Once again ACSians in Melbourne, Australia, gathered to remember the founding of our beloved alma mater. On Friday 28th February, we celebrated the 128th ACS Founder’s Day.

A modest crowd of twenty-two met for dinner at the Chilli Padi Restaurant in the city. This year saw a new committee of organizers, ably led by Sathisvaran Kanavathy (ACJC Class of 2008) with his team of consisting of Prasad Palanisamy and Donovan Ou Yang (ACS [I] Class of 2009). Together they gathered a group of ACSians young and also the not-so-young.

The group started to stream in by 7.00pm, welcomed by Sathis and his team. After Grace was led by Tan See Keng (ACS Class of 1979), we settled down to a delectable spread of Malaysian and Singaporean dishes with time spent catching up on what each of us had been up to since we last met or even since schooldays, as the case may be!

The after-dinner programme began with a welcome address by Sathis, a slide presentation of familiar scenes of ACS in the old Barker Road and a message specially prepared for us by Cheo Chai Hong, President of the ACS OBA, in which he thanked us “for keeping the ACS flag flying ‘down under’ without fail!”.

Chai Hong also wished us a wonderful time “reminiscing over your (our) favourite memories of ACS (knowing that) each of you (us) will have his or her own special story – ranging from the sentimental to the irreverent”.

And that was just what we did that evening as several ACSians each in turn stepped forward to take us down memory lane and share anecdotes of the times each of them spent in ACS. Indeed that brought about a great deal of nostalgia as well as laughter.

Then came the taking of the group photograph, after which we got together to sing with gusto, the ACS anthem, before parting company to look forward to another re-union next year.

Mrs Lee Gek Kim