I continue to be amazed at the number from our year that have embraced modern web things but I am equally just as grateful as it means I can keep finding you. Today’s success brings back a former contact that I knew had moved away, and so, please join me in welcoming:
And I can tell you from his pictures, he hasn’t changed one bit!
Just had the following and been asked to post it – if you’re Alumni
registered then you should be getting your own copy soon.
As part of the Mount Association Centenary celebrations, there is to be an OM Reunion on Saturday March 21st; the details are as follows:-
11.30 am Meet at pavilion
1.00 pm Rugby and Hockey matches (Opponents TBC)
3.00 pm Sandwiches and refreshments available in the pavilion
3.30pm England rugby match will be shown
5.30pm Wales rugby match will be shown
7.00 pm Pie and peas will be served
The costs for the event is as follows:
Sandwiches - £2.50
Pie and peas - £3.50
Cost to play - £2.00
Anyone is welcome at anytime during the day. If you would like to play in the matches or just want to catch up with old friends over lunch or pie and peas in the evening, it is important to let us know by completing this form and returning to Chris Merrick, whose contact details are on the bottom of the form, so that we can gauge interest and keep a check on numbers. If you have any queries Chris can also be contacted at chris [at] mountassociation [dot] co [dot] uk
We very much look forward to seeing you on 21st March
I have this morning received an email with a last known address of Paul McCafferty. Will fire up a note later and see if he is still in contact with his brother John – will report what comes of it, but for now consider:
a partial success.
To make life easier, here is an edited NOT found list removing all the names I have found and then adding what information I have about the remaining folks.
And that folks is it.
If any of you have access to ex-directory information and can try to locate details or know of some other way of tracking these folks doiwn then great. Otherwise we’re on a countdown to D-Day.
Sounds very dooms day’ish, but then it sort of reflects where this project is going and let me state for the record – I am not depressed by this, though the following may sound like it.
Anyway, as it is a new year let’s have a brief look back first … In September of 2007 I caught up with Richard Thompson and over a few beers and a bit of reminiscing he persuaded me to start organising a reunion. The deal was that we would both take on the load of hunting folks down and as we found them, the hope would be that each new contact might have details of others.
Unfortunately, apart from three instances, it has become clear that nobody from our year has managed to stay in touch with any others over the intervening years. And lets face it, 29yrs (in my case) is a long time to not have spoken with some of you so that comes as no real surprise.
Equally unfortunate is that I ended up being the only one doing the searching and despite several calls, emails and text messages nothing further has come from Richard. However, using dumb luck in some cases (just how many Mike Davis’s could there be?), online search tools, web 2.0 products like LinkedIn and Facebook I have done reasonably well – I think.
If I were to make the decision today and to be honest I can’t see it changing in the next month, then the decision would have to be that a reunion for our year would not be practical. I have managed to track down just short of 50% of our year group and those numbers don’t make it viable.
I have vague details of another 10 or so folks but nothing that I have been able to confirm – including one where the person simply won’t return a phone call despite my leaving several messages and his mum assuring me it is the right number. Even were we to find the extra 10, that is still only 66% and again not really a number to be viable. In my mind I set a target of 75% of our year (including the sadly deceased Mark Carnell) but realism sets in and says I won’t achieve that.
That said, I remain optimistic about the project overall and have thoroughly enjoyed re-connecting with each of you. It has been a blast having that first initial chat and finding out the what, where, whys, etc; but I fear that in the most part that 29yrs is too big a gap to bridge to keep it anything more than a casual friendship.
Equally, the task has not been made easy by lack of responses – there are those whom have and will respond and I thank you each and every one, but then there are those who probably justifiably don’t want to bother for whatever reasons including the one very terse “leave me alone” email from Matthew Taylor. On top of all this are those I’ve made contact with but since then have not responded to any emails, calls, etc asking for updates.
So, here we are, the dawn of a new year and a decision looms.
I intend to make a final decision next month and between now and then I will try and get the information on the 10 firmed up as well as trying to make some progress on the remaining numbers that evade my grasp. So again I want to ask you all to have a look at the NOT found list (link on the right from the home page) and dredge your memories for any info you can provide. This could be as obscure as my mum used to get a Christmas card from his mum … in which case, ask your mum for last known contact details, please. Alternatively if you want to take on the task of trying to locate just one person on the not found list then that would be fantastic.
Until next time then …
