Monday, August 4, 2008

Bigger, Better, Brighter

So we were originally a yahoo group, but it wasn't to be for too long.  From memory we had about 60 members and there was warning that yahoo was going through the groups doing a massive upgrade.  Notice from the site administrators that we would be out of action for a few days while they did their thing.  A few days turned into a week until i looked into it to find they had lost our group in this process.   
Gone.
Just like that.
I recovered a few days later after a talking to from one of our members, a newly acquainted friend, Jon Anda.  
I vaguely remembered Jon from my time in Singapore, he was one of the 'big kids'.  A few years older than me, he was with the big kids over in the senior part of the school.  Big kids could be seen sometimes if you ventured to that high area, on the parade ground each morning for assembly or in the senior hall once a week.  They were always 'over there', at the back of the hall or at the other end of the parade ground.  
Jon and his younger brother Michael, i was to learn, were unique in that their Mother worked for the New Zealand Consulate and they lived in Singapore for, i think, 7 years.  They first went to a Chinese primary school for a little time then were put into the  Royal Naval School at Woodlands which was handed over to the Australians in 1971 and renamed ANZ Services Primary School. Jon started high school at ANZ Services School, Changi and then moved back to Woodlands after the hand over to New Zealand when the school then became known as NZ Services school, Woodlands.
Jealous? i was.  
Jon had experienced the two handovers ..British to Australian to New Zealand Armed Services and was a wealth of information.  He knows Singapore like no other brat of Singapore.

We lost our group, or rather Yahoo did, and i was devastated.  What was i going to do? 
"Build it and they will come", that voice (the one that comes to people who need a push along) kept whispering in my ear.  Well i built it and they came and suddenly there was no where for them to go.  The field was missing.

Mr Anda encouraged me to find another field and build again, so i did and we became a MSN group...community as they were known as back then.  The 22nd March, 2002 i opened the new site and i sent out emails to explain what had happened.  

Gradually, brats found their way back and with the help of Jon, this brief  err.. interruption made me more determined to build a stronger base. 

We shall not be beaten.

It was Jon who showed me the potential for this reuniting of Brats of Singapore and what it would mean to so many, why it was important.  
Others may have already thought the same but Jon expressed it all to me in a way that i could now see the big picture, i guess because he himself was a part of that big picture having experienced the changes over the years he was there.  This contact with Jon was.. somewhat symbolic.  Another something that was meant to be in this strange and exciting time travel back to bring brats together to the future.

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