We had a great time (many entertaining stories!) at MCHS lunch meeting on Feb. 12, 2018 in Toronto

We currently have an email list in place for 1960s MCHS grads who are keen to get together for lunch, about once a month, in the Greater Toronto Area.

We have eight people on our list, and are keen to add more members – including from the 1970s and 1980s.

Please contact Jaan Pill at jpill@preservedstories.com if you would like to add your name to our MCHS luncheon email list.

The meetings are open to MCHS grads from anywhere in the world. That is, if you live in Australia and are passing through Toronto for whatever reason, you are most welcome to join us for lunch. We can schedule a meeting that takes into account your brief stay in the GTA!

Our next luncheon is in late March or early April, possibly in Oakville or Burlington.

Our most recent meeting was on Feb. 12, 2018 at the Caldense Bakery at 1451 Royal York Road in Toronto.

We are planning future meetings at locations across the GTA.

We very much like the idea of meeting at a wide range of restaurants.  If you have a suggestion for a great restaurant for MCHS graduates to meet at for lunch, please let us know.

Feb. 12, 2018 meeting

At our Feb. 12, 2018 meeting, we met Heinz Thurner (MCHS 1969) for the first time.

We are always very pleased to have new people join the group, as they have fresh ideas and stories to share. Their energy adds to the energy that those of us possess who have been meeting already, for many years.

Dan McPhail (MCHS 1969) and Heinz had many reminiscences to share, as they looked through an 1969 MCHS yearbook that Heinz had brought along for our February 2018 meeting.

Also at the meeting, this time around, were Scott Munro, Bob Carswell, and Jaan Pill, who were at MCHS in the early 1960s.

Dialogue from the meeting

There was a time when I would make quite extensive notes of all the great things that people would be discussing, at any of the meetings I’ve attended, on any matter whatsoever, going back to the 1960s when I first embarked upon the role, for reasons that escape me, of note-taker and reporter.

At the Caldense Bakery meeting, I jotted down a limited amount of dialogue, which went as follows:

Heinz: So, what are you doing to entertain yourself?

Dan: Things like this [that is, meeting at the bakery for lunch].

Heinz: Things like this.

Dan also mentioned, as the conversation continued, that he had spent the previous weekend in Montreal, attending a hockey game during a family visit. He stayed at the Marriott hotel, as the former Chateau Champlain in Montreal is now called.

Heinz, in a brief interview with Jaan Pill, spoke of some teachers who were particularly memorable, including Mr. Ramcharan, Ms. Chesney, and Mr. Kis.

As an early 1960s grad, I found the entertaining descriptions by Heinz and Dan, of the cliques that existed at Malcolm Campbell High School in the late 1960s, of much interest. Among the cliques were the ones composed of ‘tough guys’ that you wouldn’t want to mess around with.

At our meeting, Scott Munro also shared some thoughtful stories and reflections – about his career as a geography professor, and about how the field of higher education has changed over the years.

As well, Bob Carswell spoke about his days as a Birks salesman, and about some remarkable coincidences that were associated with his sales career.

Jaan Pill, meanwhile, spoke about recent renovations at his family’s house in South Etobicoke, as a prelude to the sale of the house and a move to Stratford, Ontario.

Leadership succession

The task, of helping on a voluntary basis with what people like to call ‘community self-organizing,’ is a most interesting activity to be involved in. This is a pursuit that I’ve been involved with, in one way or another, for well over fifty years.

As things have worked out, I’ve been involved in such activities – essentially, in volunteer projects in which I’ve been helping people to come together, for whatever purpose – for much of my life. It’s an activity I enjoy. I’ve learned so many great things (and a few skills, as well) along the way. I am still learning new things, with each new project that we undertake together.

Part of this work entails an important function, namely that of leadership succession.

That is, if we have a community in place, as a result of our community self-organizing efforts, how do we keep the community going, after some initial, key organizer moves away, burns out, or (of particular relevance, with the passage of the years) passes away?

To keep things going, we need to be thinking, from the outset of our community organizing efforts, about leadership succession. As a volunteer involved with organizing of events, large and small, I’m always thinking of ways to work myself out of a job.

And, with regard to our luncheon get togethers, I am very much interested in keeping the concept of leadership succession in mind, even now.

Where do I start? I can start by sharing with you the fact that our MCHS GTA luncheon meeting are based on a very non-cliquish concept.

That concept is that all the members of the group have a strong sense of ownership of it. In operational terms, that means that every person’s input is valued, among many other features of such a group. Those are just words, yet words matter, which is why I am pleased to share these thoughts with you now.

Please contact me if you would like to be on our mailing list. Please contact me, as well, if you would like to help out, at any point in future, in helping us to organize our MCHS GTA luncheons.