Newsletter for alumni of The
Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.
Caracas, 24 of May 2014 No. 655
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Dear Friends
See Trinidad’s
Yachting Cluster:
And,
I have taken the liberty to send
out a conversation between Don Mitchell and Tony Vieira, because most of us do
not realize the details what it takes to ensure a successful gathering.
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The fifth part of REUNION AGENDA AND EXCHANGES - 26 March
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From:
vcl28@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 5:35 PM
Thanks
Don
Frankly I
understand it completely. It’s a good plan, very much what we agreed. I see
that transport to and from events and a chit system to pay for each event is
going to be put in place.
I
especially like the doubles for lunch on the first day. Do you see the boat
trip and the walk around POS as being together or separate events? Some off to
the boat trip, and some off to the walk around POS? I believe that they are
separate operations. And from what Golding says I am opting for that boat trip,
apparently it’s incredible. You chaps can sweat it out walking all around
Fredrick street.
I see
that we will probably be staying at the Mount, and that father Harold will tell
us how many of us the facilities will accommodate and the probable cost, but
what is this special permission needed to occupy the accommodation from
Wednesday? This is a new element which I had not factored in, have you? Suppose
this uncooperative Abbot says no! Then what? And this time he may have a
legitimate explanation since if their operations are set up to function from
Friday to Monday, his staff would be tied to these days and probably be working
somewhere else during the rest of the week and he may not have people to man
the operation Wednesday and Thursday. Father Harold must work quickly since
this is the cornerstone of all of our plans.
When we
see the answers to the costs of the luncheon vs the dinner/ball and the mass at
10.30 am, we will know if we should opt for a lunch or a dinner. But we should
get the quotation for both. I see Nigel suggesting some very ambitious plans
for the mass and he's not even attending.
Kapok is
in POS and has excellent food, best Taiwanese restaurant in Trinidad, it’s
close to the Queens Park Oval I stayed there once with my dad when he was sick
and I took him to see a haematologist. I also ate there on numerous occasions
one time Ken Gordon took me to lunch there. It has around 30-50 rooms, totally
inappropriate for us as accommodation, though I see Glen McKoy already
dribbling all over it.
Tony
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Don,
A few
observations on the operating of this committee; first of all we need to
identify again who is on the committee and then we should let the committee
make the decisions. I am not sure that what I see going on reflects that
concept, and below you will find a few examples.
1. I
think that you should give more details about Michael Howard's boat trip. (This might be a first class
idea. I've recently received a video of a school / herd / whatever of dolphins
in TT waters which (I'm told) are now regularly accompanying speed boats
between "the islands". Should be great to see these. I don't know what it is all about, and
neither may the other old boys. Personally I would much prefer the boat trip to
walking all over POS since I have seen it recently.
2. The
other comment I have is that the OBs are scattered too widely in their
accommodation, you should concentrate them in a more central location since
this will be a nightmare to organize and to mobilize to the different
functions. If you are planning to have an attendance of 250 overseas old boys,
lets first find out what is the capacity to accommodate them at the various
locations, so the first question is this "what is the total capacity of
the 3 accommodations on the Mount? the Abbey, the Guest House and the
Seminary?" as I have explained several times before, if we are all
together in one location it would give be easier to organize, with much less
problems to mobilize the group to the various functions. Are you still pursuing
the line that it is the responsibility of the OBs to get to each function on
their own, rather than us organizing some buses to do it making it much less
expensive and much more manageable? if you are I beg you to reconsider. Of course, clustered accommodation would, in my view, be
preferable. Hard to arrange, but preferable.
3. You
did not say if the accommodations at the Mount could accept credit card
payments, this is important since the overseas old boys should know if they
have to walk with cash. Did you find out? Good question. Although, I
doubt that they'll accept credit cards. Good to confirm.
