A Voice from Retirement
When my grandfathers retired in the early 1960s, they were already 'old men'. They were born before universal health care, fought in the trenches during the first war, survived the privations of rationing and the blitz during the second war and lived lives of hard physical labour.
For my generation, things are quite different, and our health and fitness levels at retirement don’t compare to those of the 1960s. One certainly doesn’t settle in for those twilight years of sitting in front of the fire dozing the day away. Since my retirement, I have been very active, and Diane and I have been enjoying our time together at home, at the cottage, hiking and travelling.
I eased into things by working part-time with the SJK Alumni office and then in 2014 I took a short-term contract as Head of School with the Canadian International School Kunshan (CISK). CISK is located in Jiangsu Province, China, just an hour outside of Shanghai. My objective was to help stabilize the school, put in place solid policies and procedures and to complete the IB Diploma Programme applications for them. Diane and I had a fabulous four months in Kunshan and spent our final month on a self-directed tour of China - seeing all of those things on our 'bucket list'.
For many years I have been involved with Governance at Groves Memorial Hospital (GMCH) in Fergus, and upon our return from China I took on the role of Board Vice-Chair. This past two years I have been the Board Chair at GMCH as well as the Chair of the Wellington Health Care Alliance (WHCA). I find that this keeps me quite busy reading up on material, attending meetings and encouraging the team. Our primary project this past few years has been the design and construction of a new hospital, the necessary fundraising and all that that entails. We broke ground in June 2018, and we will open the doors to the new hospital in the spring of 2020.
Fitness is a focus, and I plan on running either a half or full marathon each year. I celebrated my 65th birthday by running the Boston Marathon in 2017 and plan on doing the same for my 70th. Running Boston is quite an experience - a great event - only marred by hitting a wild turkey on my way to Boston and demolishing the front of my vehicle!
St. John’s Anglican Church Elora, its parish and community play a large role in my life, and it provides me with another opportunity to give back for all of the blessings that I have received - it also allows me to keep in touch with Canon Hulse! After 31 years at SJK, I haven’t quit cold turkey; I still attend Founders’ Day, Carol Services, Science Fair and any other opportunity I have to meet up with former colleagues and students - you all played such a large role in my life.
If you haven’t visited the campus recently, you should. The changes and development are quite inspiring - I am sure that you would be impressed. Beyond academics, our mission at the School was to help produce good citizens - people that you would like to have as neighbours, to work with or to work for. My colleagues and I spent our careers trying to inculcate that in you and your lives - now, hopefully, I am living that mission in my life. I always look forward to hearing from you on Facebook or seeing you at a school event.
Yours,
Ian Hornsby
St. John's Kilmarnock School
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