Sunnybank74 » Donna

It’s a date!

DonnaD — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:44:35 +0000

Hello Everyone,
The date has been set for the reunion to allow people time to plan holidays and book flights from interstate and the far north of Queensland. The big day is Saturday 26th June

John Olive and I went to visit the Sunnybank Bowls Club today and we are booked there from 5pm to Midnight on the above date. I do not have full details as to cost as I am yet to phone the caterer to organise food. Drinks will be at your own expense and the bowls club will provide bar staff. Just mark your calendars and organise those flights. John will put together accommodation options close to the bowls club for those who do not live locally.

I did not know I was going to book this when I sent the newsletter yesterday but it became obvious that a definite date was necessary.

Look forward to seeing you all!

Regards

Donna D

31 January 2010: Newsletter and contact list

DonnaD — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:42:10 +0000

Hello Everyone,

I have decided to write a monthly newsletter leading up to the reunion just to let you know you have not been forgotten and let you know ways that you may be able to help.

Class photos!!!! It is becoming apparent that we may need to put your photo on your name tag on the night just to give some of us a gentle reminder as to who they are talking with!!!!!. I have seen this done already on school name tags at a 40^th reunion and it worked a treat. Secondly we plan a slide show on the night. Already we have formal photos, Camp Shannon photos as well as just a few class photos but we need more. Below is a list of photos we have:

1970 8.9
1971 9A2 9B1
1972 10A2 10A4 10B1
1973 11A 11C 11F 11D
1974 12.3

As you can see we only have one year 12 photograph so please search through your old photos for more party, formal and class photos. Could you please put names to the photo as this helps refresh the memory. Just scan them and email them to me and I will pass them onto to our Reunion Photo Department headed by Tony Smith and John Olive. Tony is in charge of IT/Reunion presentation and John is in charge of putting all our photos onto nametags so there are no embarrassing moments at the reunion.

We have had a very successful month in finding people and I have attached a list of who we have found, those I am pretty sure of their details but they are yet to make contact. Some we just know snippets about and unfortunately the last column is still pretty full as we have no idea where they are. Please have a look and shoot me an email with any information or recollection or gossip because we slowly built up enough information to CSI style to track them down!!!

Next newsletter I will share with you a great Reunion article I read.

Basically it is about “as we start to worry about appearance and trying to impress each other at the reunion, remember that it will be a complete waste of time because you will never impress any person who knew you as a teenager!”

So with that in mind I have decided that the 20kgs are staying put and so is the grey hair.

Have a great February everyone!

Regards

Donna

–DonnaD

Contact List

Found have contact details	Positive Lead/No response yet	Snippets but no firm idea of location	No idea where they are	Comments
Sue Addison	Jane Atherton	Both Sue Perry and Janet Clifford thought they could find Kris Catsoulis	Tony Abbott
Doug Aird	David Bowes(Teacher)	Julie Edwards Doug Aird saw Julie only a month ago and she works for a northern city council ???? don’t know which one	Christine Abraham
Chris Andrews	Lex Brasher(T)	Judy Furlonger Judy was married to a manual arts teacher from Sunnybank High No idea of her surname though!	Julie Adsett
Tony Smith	Bob Bendall(T)	Michael Herriman Letter sent to Michael Herriman at possible address	Patricia Achurch
Sandie Bridgland	Greg Burrows	Chris Kettle Letter sent to possible address of Chris Kettle	Kay Anderson
Trish Cattermole	Blair Kay(T)		Betty Ann Breyley
Peter Caldwell	Neil Lister(T)	Steele Lambert Tony Smith sent an sms yet to hear	Ann Blatch
Janet Clifford	Lexie Collins		Sue Butcher
Terry Cooley(T)	Max Livingstone(T)		)
Paul Creamer	Caradine Lucas(T)	Phillip Cross Letter sent to Wishart possible address of Phillip	P Camerson
Tom Croft		Jenny Leech Jenny did medicine no other lead	Debra Chalmers
Wayne Cupples	Barry Dittman(T)	K Lindenthal Letter sent to Lindenthal	Terry Christie
Neil Drury	Arthur De Groot		Judy Coxhead
Jenny Dowsett	Janelle Edmonson	Archie Moore Sent a letter to possible address of Archie	David Crawford
John Eggleton	Brian Fulcher	Ian Finlayson Letter sent to possible address of Ian	Graham Donaldson
Lynette Forgan		Natalie Rotta Tony emailed Natalie yet to hear	Karen Fischer
Liz Forrest	Alan Jamieson	James Rowe Someone mentioned he was in the police force no other information	Michael Fry
Kevin George	Alex Mousatsos	Peter Savas Tony following up	Ray Fuary(T)
Donna Griffiths		Trevor Schultz Neil Drury said he will contact him, yet to hear	Debbie Gale(T)
Evan Harris	Kay Orley(T)	Ann Smallgange Works at the Weather Bureau	Peter Gavan
Martin Hooper	Leslie Podevin(T)	Gail Smith Nurse in Townsville last heard of	Michelle Goodhew
Gillian Hyde		Ian Thacker Letter sent to possible address	Kim Gormley
Steven Kingshott	Inge Sari(T)	Loanne Thorley Know Loannes married name but unsure if she uses that name still. Has no contact with the widow of Warren who now runs Thorley Laboritories(RID)	Mark Greeley
Ken London(T)	Georg Sencariac	Dianne Trindall Living near Gatton	Gail Harding
Geoff Mayes	Shane Sutton	Marc Vinc Email to ANZ Bank to Marc bounced back	Tony Hillier
Peter McKey	Vicki Horton Donna dropped a letter in parents letter box yet to hear. Kay Campbell has contact through Scouts	Peter Williamson Tony searching on the Gold Coast from google search. Got a reply not our Peter Williamson
John Olive	Helen Webb parents phoned	Les Woods(T) Les Woods lives in Wishart	Renee Hundschiet
Graham Payne(T)	Gary Weston Doug Wait has made contact yet to hear from him or Ruth	Ian Young Possible address, letter sent	David Jackson
Adrian Raven	Keith Wiggins		Cheryl Just
Greg Rynenberg	26		Di Josey(T)
Wally Samphier			Stewart Kingshott(T)
Paul Squires			J Kirschner
Kev Trinder			Phillip Kirkwood
Ian Unicomb			Barbara Kiss
Doug Wait			Graham Kirwan
Sandra Young			Vicki Laver
Lloyd Yates(T)			Nicole Le Compte
Ian Proud			Jenny litzow
Narelle Muller			Lyn McAndres(T)
Timo Huttunen			Gary McPherson
Chris Creagh			Peter Meggitt(T)
Brian Tierney			Alan Maddison
Kay Campbell(T)			Geoffrey Malone
Craig Lally			Margaret Meyer
Glen More	Deceased		J Morris
	Kurt Hohnle		Brian McNab
	Warren Thorley		Wes Napier(T)
	Paul Baker		Ferne Olton
	Mick Absolom		Michael Porter
	Ian Brough(T)		Keith Price
	Trevor Cagney(T)		Janet Price(T)
	Peter Brayley(T)		Clarice Randall
			Uva Ranisch
			Margaret Reynolds
			D Rankmore
			Jane Rowe
			Sue Say
			Paula Roberts(T)
			Michael Schoemaker
			Peter Signata
			D Sealey
			Jenny Searle
			Roger Stacey(T)
			Paul Tarbuck(T)
			Elizabeth Sloane
			Loraine Skopp(T)
			Michael Tappenden
			Rina Taements
			Kim Thomson
			Gary van Utreg
			John Vilskersts
			Gary Wann
			Andrew Wedderburen
			J Walsh
			Peter Wilson
			Delma Zimmerman

