Final Touches on Gathering : 6-Oct

On Sautrday, 6 October between 14:00 and 16:30, many from the organising committee (main and sub) met at the school canteen to put the final organisational touches to THE PARTY OF THE YEAR. Present were : Arun, Florence, Joseph, Linda, Siew Ling, Maggie, Siew Lian, Loo Eng, Jin Tham, Poh Hong, William and me (I hope I did not leave out anyone...).

This meeting was the follow-up on the meeting held at Bt Batok McDonalds on 22 September, attended by Arun, Amir, Florence, Chew Lay, Poh Hong, William and Vincent (again, humble apologies if I missed out any name)

Read on for important notes culled from both meetings :

Confirmed Guest List
As of last count, we have a grand total of 69 participants, comprising 33 Nutties, 11 spouses, 21 children, and 4 teachers (as guests). We are also proud to be inviting the current Principal, Vice Principal, and two Senior Teachers (Jeyamani and Han Kiat) for the party.

Function Details (please also refer to right-hand column)
Date: 27 October, 2007 (Saturday)
Venue: Chestnut Drive Sec Scool CANTEEN
Dress : Casual
Timing/Program :
18:30 - 19:00 --- Arrival of guests and registration.
Please proceed to the school canteen where the Welcoming Committee will meet with you. Remember to update your contact infomation, among other things.
19:00 --- Opening Speeches (the usual stuff)
19:30 --- Buffet Dinner (the main event. You are encouraged to mingle...like you don't already know!!!)
21:30 --- Closing Proceeding (again the usual stuff. Volunteers to help clean-up the place, if necessary).

Collection of Funds
To re-iterate, the charges are S$30 for a Nuttie, S$30 for attending spouse/partner, free of charge for children. Invited teachers with their partner will come as Guests (ie., NO CHARGE).
Over the next few days, the appointed "Contact-in-charge" will be getting in touch with you again about the function (to remind) and to make arrangement on the payment (however convenient: direct meeting to hand over the amount, bank transfer, or handing over the amount on the date of the function). Whatever the case may be, please offer us your utmost co-operation as the "Contact-in-Charge" has a tedious task ahead of them.

You can identify your "Contact-in-charge" on the appropriate column of the Contact List (sent to you separately via e-mail, for obvious security reasons). For the benefit of all, the "Contacts-in-charge" assigned to contact specific individuals are : Arun, William, Jin Tham, Kamail, Joseph, Linda, Vincent and myself.

All monies collected are to be handed-over to Arun for his accounting and appropriate disbursement (Food and beverages, etc).

If you have any question, please either post them here and/or call anyone of us for clarifications.

The count-down has begun, so start polising up on the School Song, your '70's dance steps and bring on the Tanchos, Brylcreems and six-button skirts...'cause we're going to have a Party!!!

For past information on progress made on the gathering to-date, please refer to the reverse sequenced archive pages below:

Progress Report on Gathering : 19-Sep
Progress Report on Gathering : 12-Sep
Progress Report on Gathering : 11-Sep
Year of '79 Get-together, introduction

Photo Essay : Kamail and Friends

Kamail kindly submitted these beautiful fotos...Can you recognise the folks in it?

Kamail kindly submitted these beautiful fotos. Identify ALL the blokes (4 mouse-keteers) in the pictures above. The first person with the correct answer will receive a week's supply of Zam Zam Nasi Bryani, courtesy of Kamail...of course!

Quickly, Quickly...the closing date is now October 10th, 2007.

Florence's "The BCQ News" Blog

BCQ

My dearest fellow CDSS Classmates & Friends,

Kindly refer to JQ's blog on September 22nd 2007.

"Saturday, September 22, 2007

Florence the self-styled "bo-chap" Queen's blog...and varia
Posted by Joachim Quah at 11:32 AM
Florence kindly submitted her blog-site titled CDSSians Unite. Happily, I have included it in the "useful links" section for you cruisin' and surfin'... to stay united."

If you have tried many times clicking on my blog and the remark was "page is not found" do not panic...it is just that I have changed to a new link:)

You can click on http://bcqnews.blogspot.com/ or you can also locate my blog under Useful and Favourite Links too.

May CDSSians Rule and Stay United Forever!!!

by Florence aka BorChap Queen

Portrait of 2 Nutties : Jessie and ???

Yup, she is none other than Jesbeer Kaur aka Jessie Gill. That was an easy one, yah.

Now do you know who the provocative lady below is? Believe me, she is the mystery girl from our class year who stumbled upon the blog and gleefully wrote to me about it. It took a while for me to register who she was, but I know now:))

A fantastic prize awaits the first correct answer...and YES, she will grace the occasion on 27 Oct, 2007, where all will be revealed (about her identity, lah!).

Remember to start posting your mug shots and video-clips containing you or our classmates in it for your viewing...

Lower Secondary Literature: My tiny reflection

I recall the time in secondary 1 when we had to read The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck -- Mdm Chiam's class? For a first timer to thick story books, I must admit that the plot and characters in O Lan and Wang Lung made for perfect leisure reading (though NOT for exams...). I even managed to watch the movie classic of the Good Earth on channel 5 (five star rating!). A MUST Re-Read!!!!!????

Happily, the lure of Buck had led me to gobble up 3 more of her classics, viz., The Mother; Three Daughters of Madam Liang; and, Imperial Woman (about the last Empress Tzu Hsi) : all very interesting read. I hope to do more Buck novels in the next couple of years...