4. Will
the organizer Ms. Mohamed as I recommended, give us a costing of attending each
event planned. and if she is, have you considered some sort of chit system for
attending them? i.e. that on signing in to their accommodations will the OBs be
required to pay through a chit system for each event they intend to attend from
the various events planned, including the Luncheon? I am taking the lead here
from what I see when I visit Disney World and Boat Cruises with the kids and
this chit system works quite well, you can even buy them on line, by being
required to buy these chits when checking into the accommodation, each person
participating can decide which event he/she wants to participate in an buy a
chit for transporting them to and from of the event plus and any other costs
that may be involved? the cost of the chits can be circulated before hand to
let them know what they are going to do and what it will cost.
5. Will
Ms. Mohamed prepare some sort of budget for this entire reunion, sorted by
event so that each OB will know before he leaves his home overseas for TT what this
could cost him? Definitely! A must!
6. From
your email I see that minutes of meetings you held in Trinidad will be
circulated, what sort of minutes? I am not so much in favour of circulating
these minutes far and wide, I thought that you would circulate the minutes on
your trip to TT among the organizing committee, which will lead to decisions by
the committee and then circulate the decisions made regarding this event to the
wider membership, and it has already begun to happen this involvement of the
wider membership in matters which should not be of concern to them, Fr.
Harold's email for example, it was circulated far and wide and turned everyone
off, if you have an organizing committee shouldn't father Harold's email have
been sent to you alone by him and then you in turn ask your committee members
what they thought? In the end the matter was resolved without all of the rancor
which I saw the OBs levelling against the Abbot. Whatever the justification!
But was it necessary that a matter which was so inconsequential was allowed to
explode into such a huge furor? I myself did not participate in any personal
attack on the Abbot, all I said was that his actions were contrary to normal
custom and practice and probably illegal.
7. If the
Mount cannot accommodate 250 OBs then we have to have the next best
accommodation close to where they will be, and they will all stay there, did
you get the per diem cost for the various accommodations including meals? This
will encourage early registration and payment of the 100.00 participating fee.
You did not make it clear and I think that you must, this US$100 fee is non
refundable. Correct? And it will be used
to pay the organizers, videographer [?] etc. None of it will be used to attend
the functions. I think that you should say so.
I may
have more thoughts when I see the minute of your meet in TT.
Tony
Vieira
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From:
Joe <bermentmcdowald@yahoo.com>
Sent: Mon, Mar 24, 2014 6:43 am
Gentlemen,
If I
really despise someone's ethics or conduct or have concerns about the means by
which he would have obtained the means to become my benefactor I wouldn't
accept a glass of water from him. In this context, I find the abbot's conduct
strange. If he doesn't have contempt for our association, he possibly has that
feeling for one of some of us - - how unjust and un Christian, if there is any
possibility of my being right. God knows what informs the abbot's actions. I
don't know why he acts the way that he does and I am afraid to guess. I can't
condemn his choice, although I have been repeatedly hurt by it.
One of
the alumni opined that he found the abbot's acceptance of a cheque on the
monastery's 100 anniversary offensive. - - reminiscent of the present pope's
recent forceful denunciation of the Italian church's seeming ambivalence
towards the mafia. I could understand why he [the old boy] found it so,
however. I know from long bitter, repeated, experience that Trinbagonians
seldom sufficiently, support causes that we claim ownership over. We are not a
people to invest much energy and resources into organisations and organising,
maybe to marginalise some other group and then only for those purposes. Seldom
does anything noble move us, unless it offends our hubris. We are (by and
large) a people, full of talk, unless it is to serve our narrow (especially
economic and too frequently tribal) self interest: this is why we have what we
have. Our legacy is the bankruptcy of the plantation - - all of us.
I still
hope that the ASAA could serve to inspire a better way.
Sincerely,
Joe
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vcl28@aol.com
24 Mar
I am
going to give you guys my position in this matter.
