Len Sykes - Old Boy
The man responsible for the funds raised to build our college Chapel! An extract from the Chapel Fundraising commemorative leather bound magazine below:
In writing a short article on Leonard one doesn’t really know where to begin, as there is such a lot to say about this very generous gentleman. Leonard was here at St Gregory’s from 1949 - 1953, completing his leaving certificate in his last year. While at the college he was considered to be an ideal lad by the brothers and boys alike, and excelled in prayers, school and sport.
After leaving Leonard returned to his home property, “Gwendolyn”, Binalong in order to help his brother Adrian run the place. He was busily employed here until 1959, when he decided to come and help the brothers at the college. This year he did some teaching in sixth class, and then decided to reorganize our old boys union. After a lot of effort and not a lot of response, Len decided to start collecting for the new chapel, and in order to make a job of this he went around personally to see each old boy, get a little about his life history, explain the chapel scheme, and collect any money that was being offered.
All those readers that met Len on his trip will realise what a wonderful ambassador we have in him, what a tremendous job he has done for his Alma Mater and how enthusiastic he was about it. It is to his organising power that we owe our beautiful new chapel, and he was certainly the creator of this historic booklet. All we can say is ‘’ thank you very much, Leonard’, and we hope that our prayers and masses will repay you a hundredfold.