OJA Dinner 2018

Annual OJ Dinner 2018

The 109th Annual OJA Dinner

The annual Old Johannian Association Dinner continues to grow, and in 2018 we filled the largest covered venue at St John’s College – The Rene England Auditorium. 335 Guests attended the 109th dinner.

Annually we have a number of people who request that the dinner be moved to a warmer venue and this was the motivation behind moving the dinner to the Rene England. The end result was great, the venue looked superb. Photos of the evening can be found on the OJA Facebook group.

The OJA would like to thank the many members who attended the dinner, as well as the various reunions that attended, with particular thanks to the organisers:

  • 10 Year: Gareth Heidt, Lorne Hallendorf and Alexander Stojakovic
  • 15 Year: Andrew Crichton
  • 20 Year: Tim Osborne and Tota Tsotsotso
  • 25 Year: Jerome Passmore
  • 30 Year: Craig Quiding
  • 50 Year: Peter Brown and Chris Couchman

Dr. Ben Oosthuizen arranged for the College Big Band to entertain guests during the pre-drinks, and once again the OJA would like to thank him and the boys for their annual support.

Our two MCs were Thami Mxadana (Nash 1997) and Craig Jackson (Aston 1997) who started off the formalities a little after 7pm. There was a welcome by the Old Johannian Association, followed by an introduction to the St John’s College Golden Eagle Award recipient (Professor John Gear) by our OJA President, Mr Paul Edey, before the guests enjoyed an array of sushi prepared by the St John’s College school kitchen staff.

Nick Nicolaidis (Alston 1994) then led the Boar’s Head Choir into the venue and they performed flawlessly. We thank Nick and the Boar’s Head Choir for another superb performance.

Professor Tshilidzi Marwala (Sixth Form 1990) was our guest speaker for the evening and he gave an intriguing talk into the development of AI. The Association is very proud of his achievement in being recently appointed as the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of The University of Johannesburg (UJ)!

The evening ended with the school hymn and a DJ kept the reunion groups going until the early hours of the morning.

Many hours of work go into the planning of this dinner and the OJA would like to thank Sandra Lou, Kurt Fredericks, Kagiso Monageng, and the school’s outsourced events company (Nikky Fitzgerald – Memories In Motion), Theron Bonnet, Peter Henning and Jacqui Deeks. A big thank you to Mr Paul Edey and Mr Rob Long who assisted the OJA in making this dinner possible at the school.

The Old Johannian Association would again like to encourage all Old Johannians across the globe to please stay in touch with the Association. The easiest way to connect is on Facebook by requesting to join the closed group. Join our OJA Facebook group here: St John’s College Old Johannian Association

 

Please also be sure to send your updated info to our OJA office: info@oja.co.za

 

Craig Green – Hill 2000

OJA Committee

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