Programme

  • Introduction (Rick Killam)
    • Gather
    • Betsy and Rick, cohosts, for a few remarks
    • This 60th reunion came from a kernel of an idea floated some eight months ago by Betsy and Ian.
    • OMG look at you all!
    • Your team has invested hundreds of hours to bring us here today.
    • Now it’s reduced to the last four hours.
    • Our mission now: To get out of the way and let the fun begin.
  • First Nations Acknowledgement (Karen Jamieson)

As has become customary over the past 10 years, we will commence with an acknowledgement of the traditional residents of the lands where Magee is located and where we meet today.

For this acknowledgement, I will invite Karen Jamieson to come to the podium.

I have spent my working life in the field of dance. Over the years, I have been privileged to engage in a great number of cross-cultural dialogues and collaborations with Indigenous artists.  I am very heartened by an awakening that has occurred in the past 10 years. Truth and reconciliation for indigenous peoples has begun to redress more than a century of injustice and pain. I have high hopes for a future where First Nations people are enabled to contribute their profound knowledge to create a better Canada.  (This text written with support from Rick Killam).

Please join me in an acknowledgment.

We acknowledge & raise our hands to the stewards of these lands and waters,

  • Xwme%kwayam9 (Musqueam)
  • Skwxwu’7mesh ( Squamish)
  • Selilwatat (Tsleil-Watuth) Nations

These people have taken care of these lands and these waters since time immemorial.

Thank you Hosiem (shared by Matriarchs Uprising, a group of Indigenous dancers, whose work draws upon European and Indigenous traditions).

  • Kudos to our team (Rick Killam)
    • Karen Jamieson (our historian and ethicist)
    • Betsy Clarke (van Halderen) and Ian McCririck (our two prime movers)
    • Nancy Mains (Bailey) (ace telephoner and communicator)
    • Scott Macrae (our marketing team)
    • David Fladgate (our treasurer and Zoom meeting coordinator)
    • Dave Wei (our photographer and name tag producer)
    • Jamie Harmon (our data manager and spreadsheet whiz)
    • Rick Killam (your MC and, as a serious audiophile, producer of your thumb drives with songs from the ’50s & ’60s)
  • Tribute to the 50th Anniversary Team (Betsy Clarke (van Halderen))

Unfortunately, none of the 50th Reunion team were able to be here today. Regrettably, Leslie Connolly and Belle Sangster both passed away recently, and our thoughts are with Bob Sangster and their families where their memories are still very vivid. Peter Lamb had intended to attend, but had to cancel at the last minute.  I know many of you were also hoping to see Mary Calder (Armitage) and Joan Grant (Hadaway), so that we could thank them again for all the work they did on our fabulous 50th Reunion.  Our job was so much easier because Ian could access Leslie’s spreadsheet, which contained contact information for so many grads.  We were truly standing on their shoulders.

  • Greeting to those visiting from afar (Betsy Clarke (van Halderen))

Greetings to visitors:  We asked for a show of hands for those who still lived in the Lower Mainland, and were somewhat surprised that there were quite a few (maybe 20). There were at least as many who had come on ferries from the Islands and Sunshine Coast.  Only one, Bob Shaw, was from elsewhere in B.C., but a surprisingly good number came from elsewhere in Canada (Bob Chataway, Kenna Creer (Manos), Allan Ireland, Roselynn Stevenson and Bill Taylor) . Four were from the U.S.A. – Paul Korsmo, Innes Rickart (Ediss), David Ashby and Maureen Lyons (Peterson). Sandy Powell (Brewer) came from Australia – which again was the farthest of all.  No prizes this year, but we surely did appreciate every single person who made the effort.  Hugh Renwick, our class President, sent word from the eastern U.S., where he has lived and taught in Waldorf education schools for many years. We acknowledged him by reading excerpts from his newsy letter and his open invitation to us all to come and visit if we ever get to the area around Boston, Massachusetts.

Dear Magee Classmates,

I am sorry to miss yet another reunion with you!  My wife Carol and I live far away in Wilton, a small town in New Hampshire, more or less six hours south of Montreal. Since our retirement from careers as teachers, our trips to BC have been limited to Kelowna where our daughter, Kristen, lives with her family.  We have been able to visit them at least once each year.  Our son, Tobin, and his family live most of the year just a mile down the road from us in Wilton, so we see them a lot.   I earned a BA in history from Stanford and an MA in philosophy from the University of Toronto.  By that time, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.  I became intrigued with Waldorf Education.  So, I took the necessary training in New York and found a job teaching history and other subjects in a Waldorf School in New Hampshire and then in Maine.  I was a teacher for over 40 years and was also school administrator for a while.  Our primary residence is in New Hampshire, about an hour north of Boston.  If you are ever in Boston or nearby, please let me know and we can arrange to get together!   I hope you all are well.   I’d be happy to hear from any of you if you have an interest in corresponding.   Let me know what you’ve been doing!  You can reach me anytime via email at hughrenwick46@gmail.com

  • In Memoriam (Rick Killam)

While we celebrate our moments together today, we also hold those profoundly good memories of our classmates who are no longer with us.

Let us raise our glasses high in tribute to these good souls.