I am not
a lawyer, but my lawyer always tells me that whatever seems unjust, or
unreasonable in life probably is not lawful; It’s called natural Justice. There
is also what is called precedent and common practice.
As an old
boy of the Abbey school, Mount Saint Benedict, Tunapuna, Trinidad; to which end
my father spent several thousand US dollars between 1958 to 1964, at that time
this money could have bought a small house anywhere in the Caribbean. I have
earned the right to wear the crest of that school. It was from there that I
graduated and even in the most copyright regulated country in the world, no one
can tell a former student of any school in the USA including Harvard not to
wear the school colours or crest from which he matriculated.
I don't
even know why we have to ask the Abbot's permission to wear the crest or
colours of our alma mater. In view of this I am sending a special message to
this Abbot, that Anthony Vieira BSC, MS MP from Guyana will be wearing his
crest and the colours of his college from which he paid to attend, and from
which he graduated. He is welcome to try to sue me.
I was
always prompting Don Mitchell that I prefer to attend the reunion close to the
college, and therefore if they have converted the seminary, the guest house and
the abbey itself into a place of public accommodation, that we should stay
there and in the process bring some badly needed money to the abbey, especially
since it put less of an economic pressure on the old boys attending from afar.
I don't
know about you guys but I will be staying with my friend Dr. Omar Khan in
Valsyn North.
This
ludicrous position the Abbot takes, enters the realm of the ridiculous in view
of the fact that this college no longer even exists and therefore no one can
place blame on the college if I did something wrong [as in peeing in public
wearing those colours] since I cannot possibly embarrass or defame an entity
which no longer exists.
The Abbot
must be made to understand that he has no legal right to deny this small
request which can have no other effect than to honour the college, and that we
asked his permission only out of courtesy and we reject his position since he
has no legal authority to do so. You all can of course do what you want! Me? I
will do what I want!
As far as
the mass is concerned I have no problem going at 8.30 AM, if I go at all. it is
with total shame that I have to report that I have not entered a church since
2007 when my mother died and before that 2005 when my father died. Because I
have [COPD] congestive obstructive pulmonary disorder and it is very stressful
for me to be stay for long periods, in a closed atmosphere with high levels of
CO2.
On one
related matter I notice that Mitchell came back from Trinidad and informed us
that he will have a lunch and not a dinner but the circulated list of
activities he sent out after returning from Trinidad says this "Grand
Reunion Dinner (at Queen’s Park Oval) in the evening (Event Organiser, assisted
by the Organising Committee). which is it?
Tony
Vieira
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From: Nigel Boos Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 15:32:09
Fr.
Abbot's Attitude Glen, I'm very surprised at Fr. Abbot's state of mind.
Perhaps
he has something bothering him that he has not felt comfortable to admit / say.
perhaps he just doesn't approve of our Association.
Why? I
don't know. Has someone offended him / the MSB community in some way?
Why
doesn't he tell us about his reservations?
Then
maybe we'll have an opportunity to understand why he seems to resent every
single thing we do.
In fact,
maybe it's because of me. If so, I'm sorry, but I can't do anything about it
today.
You see,
I was a seminarian of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit and of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, between 1963 - 1970.
During my
last year in seminary, I returned from Ireland to Trinidad, to teach, as a
Prefect, at CIC, where John Pereira was a student.
He was a
very thoughtful, serious, and somewhat introverted young man, deeply religious,
and interested, it seems to me, in my additional duties as the Choir Director
of the CIC College Choir.
Note: I
do not recall whether he was ever a member of the Choir, but I cannot find his
face among the boys seen in the photograph.
At the
same time, I had a major problem with the Holy Ghost Fathers, which led to my
decision to quit my studies for the priesthood - and so, here I am today.
Could it
be that Abbot Pereira was disgusted, disappointed, resentful of me to the point
that my involvement with the ASAA causes him to have these negative feelings
towards us?
