Retiring Bishop of Auckland - Bishop John

At the AGM on Saturday March 13th we unanimously voted for Right Reverend John Paterson to be added to our Honorary Old Boys list.
Rt Rev’d John Paterson, the Bishop of Auckland, has served as Episcopal Visitor to Dilworth School from 1995-2010.
In that time in this very unique role he has become a lot more than that – he has become a friend to the School and a personal friend to many.

It was in James Dilworth’s will that it was required there be an Episcopal Visitor to the School each year to look over things and if all was not right then to take some action.
This role includes filling in the Episcopal Visitor’s Book and making comments on the visit.

Looking at the two words -
Episcopal means that the Visitor must be a Bishop.
Visitor (with a capital V) is the interesting word – it means a lot more than it would appear at face value, but following is my concise interpretation of the word.
The Visitor (sorry these are my words – I hope they are correct)  is charged with ensuring that the ‘powers that be’ are kept in check, and if they need checking then has the power to take some action to do so.
Thanks to Principle Donald MacLean for explaining all of this at the Thanksgiving Service last night (Sunday March 14th).

We were honoured ourselves to be able to bestow the honour of Honorary Old Boy on Rt Rev’d John Paterson and at the Founders Thanksgiving Service he assured us that although he was now retiring as Bishop of Auckland he will make certain to continue his yearly visits to the School.
As an Old Boys Association we will welcome him into our family gladly.

The first step will be to get Bishop John on to our Old Boys Mailing List!