Saints Online

Finally our new revamped website is up and it gives me great pleasure to write this message and update you on what is new at the St Andrew’s Alumni, SAA.

This website which is still very much a work in progress will be the means by which all old Saints can log on to see what is new, update their particulars, look for old friends they may have lost touch with and also to learn of the services provided by old boys and girls. Of course there will be links to the three schools within the Village, Mr Yee Teck Peng’s archive of DYK and historical facts provided by our past President, Goh Chong Chia. Our aim is to make it a networking social and business tool that can also generate some income for the SAA through advertising and job placements. All the interest groups within the schools network will also be linked to our website. 

Since the AGM last year much has happened and the SAA Management Committee has been working very hard behind the scenes to make the Alumni more meaningful and relevant to all members. 

Our first Social Function was a Cheese and Wine appreciation held on Friday, 27^th July last year. It was held at the Centre of Excellence and was co organized by our kind Sponsors, eWineasia who supplied the superb, high quality wines from the Provence region. The event commenced with a discourse on wine making where we learned about the different variety of grape types in this special region of France, how to assess and size up a wine and then we tasted about 9 different wines. We were also able to buy the wines at heavily discounted prices and many of us went back with several cases. More than 50 members showed up and we will be repeating this in the next quarter.

The Annual Dinner was a tremendous success!! Those of you who were there will attest to this and those who couldn’t come must have heard about it from others by now. Held in the Village for the first time since the Village was opened, the evening started with a reception in the Chelliah courtyard.  The courtyard was beautifully lit with Hawaiian torches and wine and drinks were served with some tidbits. Guest-of-Honour, Mr. Hermann Hochstadt arrived with his family and we proceeded to the Secondary School Hall to a marvelous meal. There were 55 tables all having a great time and enjoying the music provided by Danny Koh and his Band. Wine and beer was a plenty and there were really no formalities as old Saints went noisily from table to table catching up with old friends. Many have said this was one of the best Alumni dinners they have attended and we certainly hope to repeat this, this coming August so please book your tables early. All credit for this dinner goes to Ho Koon Leong and his team who will strive to make this year’s function even more enjoyable! 

The Past versus Present Rugby Tournament was held on 24^th November at SAJC and this was sponsored by the SAA. The Guest-of-Honour was Mr.Ong Peck Lye, an old boy and staunch supporter of the sport.  Great fun was had by all who attended. Congratulations to all who participated!

The Alumni Room refurbishment was completed in August 2007 and we now have a proper home at last. This is located in the old science room on the ground floor of the old school (now the Diocese Building).  There will be a resource and Archive room there and also a secretariat room fully equipped with computers etc for our day to day activities. A room has also been reserved for Mr Yee Teck Peng to operate his DYK from as we all appreciate the enormous amount of work he puts in for the School and for all Saints who are constantly updated on new happenings through his DYK column. To this end, the SAA together with the co sponsorship of Dr. Tyrone Goh has provided Mr Yee with the latest up to date Macintosh computer that will allow him to churn out these articles even faster. 

The MC members have discussed at length how to maximize the use of this room and some of the ideas generated are to use the room to hold some  enrichment classes such as “better English” for the less fortunate students of the Primary School who do not have access to nor  have the privilege of extra tuition. These classes will be paid by the Alumni and so we need to generate a revenue stream in order to help the many students of our school who still need some form of aid. One of the suggestions mooted was for the Alumni to be involved in providing school uniforms to the students. This will be much more convenient for the students and parents to obtain new uniforms without having to travel into town. We believe this is an excellent idea and are exploring this earnestly.

On the issue of aid, the Alumni has always felt that one of its roles is to provide support to the less fortunate students and we remain committed to this so if any of these cases can be brought to our attention, we are certainly ready to help. Again, this does need a revenue stream so one of the key issues concerning this Committee is create an income as subscriptions alone cannot sustain any of the programmes we wish to implement.

We are always grateful to the many donors and sponsors who have given generously to the School and Alumni and one of the new ones I would like to mention is ART Seasons Singapore and its owner, Terry Lee. 

One of the new projects the Alumni has introduced this year is the SAA Annual Art Competition. Open to all students of the Village, this promises to be an exciting event designed to stimulate our students’ interest in art and promote creativity. Submissions for the competition are going on right now (April) and all entries will be displayed in three classrooms on the ground floor of the Diocese Building as well as in the Alumni room from April 14^th to early May. Works range from drawings and paintings to digital photography, sculptures and installations. Generous prizes are being offered by Art Seasons who will also be producing a booklet of the winning entries and showing them for two weeks in their Art Gallery, the ART Seasons Loft at Eunos Technolink. There will be a grand reception and Prize giving on May 22^nd and Guest of Honour will be Prof Arthur Lim who has also kindly donated towards the costs of this competition. The SAA hopes this Competition will become a popular fixture in the annual calendar of School Activities.

Our Annual General Meeting for 2008 will be held on 17^th May. This year we will kick off the meeting at 4pm and hopefully finish in time for dinner and wines provided by the Alumni. We do hope as many of you will be able to come and lend support to our committee and help us with new ideas to make the Alumni more meaningful to all of you.