Concordia

Concordia Winter 2021

Triennial 2021

Tri-ennial. From the Latin tres, meaning three, and annus, meaning year. Hence Triennial being something that occurs every three years. Except the last one happened in 2017, so that won’t work. Quadrennial perhaps? Or maybe try-any-‘ole way to give the Second Master something to do.Yes, that will do. He who plans early plans twice. And so it was that, back in February 2020, we confirmed the bookings with St Paul’s Cathedral and the Merchant Taylors’ Hall for Friday 16th October 2020 and detailed planning started in earnest. Then there was lockdown and school closures: no problem, as this would surely be over by the summer. And then the ‘road-map’, and then the guidance for reopening schools, and it became clear in late summer of 2020 that there would be no way that guidance would allow the Triennial to go ahead on the date planned. So, what to do? To postpone a year, and give name pedants sleepless nights, or to skip the event altogether and look towards 2023. There was the growing feeling throughout last academic year that the school community needed something that would bring us all together after so long: the bubbling, the online social events, the distance learning, the weakening of those ties that congregational activity and shared experience do so much to strengthen. If it could happen, it should happen. And so, after lengthy discussion with St Paul’s and other stakeholders it was agreed that the event could go ahead largely as before without any contravention of guidance on Friday 15th October 2021. No brass, no processions, no special trains but singing and readings and bells and (for some) tea in the Hall and (for others) a beer in the pub. Not easy, but worth it, to see the cathedral full (its first full-scale event since March 2020: a building like that needs people) and the community together, albeit briefly. And now to revert: the next Triennial will be in 2024. Thank goodness it’s not a Triannual. Michael Husbands Second Master

26

Triennial on video Click on the QR code for highlights or the full service.