IMMEDIATE PAST NATIONAL CHAIRMAN

JOHN LEES

John Lees was born in Germiston in July 1944. He attended Christian Brothers College in Boksburg, where he matriculated in 1961. He is married to Patty, has two married children and seven grandchildren.

John spent forty-four years in the education profession having studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Johannesburg College of Education.
His first four years in teaching was spent at Colin Mann Primary School in Germiston. He then moved to King Edward VII Prep School and then to St Stithians where he was appointed Deputy Headmaster in 1977.
At the end of 1979 he moved to Grahamstown as Headmaster of Kingswood Junior School, where he spent six years before moving to Natal to take over the Headship of Clifton Preparatory School in Nottingham Road.
After six years he returned to St Stithians Preparatory School to take up the headship there.

While at St Stithians he became very involved in their outreach programme in the Lowveld and was involved in the establishment of a new school, Penryn College, between Nelspruit and White River where since 1997 he has been Headmaster of the Preparatory School.
John has been Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Independent Preparatory Schools, as well as Chairman of the Heads of Primary Schools in the Eastern Cape and Chairman of the Mpumalanga Independent Schools Association.
He has been on a variety of committees involved with education and has attended and spoken at Education Conferences in the UK and Australia.
John has always been very involved in a variety of sports, both actively and administratively.
He has played representative hockey and tennis, swam for two provinces and played water polo.
He has been involved in Southern Transvaal Football, both as Team Manager and Chairman of the Schools Association, as well as Chairman of the School Referees Association.
He was also Secretary of the Transvaal Schools Cricket Association for ten years.

During his younger years, Round Table played a large part in his life and, after a number of years on the committee, he was eventually elected Chairman of Grahamstown Table 11, and moved on to the Rotary Club at the age of forty.
It was only when he gave up competitive cricket and hockey at the age of fifty that the decision to play golf was taken. During this time he has been a member of Leeuwkop Golf Club in Johannesburg and is currently a very active member of Nelspruit Golf Club.

John became a member of Lowveld Nomads Golf Club within a year of its foundation and from the outset has served on its executive committee, holding the portfolios of PRO and Secretary for a number of years.
He was Lowveld Captain in 2007.
During his Nomadic career he has been actively involved in the running and organisation of the Junior Jock Golf Tournament, almost from its inception. He is also committed to the Dunhill Tournament at Leopard Creek where he helps each year.

John is a passionate and involved Nomad, who enjoys traveling and was the first Lowveld Nomad to travel to the Zimbabwe Nationals.
With his recent retirement from teaching he is in a good position to devote his time and energies to Nomads and is looking forward immensely to the huge privilege of traveling to visit each of the twelve clubs during his term of office.