Gareth Husband, and his small committee that included John and Kerri Thompson and Malcom Gordon, worked for 6 months and as a result of an exhaustive search they found over 180 ex-students to invite to what became the largest reunion any year group has had for many years.
Gareth outlines some of the steps they took:
- contacted CHESS-they sent a list of 300
- started phoning all the numbers on the student spreadsheet
- set up a Facebook page and added photos. Within a few months we had 80 names
- used Australian Electoral Commission; Ryerson Index; ancestry.com; Herald Sun tributes
- we also decided to try and find teachers. Bill Clancy gave us Mary Bluett’s contact details and she assisted by sending letters out to ex teachers, but as it turned out we found all of them via other means including reading Mrs. Goldberg’s water meter!!!!!!
We started the event at Camberwell High with photos and a tour of the school led by Yvonne Giltinan. CHESS also provided a little gift pack for everyone: CHESS pens, School of our Youth CD’s and 2018 membership forms. We presented bouquets to the 5 teachers who came. At our old haunt, The Palace, we played 70’s music and had a PowerPoint tribute for the 13 students who had passed away. We were very pleased that 120 attended and the feedback was very positive. Now people are asking what we’ll be doing next and when!