About our reunion
In 2011, Peter Thomas spoke to Brian Stagoll, who spoke to Pam Heath, who spoke to Kath Semmel (McKay) who spoke with Helen Miller. What about a reunion to mark 50 years from when we finished High School? So the five of us met over dinner in Fitzroy. Most of us hadn't met for decades but quickly found we had a lot to talk about and we wanted to know more about what had happened to everyone. As we talked, it became clear that we didn't want to limit the reunion just to the people who finished 6th form in 1962. Gerd Kratzer and others had organised reunions in 1982 and 1987 to mark the 20 and 25 year reunion of the form 6 group of 1962. But what about those people who started with us in 1957 but left before 6th form, or who repeated 6th form to gain university entrance, or who came from other schools somewhere between 1957 and 1962. So we opened up our thinking to include our "cohort" i.e. the people who were at school with us at some between 1957 and 1962.
We then formed a group and started talking about what we would do, how we would find people. We were joined later by Kelvin Margetts and Sylvia Geddes (formerly Garnham). Searching for people who had scattered across the globe over five decades was a challenge. We used old lists (thanks to Gerd and Kelvin who had kept the 20 and 25 year lists), phone books, social networking sites, the electoral roll and, most productively, word of mouth. Tracing the women is always a challenge as they change their names, often more than once. You can see on the page of "Lost and Found" how many we have located. There are, of course, many we have not found, which is sad and we may still find them. We have found one teacher, Mr. Mac Ronan, who is now over 80 and he came to our reunion dinner. Check out his 'story'.
The main point of our reunion was to connect people who went through school together, to share our memories, to talk about the past 50 years, to reflect on what our school meant to us (good and not so good). We shared our stories, re-connected with old friends, made new ones, had a lot of fun. We shall continue doing this through this website and many other gatherings that may happen in the years to come.
We had two formal reunion occasions: the reunion dinner on October 27 and the school tour in the afternoon of that day. Click on the links to see photograph and comments.
We then formed a group and started talking about what we would do, how we would find people. We were joined later by Kelvin Margetts and Sylvia Geddes (formerly Garnham). Searching for people who had scattered across the globe over five decades was a challenge. We used old lists (thanks to Gerd and Kelvin who had kept the 20 and 25 year lists), phone books, social networking sites, the electoral roll and, most productively, word of mouth. Tracing the women is always a challenge as they change their names, often more than once. You can see on the page of "Lost and Found" how many we have located. There are, of course, many we have not found, which is sad and we may still find them. We have found one teacher, Mr. Mac Ronan, who is now over 80 and he came to our reunion dinner. Check out his 'story'.
The main point of our reunion was to connect people who went through school together, to share our memories, to talk about the past 50 years, to reflect on what our school meant to us (good and not so good). We shared our stories, re-connected with old friends, made new ones, had a lot of fun. We shall continue doing this through this website and many other gatherings that may happen in the years to come.
We had two formal reunion occasions: the reunion dinner on October 27 and the school tour in the afternoon of that day. Click on the links to see photograph and comments.
