There’s a moment every Old Boy knows, even if he’s never tried to put it into words. The last time you walk out those gates – cap still on, the future somewhere ahead of you, and something behind you that you can feel but can’t quite name. For most, that feeling fades into the business of life.
Careers, families, cities that aren’t New Plymouth. The College becomes a chapter rather than a place.
For the Trustees of the FDMC Old Boys Foundation, it never quite worked that way. The pull stayed. And eventually, it turned into something they felt compelled to act on – not for recognition, not for a title, but because they understood what Francis Douglas gave them, and what it can still give to the boys who are sitting in those same classrooms today.
It would be easy to describe trusteeship in governance terms – oversight, stewardship, fiduciary responsibility. But ask any of the men around this table why they said yes, and you won’t hear language like that. What you’ll hear is simpler and more honest.
Foundation Chair Josh Hickford (Class of ’07) puts it the way most Old Boys would: “It is a no brainer to give back to something you enjoy and love.” No strategic rationale. No corporate framing. Just a man who knows what the College meant to him, and wants to make sure it keeps meaning something to the generations that follow.
That directness is characteristic of a Trustee group that spans more than five decades of Old Boys – from the late 1960s through to recent graduates – each bringing a different perspective, a different era, a different version of what Francis Douglas was to them. What connects them isn’t the year they graduated. It’s the thing they carried out with them when they did.
FDMC Old Boys Foundation Trustees pictured – Backrow: Josh Hickford, Corban Dravitzki, Sam Bennett, Chris Sole. Frontrow: Kevin Murphy, Peter McDonald, Mark Butterworth, Geoff Bourke, Tim Stuck.
What stays with you
Mark Butterworth (Class of ’95) doesn’t reach for a single defining moment when he talks about his time at the College. What he describes is something quieter and more durable than any one memory: “What I do carry with me is a deep sense of pride in being an FDMC Old Boy.” That pride – earned, understated, and remarkably consistent across generations of alumni – is the common language of this community. You either know it or you don’t, and every man in this Trustee group knows it.
For Tim Stuck (Class of ’95), now serving as Principal of the College, that pride translated into a particular way of seeing his own purpose. “FDMC instilled in us the idea that we are not here just for ourselves, but to serve others.” It’s a Lasallian conviction, but for Tim it isn’t abstract – it’s the reason he came back to the school, and the reason he sits around the Foundation table now.
Sam Bennett (Class of ’88) finds the same truth in something even more immediate: a friendship formed across the divide of day boy and boarder that has outlasted everything the decades could throw at it. “A day boy and a boarder… and we became best mates. That remains to this day.” These aren’t headline moments in any conventional sense. But they are the foundations of something that proves far longer lasting than any single achievement on a honours board.
The long view and the fresh eyes
One of the quiet strengths of this Trustee group is the range of perspective it holds – and what happens when those perspectives sit together in the same room.
Corban Dravitzki (Class of ’19) is the youngest voice at the table, a recent Head Boy still close enough to his time at Francis Douglas to remember it with clarity and immediacy. He recalls the feeling of his first day – 800 boys in unison, the weight of something beginning – and describes becoming a Trustee as a way of staying inside something he values before the distance grows. “It’s a great opportunity to be involved in the college community once again.” There’s no sentimentality in the way he says it, just a genuine recognition that connection, left untended, has a way of slipping.
At the other end of the timeline sits Peter McDonald (Class of ’69), whose relationship with the College has been shaped across more than five decades – not just as a student, but as a parent, a fundraiser, a presenter of College Colours, and a custodian of significant school memorabilia. His involvement in raising funds for the Anthony Hawkins hostel and science suite is part of a long record of practical service to the institution he attended as a teenager. The perspective he brings isn’t nostalgia – it’s something steadier than that. “Giving the boys a sense of pride and a sense of belonging… you get that right, everything else follows.” Half a century of watching that principle play out gives those words a particular weight.
Pictured: The early days. Pictures from early decades showing various sports days and the orginal Gym under construction.
A full circle
Every Trustee arrives at this role by a different road, but the destination tends to look the same – a natural point at which giving back stops being an idea and starts feeling like the obvious next thing to do.
For Geoff Bourke (Class of ’00), that point came with parenthood. Seeing the College through the eyes of a father gave him a perspective on what it means that his own years as a student hadn’t quite offered. For Chris Sole (Class of ’76), it’s been a longer continuous thread – he was part of establishing the Foundation and has supported it ever since, the kind of steady presence that institutions quietly depend on.
Kevin Murphy (Class of ’77) traces a journey that has woven in and out of the College across most of his adult life. An Old Boy, a former Board of Trustees member, and the father of two sons who followed him through the same gates – his connection to Francis Douglas is less a chapter than a recurring theme. He still carries a memory from his playing days: a sideline conversion for the 1st XV after transitioning from football, a small moment that speaks to something larger about what the College was able to draw out of him. When the opportunity to join the Foundation arose, it felt like a continuation rather than a departure.
“The opportunity to assist on the Foundation seemed a next logical step – a further way to give back to the school.” His hope for current students is characteristically unambiguous: not just academic achievement, but “positive experiences and memories that boys will carry with them as they make their way in life.”
What they want for the boys coming through
Ask any Trustee what they hope for today’s students, and the answers converge on a point that sits beyond grades and rankings and measurable results.
Tim Stuck frames it with the clarity you’d expect from someone who has dedicated his professional life to the question: “If boys leave FDMC with a strong moral compass, we’ve done our job well.” Geoff Bourke keeps it direct and practical: “Learn… then go forth and do.” Corban holds two things in tension – “the confidence to back themselves… and the humility to know when to listen” – which is, perhaps, the most useful thing a young man can carry into the world.
And Sam Bennett, when asked what he wants for the next generation, offers a single word that somehow contains all the rest: “HOPE.” Hope for identity. Hope for belonging. Hope for resilience. Hope for a life spent in service of something beyond yourself. It’s not just about achievement – it’s about who they become. That phrase appears, in one form or another, in almost every conversation with every Trustee. It is, perhaps, the closest thing to a shared creed this group has.
Pictured: Principal Tim Stuck with the 2026 Prefect group welcoming our newest students through the College gates for their first time.
It doesn’t have to be a cheque
A consistent message runs beneath all of these conversations, and it’s one worth saying plainly: the Foundation isn’t simply looking for financial support. It’s looking for community.
Chris Sole puts it with a directness that leaves no room for misinterpretation: “Committing your time is more important than money.” Kevin Murphy reinforces the point from a different angle: being an advocate, promoting Francis Douglas as the premier education for boys in the region, opening professional doors for current students – these are contributions that no dollar figure can easily replicate.
Time. Experience. Connection. Presence. These are the currencies that build a community worth belonging to, and a College worth coming back to. Whether it’s mentoring a student, showing up to an event, or simply staying connected rather than letting the distance grow – every one of those actions strengthens the network that surrounds the College and every boy who passes through it. For those in a position to think about lasting impact, there is also the opportunity of legacy giving – ensuring the College continues to benefit long after any of us are here to see it.
As Sam puts it, in a line that carries the full weight of what the Foundation is trying to build: “Legacy isn’t what we did while we were here. It’s what we build for those who follow.”
Still building
The FDMC Old Boys Foundation is not a finished thing. It’s a work in progress – which is exactly as it should be for an institution still growing, still reaching.
Every Trustee brings a different story to the table. But together, they represent something larger than any one of them – a shared belief in the College, its values, and the future it’s still in the process of building.
Brotherhood. Service. And that quiet pride that never really leaves you.
Read more about the Foundation here
