High School Alumni Annual Dinner

Attended the annual old high school Alumni Dinner at The Marriot Putrajaya a few weeks back. It was not much for the dinner itself, but more to meet up with old friends and the opportunity for networking. Missed only one reunion gathering in the past six years, when the February date clashed with the workplace critical plant turnaround activities.

The big thing about the reunion was always the bonding sessions among old friends of our SPM batch – before and after the Dinner. Those of us who’re out-of-town would converge at a designated location arranged by our in-town buddies for our High Tea, to recap on old stories, or sharing new ones. A chance to reminisce about old exploits, retrospecting on how it was when we were young boys, checking out on how our other colleagues are doing, etc.

A few would show up only for that but not for the Dinner. After the Dinner, we’d gather again at an agreed upon spot to catch up further on the bonding. Again, a few others from our batch who did not attend the Dinner would show up and share the moment. Most of the time we would continue talking until deep into the morning in one of the hotel rooms that were booked – partly for the out-of-town guys but mostly for the “discussion” purposes. Some business deals were even clinched during those sessions.

For this time around, two Marriot Hotel rooms were booked for the purpose.

Every year, new old buddies that hadn’t been with us previously in any gathering would show up. On the other hand, a few who had been there before, as well as those who were active in pulling our batch together previously, also went missing. This year’s missing list was quite serious, due to various reasons. Hopefully, with new activities being put in place would result in a record turn-out of our batch buddies come next year’s Reunion. Especially since next year will be a significant anniversary since we left our school.
Here’s looking forward to our batch’s gathering / Family Day, being arranged in the East Coast planned for May school holidays.