Goodbye and Hello to the Class of 2024

As the 2024 Prize Giving weekend began on Friday evening, chosen hymns were sung for the last time in this year's Leavers' Service. In the very best of traditions, voices raised the roof of the Chapel and thoughtful words of gratitude and reflection were shared by readers and speakers.

The Leavers' Service is always a memorable and moving occasion, and many reading this will remember tears shed and and tears shared at their own final Chapel. But nothing says more about the experience than this year's Dismissal from Mark G, Head of School. He has kindly given us permission to share in full his words.

What is it about this place that makes it so homely, so cozy, so close?

I think it might be because everyone cares. About one another, about themselves and the way they come across, about the way they treat one another, but possibly most of all, about this space that we all share. We care about how we feel in it, how we interact in it.

Here everyone is needed, everyone has a place.

For many of us, this place is where we grew up. It’s our school, our block, maybe even our world. We became adults here. We should be proud of the memories we made and the things we have achieved. We worked hard, but we played even harder. The fact that so many of us have thrived here is rare, the fact that we did it together even more so.

We leave Christ College having been given the best of starts, the most wonderful of opportunities to progress. But that means it’s up to us to make it count. With opportunity comes the responsibility to take it.

And yes, it’s been fun. And the future will be fun too. But I hope none of loses sight of the bigger picture this place has drawn for us.

University and our careers are what lie ahead. None of us have any doubt at all in the fact that we will succeed, because we are prepared for whatever the future throws at us.

Long may the Christ College Spirit live in our hearts: let it help us fight, and overcome everything in our paths.

And as we roam this school’s grounds for the final time, let us remember the warmth of the summer sun, the wrath of the autumn rain, and through every second of it, thick and thin, our togetherness.

Possunt Quia Posse Videntur.

They achieve because they believe they can, because they believe in each other.

As Leavers emerged into the damp air of a rainy Brecon evening to exit through the Phillips Gates, the Head wished them well with a 'Godspeed' before they were received into the OBA with OB ties. And so we say, a very warm welcome to all our new Old Breconians - The Class of 2024!