Abbey School, Mt St Benedict, 2013 Circulars: Circular No 597

Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.

Caracas, 13 April 2013 No. 597

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Dear Friends,

For those using this simple application, contact me.

I would like to be able to chat with you.

Your editor, Ladislao Kertesz, Cellphone: +58 416 612.5695, I have Whatsapp.

ON FACEBOOK

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FROM: Gmail Jan

Monday, August 27, 2012 1:53 PM

Don, make a scan or picture of your map and share!

----- Original Message -----------------------------------

Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 2:51 AM

New Members: Making a decision on how to move forward.

Hi Gabriel,

No one speaks on behalf of the Association, except the elected directors of the company registered in Dennis’s Law Chambers, and I have no idea who they are. [That is entirely a fault of aging and defective memory on my part rather than a failure on anyone else’s part.]

So far as individual initiatives to get some action going such as yours are concerned, everything rests on the individual who dreamed up the initiative. No one else is going to take it over. There is no one in authority over the Old Boys. Ask Glen who gave him permission to invent the Knights and to send out and circulate those irreverent stories and jokes on our behalf. Yet, we are all grateful to receive them. Those of us who are Knights, that is.

None of us knows how to go ahead as you suggest, or what we see as fit, as you ask of us.

All of us have full-time jobs and are happy for other persons to carry the burden of the process forward. Either that, or we are half dead with old age and alcohol damage to the few remaining live brain cells and can hardly lift a finger to write a rude response. Most of us [probably 90%] reside overseas and don’t share the same interests in the Association’s potential as the few Old Boys who reside in Trinidad. That is a strength, not a weakness. The variety of interests means there is no limit to the number of different activities we can start, and see who will join with us without expecting too much from anyone else.

The Facebook project, if that is what it is, is all yours. For god’s sake, don’t give up on us.

Just don’t expect too much enthusiasm from us. Do what you want to do, irregardless of what anyone says. Try to explain to us as you go, using very simple and explicit language.

That way, misunderstandings are avoided.

It has always been so, and ever will be [some novelist said this, and I think it sounds good.]

If I sound expansive it is because it is after dinner time, and after dinner I have a brandy and a good cigar to relax.

Keep well.

Don

PS: I recently came across my hand-drawn map of the tracks and dens on the slope between White Stones and the College that I must have made in about 1961. I bet I could not get many persons interested in it. If I could, I would start a Preserve the Tracks in the Bush Committee. I would be happy with 5 interested persons.

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Subject: Re: New Members: Making a decision on how to move forward.

Guys,

I am unsure how to proceed and who speak on behalf of the association.

I am happy it has been clarified that the people I have added are all associated with the Abbey School either as students or teachers.

When it is decided by whoever is in authority how this should proceed feel free to go ahead as you all see fit.

The page is not owned by any one person it is a resource for the group.

I was trying to move the process forward but I have a full time job and am happy for other people who have the time and capacity to take the process forward.

Gabe

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From: Don Mitchell <idmitch@anguillanet.com>

Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 5:19 PM

Subject: New Members

Good to hear from you, Fr Harold, and to make your acquaintance. Hope you will continue whatever you are doing with Facebook for the Old Boys’ sake.

I am sorry if I sounded a bit off-putting, but I had no idea who you were or what you were doing. Now I know and want to offer you my encouragement.

Personally, I closed down my Facebook and Linked In accounts some months ago, and I am too terrified to visit them again. These services appear designed to take over your life, and I don’t want to be controlled by “social media”. Also, I have heard that if I revisit either one of them I risk inadvertently re-opening my closed down accounts and be pestered by unwanted invitations once again.

But, I know that lots of people do not share that scepticism about social media, and that any individual’s attempt to bring the Old Boys together again is to be encouraged.

Keep well.

Don

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My brothers,

Let me quote the following that so far has been circulated:

"Fr. Imamshah, one of our members, has taken an unprecedented step, and has invited some of his acquaintances to join the ASAA, and he is stepping out to make changes to our membership "requirements" which have not previously been considered, far less approved."

Nigel

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I don’t know who Fr Imamshah is. Never heard of him before. He can invite whomsoever he wants to join whichever club he wants. I wish him well with his project. It is only due to inspired individuals who put their dream into effect that we get anything done in our micro-communities. But, that is his project, not the one we are involved in now. The Old Boy’s Association consists (in my mind only) of the alumni and staff of the College. The monks of the Abbey and seminarians of the Seminary, far less our spouses and children, have nothing (in my mind only) to do with the ASAA save to the extent that they were additionally involved in some way with the College.

Don

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Hi Joe,

When Gabriel Faria invited me to be an administrator of this Facebook group, I reminded him that I was only a former monk and teacher at the Abbey School(1979-1984) and that's how I know Gabriel, when I was a monk and he worked with the Boarders. Gabriel felt that I could invite boys that I taught and you will see that I invited them below their names and pics.