I don't
know. But he at least could let me know, I think, if that is so, and then I'd
have a chance to discuss the matter with him.
In all of
my correspondence with him, I have shown civil and charitable respect.
I have no
bitterness toward him, and wish him well in his responsibilities as Abbot, but
I believe that his attitude towards the ASAA is downright disrespectful and
most uncharitable.
I believe
that a small delegation from the ASAA should request a meeting with him to find
out what really is the cause of his negative feelings towards us.
Good
luck, guys. Nigel
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On 2014-03-23, at 12:54 PM, Glen Mckoy wrote: >
My Dear
Sir Neil,
As Sir
Shaun said, we can get forgiveness before we get permission, with regards to
the crest. I just don't understand his logic.
He is
just out to give us a hard time, what did we do to get this cold reaction.
Did ah Mount
boy do something to this guy a long time ago, ah feel like ah missing part of a
story here, he have ah real hate on us, or someone in the mix??
I also
note your comment about going to the zoo, we may encounter animals outside the
zoo, is this what yuh telling meh ha! ha! > >
I know it
is not nice to be rejected, by the Abbot so many times now, however I must
laugh as this is really funny, its down right silly, stupid little things, I
just can't believe it, then he would attend our functions, eat, drink and be
merry without thanks, well all I can say is Cheers to him, adios, glen.
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From: idmitch@anguillanet.com
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 14:18:45 -0400 > > > >
Gentlemen,
You may
have heard by now that Fr Abbot is not able to facilitate our plans for the
Reunion, despite a very humble and polite request from Fr Harold.
We must
remember that he was neither a student nor a teacher at the school.
It is
therefore disappointing but not surprising that he appears distant.
However,
we would still like to invite him and the Monks to participate in our events.
We still
plan to push on with our Reunion, and the visit to the school buildings, which
does not require his permission.
We still
plan a reunion T-shirt, but it will not have the School Crest (which is the
Abbey Crest, and under his control).
It will
merely have the words, “Abbey School, Mt St Benedict”. > >
It is a
pity, really. But it is not fatal.
Don
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Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 13:55:38 -0400
Subject: Abbey Alumni Reunion 2014
From: frharold12@gmail.com
Hi Abbot
John
I've
attended 2 meetings of a group of Abbey Alumni to plan their Abbey Alumni
Reunion 2014:
-- The
dates are Thursday 9 to Sunday 12, 2014.
We have
engaged the services of an Event Planner/Co-ordinator, Mrs Shira Mohammed
(whose Office is in Scott Street, St. Augustine). She will contact you about
details of the Event, and you may have seen her email address above.
We would
like to print polo shirts for the occasion using the Abbey School Crest, which
I believe is the same as that of the Monastery, so we would like to ask your
permission to use the crest with the name below as Mount St. Benedict, so that
they can continue to be sold after the Reunion at the Mount Shop. Naturally the
first printing would be a little more costly because of the template, but there
after any other printing would be cheaper. If you are agreeable, we would stand
the cost of the first printing and would charge a little more so that the extra
mark up would be collected and presented to you as our Reunion 2014 Gift to the
Benedictine Community to whom all of the Alumni owe a great debt for their High
School Education and Formation.
On
another note we would like to ask whether we can gather at 10:30am in the Abbey
Church for a special mass to mark this occasion with yourself as the Main
Celebrant and Frs Cuthbert and Augustine concelebrating and Bro. Rupert in
attendance. I myself will concelebrate as a former Teacher. While this is an
extra Mass to your otherwise continued schedule of Sunday Masses, I am willing
to search for extra celebrants for your other Sunday masses so as to lighten
the load on that day.
Thanks,
humbly,
Fr. Harold
Servant of Mary for Jesus
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TO BE CONTINUED IN CIRCULAR No.656
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Photos:
6003 East St. George Sports Event p05
03SC2006GRP,
07RE0184GRP,
08MP0014EDIMSB. The small boys dormitory
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