Circular No 656

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

Caracas, 31 of May 2014 No. 656

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Dear Friends,

This is the second part of the conversation between Don Mitchell and Tony Vieira,

I have included it because most of us do not realize the details that it takes assure a successful gathering.

The Circular is still expecting soon some news from the ASAA in relation as to preparation for this event.

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The sixth part of REUNION AGENDA AND EXCHANGES -  26 to 27 March

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From: vcl28@aol.com

Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 8:03 AM

Don,

Anyway this may have a fundamental change on our date of the reunion, if we started it from Wednesday 1st October to Monday 6th October the price for the 5 nights at the Hilton would be $695.00 for one adult and at the Normandie US$599.95 but if we held this conference one week later the hotel accommodation would be double at the Hilton it would be US$1245.00!! You will recall when I did this preliminary investigation, I told you that October begins the high season and we should do it more in mid to late September than October, the OBs preferred October but that is economically not the best time. If we change the date to the first week in October to the last week in September flight prices will also be rising. But we have to decide now. So Father Harold must give us the Abbot's response today! Later than today these hotels will not be able to offer the deals for the first week in October. Here is the negative all attending may have to make a deposit now for October. let’s find out how much?

So let’s ask Justine through this email to find a hotel/s very close together which will have 100 to 200 rooms available and are prepared to offer a package deal for the first week in October 2014. This will form the basis of a plan B, in case the accommodation at the Mount falls down dead. Which at this time I am almost sure that it will. The several hotels around the queen’s park oval will be best more to see more to do etc. totally eliminate all transportation costs for Saturday's exercise. and reduce, by quite a bit, transportation cost for Maracas and the dinner/lunch. Don if we got a good deal in the end it may work out cheaper let’s find out.

I am astonished to find that the Normandy is offering $100 less than the Hilton for the 5 nights as an off season rate we could pursue this one. Anyway let’s find out what is available in the first week in October and which is the best deal, Ms. Mohamed had told us that the hotel near the airport, bad location for centralism unless the cost will be very reasonable since it has the potential to cost more because of the in transportation to the major events except for those activities at the Mount, since its closer. But if it is the only option what can we do? In any event these hotels near the airports usually are stop over flights and rarely accommodate more than 50-60 people.

I gotta prepare for court; I am giving evidence in my matter against the govt. of Guyana today.

Tony.

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Don Mitchell <idmitch@anguillanet.com>

26 Mar

Hi, Tony,

All very sensible points, but let me try to explain. 

The committee is a virtual one rather than a real one. As with everything we do, its membership varies from day to day and week to week, depending on who is available. You and I were the committee at one time. Then, it expanded to include all the Trinidadian alumni who were able to attend the organisational meeting on my second day in Port of Spain. Now that we have handed over the management of this project to Mrs Mohammed and Justine, I consider that she is the real management committee. The rest of us are advising her and waiting for her advice to decide what to do about the various ideas we have thrown at her and Justine.

The emails I send out are meant to be nothing more than stimuli. They are meant to keep the alumni on the topic of thinking about the Reunion, and planning to attend. They are not meant to be definitive about anything. 

I have the minutes, but I incorporated the most important parts in the last update I sent out.  I did not mean to circulate the actual minutes, since, as they are bullet-points rather than text, they may not mean much to those who did not attend the meeting. 

I have now learned from Fr Harold that the last Mass at the Abbey is at 8:30am. Heaven knows why it is so early. I would imagine that most hard-working Catholics would just be waking up at that time on their Sunday off from work. However, that time puts paid to my suggestion that we have a Lunch after Mass. Mass will end about 9:30. Fr Harold has come up with the suggestion that we go on to a Brunch after Mass. That is certainly a possibility.  On the other hand, we may go back to a Dinner. We only changed from a Dinner to Lunch because if we could have had a Mass at 10:30 that would give us time to assemble at the venue. Since there will be no Mass at 10:30, there seems no point in having a Lunch.

Mrs Mohammed and Justine are working on costs. We will decide at some point which events the attendees will bring cash, and which will be pre-paid. Her recommendation is that for the assistance of the caterers it would be preferable to have as much as possible registered for and pre-paid. 

Hope that helps to clarify. 

Off to school now.

Don

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Nigel Boos <nigelboos@yahoo.ca>

26 Mar

Fr. Harold,

Is it not possible to celebrate Mass for the Old Boys at a time and a place suitable to meet a general consensus. I don't know what Canon Law has to say about this, but for a special one-off, unprecedented occasion such as this, does not the Archbishop have the right to approve of a separate Mass to be celebrated wherever we might request it? For example, if a church cannot be found to accommodate our group, how about a "Mass in the Hollows" (in the area south of the Emperor Valley Zoo, and diagonally NE of Archbishop's House). Or how about in the grounds of the Archbishop's House itself, if a church cannot be found?

