Alumni Affairs

About the Alumni Oriole

Origins

In 1995 I visited Jivraj Nazareth (1969) in Australia.  The conversation drifted to Abu, and remarkably, with no beverages to blame it on, we started to sing from the 1967 operetta Ali Baba and the 40 Black Sheep.  “Tramp tramp tramp,” “Stay ladies stay,” “When Hassarac has the sack.”  The memories came flooding back.  We'd caught the Abu bug.

Back then you could type Bombay into an Internet search engine and get a couple of hits, but Abu didn't bring up anything relevant.  My brother Vivian (1968) had some web space available.  We pulled out old photographs, recalled lyrics of anthems, listed maybe 100 names in the directory, and in late 1996 launched the SMS web site on AOL.

Within months, word had spread.  Alumni around the world were catching the Abu bug.  Aloysius (1951) started to compile a list of addresses.  Br Noel (1979) heard about the site (oops!  we hadn't informed the Brothers) and he had someone key in the rolls of graduating classes since 1914, taking the directory from a couple of hundred to nearly 3000.  Ulysses (1982) sent in about 30 photographs.  Marlon (1984) set up a do-it-yourself registration form.  With the increased maintenance demands, I moved the files to my own domain.

Organization

With growth has come heightened expectations.  I've recently had offers of donations to help finance the site, as well as questions about my powers of representation, term of office, salary from the Brothers, etc.  Here's the scoop:

• The site hangs off my corporate domain (DGRC.CA), at no cost.  I gratefully decline donations towards site maintenance.  I do solicit contributions in content and effort, directed towards the interests of alumni or the school.
• My efforts are rewarded by stories of rediscovered friendships and reunions — the best to date is of cousins (ca 1951) who were separated as children during WWII, and reunited after about 50 years, through this site, and by dogged work of dedicated alumni.
• The initiative for the site came from us, not the Brothers.  The school crest and name are used without formal authorization, but it's fair to suspect we have the Brothers' blessings.  The suggestion of fund raising came from several alumni.
• I claim no authority of any sort, but do exercise reasonable editorial liberty in determining content.
• As long as this site is considered useful, I'll try to keep it going.  But others should feel free to do a better job, to launch branch pages, other activities, etc.

How can you contribute?

• Spread the word about the site
• Update the rolls: see Directory
• Send in content: photographs, articles
• Volunteer as a worker bee (more on worker bees)
• Program/host branch pages of special interest — there are already a couple of other SMS sites, accessible from the Links page.  Contribute your HTML/Java/Perl, photography, design/layout skills, whatever.  Send in your ideas.  For example, Marlon Menezes (1984) wrote the script for on-line registration.  Good man!  We need more of that.