A morning email from Donna

PeterMac — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:03:07 +0000

Just another morning in Canberra. The heat of the past week or so has vanished and it was cold last night, dropping down to four degrees. My wife, making a quick visit home to retrieve a forgotten item, reported a light dusting of snow on the Brindabellas.

Snow in summer.

I worked my way through my emails. One from Schoolfriends Reunited caught my eye. My high school year was having a reunion. I didn’t think there’d been one before, but I’d moved away and fallen out of touch. Maybe they all got together each month, got maudlin drunk and swapped stories about what went on at the other end of the ovals when the teachers weren’t looking.

Apparently not. This was to be the first one in thirty-six years. 18 September 2010 in the bowls club beside the school. It’s a long hike from Canberra to Brisbane, but I’m not noted for my aversion to travel, so I marked it down as a possible, filled in a few details on the site, and shot off an email to the contact, Donna Dancer (Griffiths), noting my change of name and that my memories of those days were pretty hazy.

She responded:

Hello Peter
Can I tell you that you are not alone in the hazy memory department. I guess it is coming back to me as I access Graduation Lists and people are sending photos they have. It will be essential that we have our school photo on our name tags at the reunion.
I have attached correspondence that I have sent to everyone and a list of 1974 Graduates that may help that memory. If you have any contact with others on the list that I have not found please let me know
Donna

And it went from there. I looked through the spreadsheet, sent back a few details to fill in a hole here and there, and before I knew it, I was being drawn into it all.

I’m a packrat of the finest kind, and it seems to me that my house is crammed full of stuff that really should be thrown out. One day. I’m sure I’ve got some material of Sunnybank State High. Old photographs, timetables, assignments that I haven’t handed in yet. That sort of stuff. Boxes of it. Somewhere.

That evening Donna emailed me again, forwarding a note from Doug Wait.

Ask Peter McKey if he remembers writing a parody of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. :-)
(John Eggleton has a copy. It’s quite funny.)

Ask Adrian if he remembers who it was that Keith Price married. That’ll give you one more if you can find Keith. Maybe Peter & Sandy know of Keith.

I can’t say that I remember the parody, but I wrote parodies of everything in those days. Hamlet, Kublai Khan, the school newsletter… Laden down with awful puns and injokes, and possibly mildly amusing in a geeky sort of way. Horribly embarrassing, of course.

I won’t say it was all coming back to me, because although I remember Doug and John very well, Keith Price had slipt out entirely.

But someone knows. All these flecks of memory, painstakingly swept together and assembled by Donna and Doug to contact people out of sight for half a lifetime.

I thought I might like to help, and though I’m useless for anything much except driving a taxi and organising weekends in Kansas City, I still retain a few nerdish skills.

Hence this blog. Read the About page, think of ways to make it all happen, I’ll prod WordPress into action and I’ll see you in Sunnybank in Setember.