open voco® Melbourne Central in the newly completed 380 Melbourne skyscraper located at 380 Lonsdale Street.

Initially scheduled to open in July 2020, the build was delayed during the Covid pandemic. In 2018, the IHG Hotels and Resorts news release said of voco “Part of the under-construction ‘380 Melbourne’ skyscraper that is being built and developed by Brady Group with a high-end residential offering, the 252-room voco Melbourne Central will feature all the unique and playful hallmarks of the voco brand. Guests will get a true sense of arrival as they check in at the Sky Lobby on level seven, affording magnificent views of the city as they enjoy voco’s genuine welcome experience”.




Penny Whitehead (Agar, A'94)

Penny joined the guest panel at the first Geelong Young Professionals’ networking event for 2022 at a breakfast focussed on Tourism and Culture in Geelong on Thursday 24 March. The panel discussed the scape of Geelong in the tourism and culture industry and Penny was joined by Brett Ince, Tourism Greater Geelong and the Bellarine, Ilana Russell, Platform Arts and Joel McGuinness, Geelong Arts Centre.

Penny is the Deputy Director- Development and Commercial Operations at the Geelong Gallery and recently celebrated with her team as the Geelong Gallery won the Cultural Tourism category at the Victorian Tourism Awards. She joined the Gallery team in 2017 with almost two decades of experience leading marketing and communications, sponsorship and partnership requirements of a range of organisations including, Love Lorne, Lorne Festival of Performing Arts, Yering Station, Abercrombie & Kent, Austins & Co., Adventure Flight Co and Geelong Gallery and has been integral in delivering positive impact through artistic and cultural advancement for the community and economic benefit to the region.

Celebrating 125 years, Geelong Gallery was established in 1896 and is one of the leading and oldest regional galleries in Victoria. As a major cultural institution in the City of Greater Geelong, the Gallery’s purpose is to provide an experience of art that will enrich people’s lives. Demonstrating consistently strong growth in attendance and engagement, Geelong Gallery’s success is based on the excellence of its collection (focused on Australian landscape, printmaking and the evolution of Geelong); the capacity to deliver both popular and scholarly exhibitions; a commitment to lifelong learning, and a significant contribution to Geelong’s economic and cultural renewal.




Lauren Ryan (Cl'16)

Lauren represented Australia at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia on Friday18 March. Lauren was one of two Australians to qualify for the Women’s 3000m event, having recorded the fastest time – 8:47.88 – in the NCAA this season (and the fourth fastest 3000m of all-time in NCAA competition) last month representing Florida State University. The other Australian to qualify was Olympian Jessica Hull.

Lauren was an outstanding long-distance runner during her time at Geelong Grammar School and she still holds the Open Girls’ 1500m and 3000m School Records. She has already represented Australia at underage level, most recently at the World Junior Athletics Championships (2016) and World Cross Country Championships in 2017. Lauren spent two years studying and competing for Villanova, in Pennsylvania, before transferring to FSU. After a successful first season at FSU in 2019, in which she qualified for the NCAA Championships, Lauren experienced a knee injury at the end of the year before returning home to Australia in 2020 due to the pandemic; a move that proved to reignite Lauren’s passion for running.

“When I went back home, it kind of put me back in the moment of where it all started,” she told seminoles.com. “I was training right outside my doorstep, at the same location where I’ve been training at since I was young. My success started in the 10th grade when I was out there by myself, running because I wanted to run. Being back home where it all began, it was just a reality check at the time.”

Lauren returned to FSU ahead of the 2021-22 season and, in the space of three months, she has set a new school record (indoor) in both the 3000m (8:47.88) and 5000m (15:40.40) events. She warmed up for the World Indoor Championships by finishing fourth in the 3000m at the recent NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Alabama.




Harry Hart (P'21)

After completing Year 11 last year, Harry departed for Europe to pursue his passion for competitive snowboarding. After a number of interrupted seasons, Harry and his family were keen to discover how he ranked competitively before deciding whether to return to GGS in 2022, setting a benchmark of a top-8 result at Federation International de Ski (FIS) level before committing to snowboarding full-time this year and chasing his dream of competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

After completing an intensive training and competition workload, Harry achieved his goal by finishing 8th in the FIS Snowboard Cross event in Baqueira Beret in the Pyrenees in mid-January. He backed it up the following week with his first podium finish, finishing 3rd on the slopes of Vitkovice in the Czech Republic.