As Gilly Bunday leaves her role with the Friends of King's and takes up the new role of King's Registrar, Friends Committee Chairman, Mike Sykes, writes about Gilly's contribution to the Friends over the years...

Gilly’s contribution to the Friends of King's for the past 4 years has been absolutely amazing. Her energy and enthusiasm for the variety of events that the Friends has been involved with has simply been infectious. Gilly has a wonderful imagination and often working alongside Rose Vigers-Belgeonne as ‘The Dream Team’, she has produced a seemingly endless supply of fabulous ideas about how we could improve the Friends and make each of our events even better and more fun and entertaining. She has been the driving force behind all our recent successes. The Burns' Night last year was an exceptional evening, made even more special by the live band and numerous little touches that she made to ensure that everyone enjoyed the evening. She has set and delivered the Friends' Quiz Night for the past 3 years, researching all the questions herself and putting together the sound and question presentation to accompany the quiz all in her own time. However, it has been the recent changes that she has made to the King’s Bruton Christmas Fair that have been most impacting and collectively have made it a sell out event that has increased its income by 200% over the past 2 years, to the benefit of the Friends and the wider school charities.  

Much of her administrative work for the Friends Committee has been conducted behind the scenes, often unseen by the majority. It is solely down to her dedication and commitment that the various receipts and invoices have been processed correctly and that the items approved in the committee become a reality for the benefit of the pupils and wider school community. Her efforts are even more exemplary given she did all of this without question or additional reward.

It was for her dedicated and sustained efforts over the past 4 years that I was delighted to recognise Gilly’s outstanding contribution and present her with Honorary Membership of the Friends Association. This is a very rare accolade reserved only for those very few, deemed worthy by the Executive Committee, who have made a significant and sustained contribution to the Friends Community. We have all enjoyed working closely with Gilly and wish her the best of luck in her new role as the School Registrar. 

Col Mike Sykes OBE (parent, New House) - Chairman of the Friends of King's Committee