The Old Stithian Association

Welcome to the Old Stithian Association

Nearly Eleven Thousand Alumni, across eighty-three (83) Countries call St Stithians College their alma mater; from here their course was set. 

Far may our Members go, though Once a Saint, Always a Saint. The Old Stithian Association (OSA) is a place of safety, belonging and of home - however smooth, however rough the seas.

We strive to bring Old Stithians and College Alumni community together, fostering a greater sense of belonging, engagement, brother and sisterhood.

The Association exists to house the College alumni, alumni related activities, the provision of amenities and facilities for this purpose, and in the ultimate interest of and for the prosperity and good name of the College.  

The OSA is the anchor point through which all Old Stithians and Alumni can stay connected with the Saints community while contributing to and benefiting from the worldwide network of Old Stithians. 

International Branches

The Old Stithian Associations is based from our Club House on the grounds of the St Stithians College Campus in Sandton, South Africa, known as the One & All - Higher Ground. 

All OSA Club Houses are hallowed ground, and named for the binding, uniting ethos of the College, "The One and All". 

The Association has a primary Branch in the United Kingdom and several other points of Contact internationally. 

Each Chapter and Branch are formal sub-sections of the Association. 

• United Kingdom - London

• Cape Town, ZA

• Tamarin, MU

• New York, USA

• Austin, USA

• British Columbia, CA

• Toronto, CA

• Melbourne Australia

GOVERNANCE OF THE ASSOCIATION

The administration, regulation and management of the affairs of the Association are vested in the Committee. 

Governed primarily by an Executive Committee which is expressly structured around Members elected to fixed-term Offices on the Committee. Any Member is eligible for election to the Committee. The College and its Schools are represented on the OSA Committee by the Rector (Voting), a Representative of each of the 7 Schools, and 1 pupil representative each for the Boys & Girls Colleges. 

In order to join the Committee in an executive function an individual must be elected into a given office, where they serve a 2 year term of that office (save for the 3 year term for the Office of the Chairperson). 

No single person directly or indirectly controls the decision-making powers of the Association, and Committee Members are of generally equal status, who must act in concert for the co-operative management and administration of the Association. 

The OSA exists as a Voluntary Association distinct from the College though with formal and enshrined representation on the College Trust and through the College's Governance Structures including the College Council and its Sub-Committees. 

The Association is a Registered Non-Profit with the Department of Social Development, South Africa; and its colours, badge and emblems are Registered with the South African Bureau of Heraldry. 

Modelled closely on fundementals of constitutional governance, and deliberative orders of government; the OSA's structure, governance and traditions reflect the model of British Public schooling in which the College is rooted, and is closely modelled on the Old Boy's Association of historic schools such as the Old Etonian Association. 

The Association enjoy representation on the College Council through five (5) ex-officio seats, and several more Council sub-committees to which it is entitled representation. 

The Committee serves for an on behalf of Members in the day to day running of the Association.

ONE & ALL - FOUNDED IN FAMILY 

The Association was built and founded on the efforts, support and financing of several key St Stithians College families and parents. 

Functionally the OSA is the dividend of a strong, highly engage group of  founding and early parents who laid much of the bedrock that is the College. These parents and families saw both a practical desire of Old Boys to Associate, along with the formation and existence of a strong and healthy Old Boys Association - as a critical element to the long term success of the College they had worked so hard to establish. 

Founder families such as the Tuckers, Bradleys, Woolers, Rankines and Lewis' remained the bedrock of the Association in its first decades of the OSA. 

The roles of early families, founding alumni and dedicated parents, cannot be understated in the success and history of the Association. 

This remains true, to this day. If you know where to look, you will see the impact and symbols of family as an anchors to the OSA through the college campus and it the structures of the Association.  Perhaps the best example of which is the existence of formal Family Membership to the OSA, enshrined in its constitution. 

An early and significant symbol of the connection between the founding of the College and the founding of the Association arrived in 1968 for its 10th Anniversary Celebrations, the ornamental sundial that stands to this day in the Boys College Quad. 

Centre to the ethos and devotion of the College is the Good Samaritan Window in the Chapel, equally a symbol of family, of the father son relationships that were so present in the establishment of the OSA. Sons, the new generation of St Stithians Old Boys Matriculating from the College, supported by their father (and mothers), who were themselves dedicate and engaged parents. This is a true as ever in the Good Samaritan window, dedicated by a founding family and father (Ray Bradley) to his father. Ray, himself a Member of Council helped establish the OSA, his son Ross Bradley was and early Chairman and one of the Associations first Old Boys on council.

This legacy of families helping to build the OSA lives on in the foyer of the One & All Higher Ground, where the merit boards list the Family Members of the Association, at whose hands and by whose donations a substantial amount of Higher Ground was built.