Insuring the future

- David Pine, NZIJ Risk Management Ltd


Last weekend Margaret and I attended a reunion of my college, Otago Boys High School (OBHS) in Dunedin. The format of the reunion was interesting in that only those who started at the school in 1957, 50 years ago, were invited. The result was that everyone at the reunion was the same age.

My college days weren’t the happiest of my life and so I had made the decision to attend with some trepidation. I needn’t have worried.

Of the 200 boys who started at OBHS that year, about 30 of us turned up to the reunion. I’d kept in touch with only a handful of them over the years so it was the first time I’d seen most of them for about 46 years. Back then, we were only just getting started with our lives, and now here we all were approaching retirement.

Some of the guys I recalled as being quite brilliant young men at school, and these ones had indeed gone on to great things. For example, among our number we had two surgeons, two judges and three dentists. The rest of us were spread among a wide array of occupations, from retail to property development, and from IT to insurance (I thought I should mention that one)!

There were two things that struck me about this gathering.

Firstly, no one cared what others had done for a living. We were all just glad to be there, to find out what everyone had been up to, and to remember the good things that had happened to us at college.

Secondly, with the benefit of hindsight we were all extremely grateful for what we had learned at OBHS and how we had grown. One of the guys mentioned that a teacher who was retiring had said to him “Work hard, be humble”. At the time he thought “Oh yeah, yeah, so what?” Much later he realised the significance of this simple piece of advice.

While at the reunion we were encouraged to make donations to the school to ensure its ongoing development. Government funding goes only so far, and even a public school like OBHS needs a lot of additional support to stay ahead of the game. Many of us have decided to help out as best we can. When you think about it, high quality education is the best insurance for the future of New Zealand.

Perhaps it’s time for you to think about giving something back to your old school. They will be glad of your help.