Old Ruymian Club

Blog for ex pupils of Chatham House Grammar School, Ramsgate, Kent. Join the Old Ruymians Facebook page; this will become the official Old Ruymian website

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Easy Route to Old Ruymians @ Friends Reunited

You should be able to find the Old Ruymian Friends Reunited link by clicking here. Well it worked for me! PS. Judith, we would be delighted to hear from your, or any of your friends!

Friends Reunited

What have the internet and insomnia got in common? Well one of the answers is Friends Reunited, and another is blogging. I started blogging in October 2004, a bit late some might say, but still in the days when the wave was small. In fact, my fetish at the time was meta-blogging, or blogging about blogging, but that is a story that belongs elsewhere (see my personal blog).
Having been rather critical of the OR pages on the Chatham House website, I went to Friends Reunited and set up a group called "Old Ruymians" so that there would be an easy place for ORs to share communications. I checked the number of people (claiming) to have attended Chatham House on Friends Reunited and it came to an impressive 2282, then I did a dodgy search on the Chatham House web site to discover that there were 899 ORs registered there (I was expecting about 5 given the quality of information that was provided about ORs there). Now unfortunately to invite people to join the aforementioned and erstwhile group the "Old Ruymians" the invitees had to be not only friends, but friends in the "Friends Reunited sense". So I duly took on the task of inviting lots of people that I knew from school to be my "Friends Reunited" friends: I do hope they don't think of me too sadly when they get the inevitable pleading email. Tonight would have been totally bereft of sleep if I had not managed to break the "Friends Reunited" invite-a-friend function by making far too many invitations. No doubt there is some buffering and processing problem. Well, in any case, I will continue my modest democratic, if not democratically elected, efforts to further conversation between Old Ruymians.
Before I close, I must note that one Judith Ruback professed herself to have attended Chatham House Grammar School. I happen to know, as do most of my contemporaries that this was not in fact the case. Judith was, and indeed I hope still is, a rather attractive lady and well acquainted with us Chatham House lads. Sadly, being a year older than myself she was beyond the cast of my feeble net, but I am sure that better men than I were more successful

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

OR Section Disappoints

No, it's not just an ongoing desire for alliteration that informed the title of this short article. It was motivated by a visit to the Old Boys section of the Chatham House web site, save your energy, don't go there until the new head has had a few months to settle in!
Before I get too excited, let me say that to go to the OR Dinner on 4th July 2009, or to join the ORs you need to contact Tony Taylor (his email address is ataylorconsult@hotmail.com )
In C21 a serious point has been missed. What is something like the Old Ruymians about? Let me tell you what I think:
1) It is about meeting up with people years on and realising that perhaps they were ok after all (joke, everyone I knew at CHS was a good bloke); ok, what I meant was linking up with old friends.
2) Drinking copious amounts and convincing yourself that it could never be as good as it used to be
3) Occasionally bunging a few quid in the pot to help the school further its infinite potential
What should we do?
Firstly any ex-CHS person (now that we have had ladies for some time) should have free membership of the Old Ruymian Club (that saves accounting and treasurer etc).
The Ruym Magazine should simply be published on-line so that all can enjoy and savour the on-going successes of their house and favoured pastimes.
There should be sensible database of people - what's wrong with Friends ReUnited? - and events like dinners, new issues of ruin, OR cricket and why not hockey and rugby matches.
There should be a place where any OR can publish a little news item or whatever...
It's clear that this is something that needs to be discussed over a beer or two, preferably at Bugsy's, but the Belgian Bar or even the school hall might do for a starters.

OR Dinner 4th July 2009 - Make it a good one!

I have to say that after an initial bout of enthusiasm I rather gave up on the Old Ruymian blog. Blogger didn't help, I had to click show full list of blogs (personal greed means I have a number), before the Old Ruymian blog appeared in the list. I was delighted recently to take a look at it and find 5 comments on my first posting; bit like catching a fish of Margate pier really! So I thought I better get my tackle sorted out and ... enough of that metaphor.
If you want to join the old ruins, or to come to the dinner then the man to contact is Tony Taylor (if you click on his name it should set up an email for him, if this doesn't work then his email address is ataylorconsult@hotmail.com )
A lot has happened since 2007 when I made my last post. John Matthews has left the post as Prime Minister, sorry, Head Master of Chatham House and we have a new Executive Head, David Smart, reponsible for both Chatham House and Clarendon House (can't really understand why they don't just merge them and be done with it, but perhaps we'll find out at the dinner??). Paul Birchley, a contemporary of mine in 6Sc1A and 6Sc2A, is now the assistant headmaster at the school [I have to say I am sure that this is a fine choice], and I am a trainee maths teacher about to start a new career at the Marlowe Academy in Ramsgate. Should you hazard across this article I would urge you to link up with the Old School once again, having just past 50 years myself, I think we are ready to bring out the orange segments and discuss tactics for the second half!