Just a thought.

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Mitchell <idmitch@anguillanet.com>

Sent: Wed, Mar 26, 2014 9:36 am

Hi, Tony,

All very sensible points, but let me try to explain. 

The committee is a virtual one rather than a real one.  As with everything we do, its membership varies from day to day and week to week, depending on who is available.  You and I were the committee at one time.  Then, it expanded to include all the Trinidadian alumni who were able to attend the organisational meeting on my second day in Port of Spain.  Now that we have handed over the management of this project to Mrs Mohammed and Justine, I consider that she is the real management committee.  The rest of us are advising her and waiting for her advice to decide what to do about the various ideas we have thrown at her and Justine. I see this as a monstrous problem rather than a solution. I am aware that the TT boys got involved when you visited TT, but our committee has to ensure that the overseas OBs have a good reunion and not one riddled with problems and expenses. Since I have not yet seen your minute of the meeting in TT, I do not know if you handled the problems I outlined in my previous email as to the difficulties which I see looming here, with transportation, budgeting etc being at the head of the list. That is why you have a committee in which there are overseas OBs, it is to make certain decisions which will accommodate them! Since they will have special problems and needs over and above the TT OBs. So I see this as two completely different matters. 

1. the reunion for all attending, and

2. the reunion bringing the OBs from overseas, in addition the organizer is executing our wishes and this plan you have seems to me to be excluding us from giving our concepts and letting them tell us which are workable and which are not, and most importantly costing it out for us, we may end up with a reunion which may not work for the OBs from overseas, because it’s too expensive.. So I have a few questions for Ms Mohamed, for now I will assume that the persons to which this is copied are the rest of your committee subject to what the others say.

1. Will we be organizing transportation to each event for the OBs, or will they be responsible for their own transport in TT, which is not notorious for the ease of getting a taxi.

2. Where will we seek to accommodate the OBs at the Mount [cheap but not conducive to having the type of togetherness required in this sort of reunion] poolside liming, bar in the hotel etc.

3. Since the Abbott has decided to be non cooperative, my original suggestion that we use the rest houses located at the Mount to give them badly needed revenue, is no longer a primary consideration, so now we have to decide on the best place including the economics of doing it, to this end we have we asked two or three hotels to give us a package deal on accommodating 250 OBs in the first week of October 2014?   

The emails I send out are meant to be nothing more than stimuli. They are meant to keep the alumni on the topic of thinking about the Reunion, and planning to attend. They are not meant to be definitive about anything. Don, how can this be helpful? this is the sure path to confusion. A concept of not being definite about anything is by itself a tip to the sort of confusion this can cause us. We must make decisions based on the economics of the situation and the convenience it will bring to the OBs attending, and send out those decisions to the general membership, not more questions.

I have the minutes, but I incorporated the most important parts in the last update I sent out.  I did not mean to circulate the actual minutes, since, as they are bullet-points rather than text, they may not mean much to those who did not attend the meeting. I did not get the last update you sent out! Perhaps that why I have more questions than answers. I would like to see the minutes though can someone send it to me?

I have now learned from Fr Harold that the last Mass at the Abbey is at 8:30am. Heaven knows why it is so early. I would imagine that most hard-working Catholics would just be waking up at that time on their Sunday off from work. However, that time puts paid to my suggestion that we have a Lunch after Mass. Mass will end about 9:30. Fr Harold has come up with the suggestion that we go on to a Brunch after Mass. That is certainly a possibility.  On the other hand, we may go back to a Dinner. We only changed from a Dinner to Lunch because if we could have had a Mass at 10:30 that would give us time to assemble at the venue. Since there will be no Mass at 10:30, there seems no point in having a Lunch. This may not necessarily be so. [see below] Normally this would be a small issue not even worth considering but it creates a big problem, what do we do between say 9.30 am to 7 PM when the dinner begins. if we were lodged at a hotel we could lounge around the pool etc. but we had decided on this mass as an item on the agenda when we decided that we would use the Facilities on the mountain to accommodate us, if we stay at a hotel in the city, how will be get to this mass? it’s something we will have to consider. So first of all we would like to know from Mss Mohamed and Low what facilities exist at the three locations at the Mount bar etc. or what we can ask to be installed there and how much it will cost, accommodation and meals etc, and especially how many OBs it can accommodate in total? then we have to have quotes from some hotels telling us that during the first week in October 2014 the cost of a package deal for 100 OBs will be W; for 150 boys it will be X: for 200 boys be will be Y and for 250 OBs it will be Z! 

