St Joe Form 5 (1976) - Grand Reunion (Part 1)

This is the BIG one, boys!  More than 33 years in the making, as they say.

All of us are FIFTY years old, so it's the most appropriate time to have a Grand Reunion.

A few of our friends in Kuching have gotten together to have a first brainstorm on this. Thanks to Ben Wong, Robert Chin, Bob Chew, Jensen Ng Koon Teck, Jude Jong, Norbert Liew, and also Dato' Anthony, who had many creative suggestions.

This will be the first of a series of postings leading up to the momentous event.

Some key facts to note and book your individual calendars ...


Date - Wed, 23rd December 2009

Venue - Merdeka Palace, Kuching

Rooms - For those flying back from far corners of the world, and need accomodation, we'll try to get good rates at the hotel.
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Theme - (to be determined ... Do send in suggestions)

Menu - (to be determined ... will check what the hotel has to offer)

RSVP - Indicate your attendance quickly by putting in a comment. We need the rsvp pronto so that we can finalise our bookings with Merdeka Palace (and get the best rates)

Itinerary for the nite - (to be determined. Send in your suggestions to organizing leads Ben Wong and Jensen Ng Koon Teck, or post comment on this blog entry)

Entertainment - (See more info below .... We will try to persuade Beyonce and the Pussycat Dolls, but if that doesn't work, we may have other local artistes or fall back to "music machines, DJs or dock an iPod" as Dato' A suggested. Music of our era will certainly be played)
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Souvenir - (you can be sure we will have something very special and appropriate)

The Damage - We need to collect RM100 each for the reunion dinner.Robert Chin is appointed our Treasurer. To confirm your attendance, you must do an online transfer of your fee to the following bank account:

     Maybank A/C No. 111234121779
     A/C Holder: ROBERT CHIN JOON FATT

and once you have done that, can you text Robert Chin (+6016 8774018) or  email him (robertjfc@gmail.com) to let him know you have paid.


Don't miss this reunion, boys! Wherever you are, try your best to be there. There may never be another chance again.

And if you need official letter to get visa from your Minister of Home Affairs to make the trip, ask Ben Wong or Koon Teck or Robert Chin ... LOL

Stay tuned to this blog. Much more news to come ...


New Information

We are now planning on a vareity of exciting activities for the Grand Reunion. Here's a sneak preview of things to come. And we're not going letting everything out of the bag yet. There will still be surprises!!! 

There will be great music, of course ... including songs from the 70s and early 80s. to bring back the nostalgia. We have Felix & company kindly providing some of the live band experience.

There will also be singing (although which songs and which singers still to be determined) Other than everyone for "Sons of St Joseph" (start practicing ok), I'm sure we have many eager singing talents honed over the past three decades, especially some Karaoke veterans in our midst.

There will be memorabilia and creative journeys down the past 3 decades.

There will be great games and great prizes (sponsors still needed for prizes, this one real ok!).

There will be entertainers ... dancers from the traditional (someone will be doing the ngajat? chinese fan dance?) to the esoteric (not sure what - but I hear some vertical metal structures may be involved) to the classic (I'm sure there will be someone who will demonstrate the twist, limbo rock, birdie dance ...)
And of course there will be food and drink to enjoy the whole night through.

So get everyone in our cohort who hasn't yet signed yet to do so. It is a crime to miss the Mother of All Reunions. Anyone who cannot come must produce a letter from your parent or guardian and hand it in to a teacher or prefect !!!!!

(now let's see if the number of comments on this posting increases or not! LOL!)

"What & Where in Kuching is This?" Challenge

In the previous Random Photo Album posting, there seemed to be some interest in the exercise of identifying familiar places in Kuching, from photos taken from unusual angles. Well friends, if you thought that was easy, you're probably right ... because it was simply a teaser to THIS challenge.

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NOW, let's see how well you really know our old hometown. There are 10 spots, and the winner is the one who gets all 10 right first. Remember you need to say WHAT it is, and also WHERE it is. There will be a prize, but I'm not telling you what it is yet. (Emmmm, just a note to CLK(f) : it's not an MB box!!!). Anyway submit your final answer by email to your friendly Website Jaga at jslyong@hotmail.com.
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Nothing to stop you making suggestions or having discussions with others via the "Comments" function (in fact I hope you do, to make it interesting) ... but you also run the risk of someone "leveraging" on your right identifications. Then again, you can also drop "red herrings" to send people off on the wrong paths .. like some of my clues ... hehehe.

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(1) Purfect Curl

(2) Slopey Shade

(3) Room with a View?

(4) Peaceful Rant

(5) Electrically-powered Thirst Quencher

(6) Old Signage

(7) What's the Point?

(8) House of Many "Eyes"

(9) If you like Bunnies ...

(10) Glassy gallery

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Good luck. Deadline for submissions is midnight on 30th June 2009 (MY/SG time).
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RANDOM PHOTO ALBUM - PART #8

Here's the next batch of random photos from Kuching ...

The first shot is of Sky Bookstore in the Padungan area. I haven't been inside the shop for many years, but when I was a schoolboy, the four places in Kuching I went for books were Kwong Hua Bookstore, Rex Bookstore, KK Abdul Majid and Sky Bookstore.

Next we have a view of St Mary's School. I'm sure some members of the Form 5 Class of 1976 had special relationships with the alumni of the aforementioned establishment ... old flames or even current spouses.

Remember Coffin Lane ? A.K.A. Kai Joo Lane. If I remember correctly, there was some well-known and delicious confectionery tidbits to be found in there ...

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And finally here's a common scene in a Gambier Road shop ... pity we can't project the smells in addition to the visual details.

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Hope you enjoyed them.

[Pictures courtesy of Leo Sia]

Remember that Reunion of 1994 ?

After rummaging through our old storage boxes, I came across this old photo that I had forgotten I even had ...

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The "Class of 76 Reunion Dinner" was held on 8 Feb 1994 at the Hilton, Kuching. I remember one of the key organizers was Bob Chew Pok Vun, and despite not having the benefit of e-mail, Facebook, blogs and other Web search tools, he managed to track down about two dozen members of the Form 5 classes of 1976. Thanks Bob for the great effort !

I'm afraid the photo has decoloured with age, and isn't all that clear. To assist your failing eyesight, I've sliced the picture in three parts & zoomed in for better viewing. If you still want to see an enlarged version of the entire picture, I advise you to download it to your own PC and view it in a slightly larger format.

Here goes ....

Left Section

Middle section

Right section

There you have it .... now who wants to try to name all the participants at this event?

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