Has there been or will there ever be an MCHS 1981 reunion? Does anybody know?

There’s been an interesting recent question posted at the Malcolm Campbell High School Grads Facebook Group. The question is: “Has there been or will there ever be an 1981 reunion?”

The Oct. 17, 2015 MCHS ’60s Reunion will be taking place at Old Mill Toronto. Jaan Pill photo

That’s an interesting question. I don’t know the answer.

I like the question because, from my perspective as a volunteer event organizer, one event is pretty much the same as any other event, so far as the organizing of it is concerned.

There’s a lot of work involved, and it’s also a great idea to spread the work out and to get ideas from as many sources as possible. The key thing, in making things work out well, in my experience, is to ensure that every person on the organizing team has a strong sense of ownership of the planning process. At least that’s been my experience, over the past 30 years. Other people may have other approaches to the organizing of events.

If a 1981 reunion has not been organized, there are many MCHS grads from the 1960s who would be pleased, I think, to share what they have learned about the organizing of reunions, in the event such information may be of interest to the younger MCHS grads.

Regular face to face meetings are a key part of successful event organizing, in my experience

The Old Mill is located just west of the Humber River. The area has lots of trees and green spaces. Jaan Pill photo

The main thing I’ve learned about staging of events over the years is that you can do quite a bit by using emails to organize aspects of an event, but it’s really important to also have regular face to face meetings involving a core group of members of an organizing team. That’s been a key element in the organizing of the MCHS ’60s Reunion that we’ve been working on for the past couple of years.

Each time that I’ve been involved in the organizing of an event, I learn new things, and find that there are new ways of doing things, that I hadn’t thought about before.

Another thing that I’ve learned, in line with evidence that sitting is the new smoking, I’ve learned to do quite a bit of my work, at my laptop, standing at an improvised laptop stand, rather than working at my blog posts hour after hour while siting down. Sometimes many hours are devoted to such work and sitting down is going to wear you out. Standing while working, and taking frequent breaks where you walk around, is the way to go, from what I can see, with regard to such matters.

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A historic bridge is located just west of Old Mill Toronto, at the foot of Old Mill Road. Jaan Pill photo

The nature of organizing and the staging of events is constantly changing, thanks to social media and information technology. This is one of the many things that I have learned, as part of a great group of people who are involved in the organizing of the MCHS 2015 ’60s Reunion talking place at Old Mill Toronto starting at 6:00 pm on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2015.

For example, a DJ can in some cases go to YouTube and pipe in a song via an iPhone or iPad in the event there’s a last-miniute request for a song that isn’t on the DJ’s list. Or a person unable to attend in person can attend the whole event via an iPad connected to Skype, with their voice broadcast by having a mic set up near the iPad.

Bridge that crosses the Humber River near the Old Mill. Jaan Pill photo

I would add that we had a request from a 1980s-era grad some time back, asking of 1980s grads can attend the ’60s Reunion in Toronto on Oct. 17. The answer is yes, anybody can attend, until the point (which is not likely, but who knows?) is reached that we get close to 90 people, at which point we would not be able to accept any more registrations.

You can access the Who’s Attending list for the Oct. 17, 2015 reunion here.

York County crest (detail from bridge that crosses the Humber River at Old Mill Road). Jaan Pill photo