I also recall doing The Story of Lady Precious Stream, made out like a chinese opera/stage play. If my memory serves me right, we even had to play out the characters in Mdm Chiam's class...and she would gleefully hand out exercise books, pencils, and stationery as rewards for correct answers, etc. I even remember watching a cantonese opera performance on channel 8 on the same story (although I don't think I understood a single word of it!)

For secondary 2, I recall doing poetry (something which up until today I still don't quite know how to handle comfortably).

Nevertheless, thanks to Charanjit Singh, "The Charge of the Light Brigade" short version still rings in my head.

Have you any recollection of the books we covered during lower secondary? If yes, please post them on the blog. I seem to have a mental block and can only remember the ones above.

Till next time... Joachim

Progress Report on Gathering : 19-Sep

Greetings Nutties,Much has happened since the last report, with the most significant as follows :-

Confirmation of Attendees :- As of this afternoon 16:00 hrs, we have 60 pax confirmed attending : 27 Nutties, 10 partners, 19 children, and 4 guests (i.e. 2 teachers with spouse).

We are awaiting confirmation from 6 Nutties [c'mon blokes and blokettes...just say yes and come!!!] AND 4 guests (current principal, Lee Han Kiat, Jeyamani and Mrs Goh [bio teacher]). Unfortunately Mr Goh [chinese teacher] cannot make it as he will be out of town.

NOTE : IT IS STILL NOT TOO LATE TO SLIP IN NAMES OF NEW CONTACTS...

Group Meeting before the function

1. Arun has called for members of the "core" group (regular kakis), sub-Committee, and anyone else who wants to meet and enjoy the ketchup drenched fries, to assemble at Bt Batok McDonalds this coming Saturday (22 Sept) at 16:00 hrs to iron out the financials, get an update on what the sub-Committee members are up to, and to tie-up loose ends, etc. Please confirm your attendance with Arun directly, and spread this piece of information to those without e-mails and/or access to computers. Vincent who is doing the Entertainment has already confirmed attendance.

2. The Welcoming and Collections sub-Committee will be meeting in the school canteen on 6 Oct (Saturday) between 14:00 and 14:30 to recce the place and plan the lay-out, decorations, etc. Arun, who is handling the F&B with Amir, will also be there at that time to check out on how the food could be laid out. Kindly note that Arun will advise the various sub-Committee leads soon as to whether a final wrap-up meeting (to co-ordinate and tie-up loose ends) will follow on this date right after the rece session.

NOTE : The above 2 meeting requests reported were based on information I have received. If it is inaccurate, please do not hesitate to contact me immediately to get it corrected, as I sometimes do get it muddled with instructions ;-D

Updates on Contact Tracing:-

We've managed to touch base with Jesbeer Kaur, now famously known as Jessie Gill.

Jessie is based in Toronto (who would imagine that Jessie would be neighbours with Pardiv some thousands of miles away from sunny Singapore...the city of possibilities...!!!). We will wait to hear more from Jesbeer.

We await Siew Ling's update on Alice? Otherwise, its been quiet on the contact tracing front...

Keep that smile on...and until next time...ciao!

Joachim

Progress Report on Gathering : 12-Sep

It is confirmed : We are going to have the party at the School Canteen, yeah!!!

Vincent aka Fei Hong, no need to "die die..."! I met up with Han Kiat, Jeyamani (who knows Ms Radha very well), and the principal this afternoon and was pleased with their enthusiasm.

A Special thanks to the principal and Han Kiat..hip, hip, hooray!!! It was indeed a strange feeling being in the school premise, and my word, it has quite transformed!

Now the real fun begins...
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Confirming your attendance :-

All "contacts-in-charge" have been given the tasks to call upon their "charges" to spread the function details, and to confirm attendance (including spouse/partner/children).

The "contact-in-charge" will then have to forward all responses (positive and negative ones) via email to me by 16.Sep.2007 (this Sunday).

I will consolidate the returns and advise Arun and Amir so that they can start organising the catering.

Note : if you do not hear from the "contact-in-charge" by Sunday, then pick up the phone and call them, or myself, to confirm your attendance.


Welcoming and Collections sub-Committee:-

I guess Siew Ling and gang will have to start cracking on the organising of the canteen area. The space is quite big and arrayed with movable long tables and benches (like how it was during our school days).

Just advise us as to how you want the layout to be like and we will have some muscle men (led of course by Wong Fei Hong) to assist.

Also, I think that on the day of the function, Siew Ling and gang and a few of us will have to be at the school earlier to set things up...right? Just shout early when you need the assistance.


Media and Publications sub-Committee :-

Apart from Florence, we have yet to hear from Peng Eng and William (hello....can you confirm pleaseeeeee...) Keep us posted as to what you would be doing as a run up to the day, for the day (eg., group photos, etc), and after the day.

On my part, if you need them, I can supply my lap-top and beamer for use on the day of the function.


Entertainment :-

Vincent, can you specify what you need for the day? Also, you have to start thinking about the speeches (or singing) that you and Lee Thiam Lock are doing for the day, etc. etc. etc. I can't wait for you to entice Mr Lee to pick up his pen and script another school song (post-79)?

Enough said. It's work time.

So let's smile and get going... Joachim *s*

PS : I think its about time we "hear" others on the blog. Start contributing (your thoughts, pictures, etc) else it becomes quite boring just hearing from me... Also, those who have not confirmed their participation in the sub committee (highlighted in red in yesterday's posting, please (tolong tolong) SMS me to confirm...Thanks so much!