God bless your work. I talked with the Abbot in July when I was home for my brother's funeral and offered my regrets at not being able to attend since I cannot be away from my Parish Churches so soon after. I live in Louisiana and have already been in touch with 2 Mount guys here in LA.

Let's keep the flag flying,

God bless you Joe.

Fr. Harold

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In finishing, I support the ideas presented by Nigel Boos, Joseph Berment and the Trinidad Contingent. We must also remember that the primary members of the ASAA in order of rank are:

1)Past Students of Abbey School (Including their spouses & Children)

2)Past Affiliated Clergy of Abbey School

3) Past Teachers

4) Past Support Staff Affiliated to Abbey School

5) Other Affiliated Scouts, Swimmers, Musicians, Etc...

6) New Members Clearly Affiliated to any of the above groups and 2 original members have referred them and they should be given a short history of Abbey School to review...

These are my feelings on the above subject matter...

Thanks,

Hudson McKoy.

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I have already communicated with Joe and Nigel. Please do not make me sound like such an outsider. I am a former monk of Mount St. Benedict and a former Teacher of Abbey School(1979-1984). Any initiative I have taken to recruit new members or invite participation for the Centenary Anniversary in October 2012, is not only out of interest as a former teacher and any invitations I have made are to "not acquaintances of mine" but to Abbey boys that I taught and with whom I still keep Facebook contact, and as Gabriel Faria is quoted above, when Gabriel invited me to make such contacts.

I am a Parish Priest in Louisiana and have already attended a small Abbey School Reunion with Salvador Coscarat (Coscarart Salvador <coscarartsalvador@hotmail.com>) and Don Goddard (Goddard Donald & Karen <dgodda1@lsu.edu>) earlier this year, when they learnt that I was a Mount priest, even though I didn't teach in their time. Amazing how much common ground we shared, music, pics, memories etc.

I hope after this, that my quotes and notes have cleared up any awkwardness and that I won't be receiving any unwelcoming emails. Perhaps make any other queries to Gabriel Faria. (Faria Gabriel <gabefaria@yahoo.com>).

Thanks. My prayers for a lot of fellowship and a wonderful reunion and great support for the current monks.

humbly,

Fr. Harold

Servant of Mary for Jesus

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From: Faria Gabriel <gabefaria@yahoo.com>

Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 2:37 PM

Subject: Re: New Members

Just to clarify. My understanding was that these were mount boys or children of Mount boys. and Father Imamshah was a teacher at MSB

Now, Fr. Imamshah, one of our members, has taken an unprecedented step, and has invited some of his acquaintances to join the ASAA, and he is stepping out to make changes to our membership "requirements" which have not previously been considered, far less approved. Indeed, there has been talk, but talk only, about including our wives, spouses and children as members of our group, and indeed, there have been reunions, both in Trinidad as well as in Canada, when our better halves and even some of our kids have been welcomed. Would that there had been many more!

We really need to move to the next stage in getting feedback from a broader base of members and social media will allow this, it will supplement the existing work done by Ladislao and Nigel.

We have to figure out how we leverage this to make more connections and generate more feedback to create some momentum.

I really don’t think we should open the group up to such an extent where it allows people who don’t have an association with the school either because their father or grandfather went to the school, maybe even a brother.

The reality is if we don't bring in new blood as you all have said the group will shortly die.

----- Original Message ------------------------------------------------------------

From: Don Mitchell

Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 1:32 AM

Subject: RE: New Members

Hello Nigel,

Thank you for using your brain when so many of us really are shutting down.

But, face it. Only you are going to keep the data base alive. When you give it up, it will die. It is your baby, no one else’s. Someone else may have a go at keeping it up, but it will not be the same.

It is not karma or bad mind that makes me say this. It is a realisation of our small-island organisational limitations. In our small West Indian communities we seem to lack the critical mass to establish organisations and systems that will outlive the initiators of projects. When the avid family planner emigrates, the family planning association dies.

When the passionate AIDs campaigner dies, the organisation he founded dies. Others spring up from time to time to take the places made vacant, but they die in turn as their sponsors fade away. I have spent a lifetime studying West Indian history and society. It has always been so, for hundreds of years.

So, when Ladislao ceases sending out the Circulars, that will be the last one we shall receive. Someone else may have a go for a short while, but it will be another individual effort, not part of any succession plan. And, how many of us are going to spend the 5 hours Ladislao spends on a Saturday fixing photos, assembling assorted emails to make a story, and then sending them out, with all the fuss and bother of rejected addresses and failed attempts that will involve?

And, yes, in 40 years time we shall all be dead and pushing up daisies. There will be nothing left of our Association then. That is not a bad thing if in the meantime the Association can serve a short but useful purpose of bringing us and our memories together from time to time. That is its only function (in my mind only).

We would be playing Pharaoh building pyramids to think otherwise.

I look forward to hearing other ideas and opinions.

Everyone keep well.

Don

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Ladislao Kertesz at kertesz11@yahoo.com,

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Photos:

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70UN0001CLASS1975, foto by Henri Mendoza

12LK0001UNIONCLUB2012, Group photo