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It is a tradition for the ACSOBA to organise a Retired Teachers’
Tribute Dinner every year in September to thank our retired
teachers who had served ACS during the prime of their lives.
It is a time when retired teachers from all ACS schools gather
at ACS (Barker Road) to meet their former colleagues and Old
Boys for an evening of chatter and nostalgia. It is an annual
event that many of them await eagerly. However, fate has dealt a
cruel blow in the form of the Covid-19 epidemic this year, and we
were forced to abandon the dinner celebrations in accordance
with safe distancing rules.
The Covid-19 epidemic has disrupted our lives in an
unprecedented manner, not least dampening the economy,
leading to widespread job losses and business closures. Fundraising initiatives at our ACS schools, which were initiated well
before this epidemic, have been correspondingly affected. The
ACSOBA was cognisant of this need when planning for this
year’s retired teachers’ gift, and therefore decided to purchase
reusable ACS masks that were produced by ACS (Junior) as
part of the school’s fund-raising efforts for the PERI upgrading
project (2019-2021). The ACS masks were packaged in the gift
pack together with the latest issue of our ACS Echo magazine.
To make the gift more memorable for our retired teachers, we
reached out to Old Boys to help deliver this gift pack. With
the assistance of Mr Loo Ming Yaw, Principal of ACS (Barker
Road), we managed to rally 41 volunteers. On August 30,
they descended upon the ACSOBA office at the Barker Road
campus. Some Old Boys brought their children who are current
ACS students while other Old Boys brought with their fathers
and uncles who also attended ACS. We had mobilised a multigenerational ACSian task force.
Following this event, the ACSOBA has received many happy
messages from Old Boys and retired teachers. One of our
volunteers, John, had the unique opportunity of catching up with
Ms Kuan Soot Heng again. A year ago, together with his ACS
Class of 1990, he had helped chauffeur retired teachers to the
Retired Teachers’ Tribute Dinner and coincidentally, Ms Kuan
was his passenger then. Other Old Boys reconnected with their
former teachers who they had not met for many years while
others gave accounts of their meeting with ‘Legends of ACS’.
Mr Lim Keng Boon, former Principal of ACPS (now known as
ACSP) wrote that ‘it is heartening to know that our past students
have us always in mind in true ACS SPIRIT’.
We hope that this event has provided the impetus for many Old
Boys to re-establish ties with their former teachers, and that
future meetings will extend beyond the confines of Teachers’
Day celebrations.
Wong Heng Yu
Retired Teachers’ Tribute Dinner subcommittee
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