Mrs Mohammed and Justine are working on costs. We will decide at some point which events the attendees will bring cash, and which will be pre-paid. Her recommendation is that for the assistance of the caterers it would be preferable to have as much as possible registered for and pre-paid. This is consistent with what we agreed. But other decisions are being made before we get to the costs to decide on what we will do. That can’t be a reasonable or logical way to proceed, our decisions have to be made in a sequence, we offer a suggestion we get a cost and we decide if we will go ahead with that plan or go on to something else, for example the dinner/ball vs the Luncheon. Before we decide which we must have the cost of these two options. secondly If we are staying at the accommodations on the hill, the luncheon now seems to me to be a better option, i.e. we go to the mass at 8.30 AM after which we leave the hill around 11 am and go to the luncheon in POS, we eat, drink, talk, lime, then wander around the hotel where the luncheon is being held until evening 6-7 PM when we jump into the buses and go back to the hill. It’s neater and uses the time better. so you see we need more answers before we make our decisions and the organizer won’t be able to decide on these alternatives for us and so before we ask the OBs what they think, we should present them with more data and the full impact of the difference of utilization of time between the two times, before they can make an informed decision as to which [we] they want. So after arguing with myself here I see that we have to resolve the problem of accommodation first! Then we can make intelligent decisions about the other things. And to repeat as far as is humanly possible, not to end up with a disaster, the Overseas OBs must stay at one primary place. If we accept that then we have to decide where! Once we have made those decisions we can then decide other things and fine tune the list of activities.

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Nigel Boos <nigelboos@yahoo.ca>

26 Mar

Another thought,

Perhaps it might be an idea too, to invite our newly consecrated Old Boy, Cardinal Kelvin Felix to celebrate Holy Mass with us in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception together with Archbishop Joe Harris C.S.Sp., Fr. Abbot John Pereira O.S.B., Msgr. Mike de Verteuil (Class of 1963), Fr. Cuthbert O.S.B., Fr. Augustine O.S.B. and Fr. Christopher Theunissen O.S.B. and yourself as concelebrants. Prior Br. Paschal Jordan and any of the other monks who would wish to attend should also be invited to do so. The OB's attending the Mass should be asked to wear the T-shirts being printed for use during the Reunion, with the logo as suggested by Dennis Gurley.

And since the Old Boys of the Abbey School had donated dalmatics to the 20 men who were ordained as Permanent Deacons in 2010, perhaps we could invite them all / some of them at least, as well to be present at the Holy Mass, wearing our donated vestments. Salah Wilson, our resident steel-bandsman should be asked to prepare appropriate liturgical music, with the advice of Br. Paschal, for use during the ceremony. Now, wouldn't that be a fantastic picture?

I should also like to earnestly request that Lionel Roberts (formerly Bro. Vincent of MSB, our old Sports Master), be invited to join us during the proposed Holy Mass and to be an integral part of our Grand Reunion celebrations. As Brother Vincent, he was a father, brother and friend to all of us boys at MSB, so far away from our families, and he had been a source of comfort and understanding during our teenage years. Lionel is himself also a deacon and he had worked very hard 4 years ago to get the OB's involved in the ordination ceremony of the 20 deacons. I suggest that he has earned a place in our ranks, and I recommend that he be especially invited to attend the Grand Reunion. I believe that he may be reached in Florida, where he works as a lawyer. His email contact is:  lrober17@tampabay.rr.com

Nigel

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From: "Schaefer, Glen O CIV MSC, N131" <glen.schaefer@navy.mil>

Subject: RE: Reunion 2014

Date: 26 March, 2014 11:24:33 AM EDT

Greetings Brothers,

With the gracious consent of the 2014 reunion lead organizers myself and a few others would like to organize a nice All Fours Tournament on Saturday night 11 Oct with food and drinks to be included. If we have the blessings of the committee our intent moving forward would be to ask for donations dollars, assets or connections to reduce and offset the cost of eats , drinks music, facility, tents, tables and chairs. Purpose is to invite as much of our brothers who cannot attend some of the more cost bearing events. This is our MSB old boys reunion a chance to meet greet and enjoy. Peace.

Pugs, Joe, Jimmy or Winston: I do not have Ian Gomes email could you please forward this email to him for me. Thanks God Bless.

Glen Schaefer aka Skippy.

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Photos:

6003 East St. George Sports Event p06

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