Ooowwww.......

This one just came in via Shaz, it was from Audrey (fellow BBGSians)

Girls,
As you know, this previously overworked (but now with the economic crisis, slightly more available) '98 alumni couldn't make it to the amazing reunion spearheaded by Azita, Shaz, and others last year. I just got back from Singapore this morning but managed to make it to the AGM of the (yes, long name) Bukit Bintang Girls School Old Girls Association. A group of our seniors, including those involved with Project Revive, have been very keen to have this society reincarnated in order to bring our girls together in a more concrete and consistent fashion. A primary objective will be a focus on an education fund (named after our most endearing and well loved headmistress, Ms. Elena Cooke) which the society will run under a trust.
Ideas have been mooted and details of proposed changes to the current constitution and the manner in which the association will be run, will be in the next extraordinary General Meeting, in the near future. I have to say, I don't usually have such a privilege nowadays since we're all in all our late twenties dah, but I was the youngest member present! A new committee has been voted in with:

Phang Sow Yoong (who is featured on the back2bbgs blog) as President
Cheong Wei Lee (VP)
Anniza Jamaluddin (Secretary)
Khim Goh (Treasurer)
(Gen Committee)
Joanna Yeoh
Izreen Fara Ismail
Winnie Tang
Izan Satrina
Lai Ying
Audrey Quay

Yours truly has been included in the gen comm, quite likely becos some of our kakaks figured it would be nice to have "young blood" injected in. Note that many of them are in their 30s - 50s. If anything, I would very much want to be representing all of you - I related to them how our class pulled off the great reunion last year (plus souvenirs etc), and that I knew many of the "younger" ones were just as true blue BBGSians who know how to raise funds, run events, and most of all, live and perpetuate the true spirit of BBGS! To ensure that we have a voice, I would invite all of you to join the association - it's been going at a RM3 per year membership but since that's quite leceh, its been proposed that RM100 for life membership for all former BBGS girls should be encouraged. Please let me know if you'd like to join and I'll let you have details of the next meeting soon and once the minutes are out for today's meeting, as much as possible about that.

I won't be able to attend the first part of the August 4th event at Pavilion as I have a court case on but I have committed to be there in the evening. Those of you going, please let me know or come up to me so we can meet up and talk about how we can stay in touch via the association. It's very exciting I think, that we can be part of a pretty major education fund project which will live on, even though our building itself is gone (have to say after seeing all the old schools in Singapore preserved as museums, shopping areas, etc, I just felt...)

Girls, August 4th will be the first time I am stepping into Pavilion, which everyone in my circle of influence knows I consider sacrilegeous. But hey, we need the site, we need to make it something, and we need everyone knows the ethos of the school to come together. You know, I was most touched by what one of the other general committee members, Lai Ying, said, when the nominees were invited to present a short intro speech. She said "I'm not a big shot by the way. I work for my father and we deal in spare parts in Sungei Besi. But I am grateful for what BBGS has done for me and I would like to give back. I miss those old days with my family." I think that truly captures the spirit of BBGS, which was started for girls (considered unworthy of education in the 1890s), including and especially those who were poor and underprivileged (who cared about them but our great teachers and heads, like Ms Cooke who used to go to students houses to help them), and to see the potential in every rough stone to become a berlian. We've never been elitist and always believed in including those whom for some reason or the other, may have been forgotten. Nothing and nobody should be left behind, and even in succeeding, we have been proud, not arrogant. Even though we were considered a premier secondary school for a long time, we never forgot our roots, and I always tell people that after BBGS, none of us ever came out the same - we were always, in whatever way we needed to be, shaped and changed for the better, made more humble, encouraged to be ever more confident, instilled with a sense of responsibility and duty, inspired to dream dreams.
I have to say I just ENJOYED being with BBGSians again - although today I was with other years - it's really a good and productive fellowship that we have with one another. I'm glad that can be now formalised into an active association focused on promoting the interests of education. I would like to share one more thing with my graduating class of '98. We are just as special as all the rest of the old girls, and I think by the continued efforts I see in this group, we should definitely be part of this revamped association. Please try to let us know about joining up as soon as possible.

I know most of us are active on email and FB - add me using xxxx@yyy.com or audreyquay@xxxx.com (but please try very hard not to spam my work address, although I am much more reachable there for urgent matters) and I want to hear from you!
~Audrey

.....oowwww.......Audrey mentioned my name ;) She and me were not even classmate and I don't recall having any sort of decent conversation with her back then. But she acknowledge the work that was done by yours truly....

I am going for the 4th Aug event, probably driving straight from PD..ffuuhhh....