Old Scholars News

From the Forum

I wanted a medium for old scholars of the school to be able to meet and chat with each other. A place where we can all go and catch up. A place where we can find help and support.

The first Foundation Forum was created on Delphi Forums during 2000, but it did not offer a very attractive interface, and not many features. There were a few members but soon I decided that I wanted something better. The MSN version of the Foundation Old Scholars Forum was created on January 1, 2001 to allow current students and past students to interact and help each other. During the first couple of months things were extremely slow and I was tempted to cancel the entire thing, delete the forum and forget the idea ever came into my head. However early adopters to the forum (lifemgmt, Brett C., Marvalous, Beef and others) along with people I had spoken to had convinced me to delay my action. Twice. Today I am extremely thankful to these persons for preventing me from making a big mistake. 

One of the decisions I made when I first developed the forum was that I was not going to allow persons to view the email address of other members. The reason being that persons would tend to exchange email addresses and then the forum would serve no purpose. Since the person could email each other directly. In addition since they are emailing each other directly they would have no reason to even check the forum to see if anyone else they knew came on, thus preventing someone from reacquainting themselves with a friend. Messages would go unanswered and such. Perhaps there is another way, but I really do not so it. I do realize that persons already communicate directly and that's ok. I just wanted to keep it to a minimal and I do hope that the persons who do communicate directly still check the forum and post occasionally.

The Forum currently has 233 registered members including two managers. It has many options available to its users. Originally the features included were the Message Board, Memories, Favorite Teacher, Websites, Member List, Meeting Notes for those who did not attend meetings, and Upcoming events. The Message Board contained and area for General discussion, Good Books anyone had read, Good Movies they had seen. Recipes, Homework help for students and Sports. Later the Job Seekers and Lost and Found were added.

As you would expect the General discussion area is the most active of the lot. Although some of the others have quite a few messages. The Memories panel is also a good read. In there you will find some our most memorable times at Foundation. Some one mentioned the beautiful girls, another remembers a graduation kiss, fights, nice teachers and more. The Favorite Teacher is nice as well, but not as interesting as the Memories panel to me. Teachers mentioned were Mr. Ward, Mrs. king, Mrs. Carrington, Ruby St. John, Mr. Blackman. Some people have more than one favorite.

Some time later in 2002, members requested a photos section and chat room. These were added, but the chat room was temporarily disconnected due to technical difficulty with MSN. In an attempt to increase the user base and create some activity I added daily cartoons, some of which were actually funny. A games area for playing small and rather simple games including Asteroids, Connect 4, Minesweeper, Tic Tat Toe and others. Then I started linking the forum directly onto the main page of the website and including little tidbits in the FOSA Update Newsletter.

The most appreciated area of the forum after the Message Board is the Member List. The Member List is an area of the Forum where all of the members can post their name as it was when they were in school. Where they currently live. Where they currently work and what year they left school. This allows user  to find their long "lost" friends and to know what their status is. Usually when people check the member list and find someone they know they then register hoping to catch that person online.

The Member list is fascinating for me in a way that I could not imagine when I developed it. It shows your fellow students. They used to sit next to us and talk crap with us and make jokes at the teachers. Some of them probably were not all that bright! But what it also shows is what they have become. I see people on there that left school with me listed as Vice Presidents... Managers.. People having positions in the Military, US and Canadian Government jobs. High ranking University positions, the list goes on page after page. Even people that left after me and are holding serious rank here and overseas.  It goes to show us that nothing, even for someone who did not go to Combermere or Harrison's College is impossible once you put your mind to it. You can achieve just about anything. My hat goes off to these people really. They have accomplished a great deal since leaving the University on the hill and they are all over the place.

So here is to all of us. The Website, the Forum and all you Foundation people out there that in any way helped to make  them both successful. Cheers!!!

The website can be accessed here. The Forum can be accessed here.

FOSA Christmas Party

About 30 people attended the Christmas party on January 3rd.  As always I am sure that the ones who promised they would be there but then did not turn up have very good reasons.

I have nothing more to say on the matter.

Speech Day 2003

Having missed the actual event, I can only write a summary of some of the important parts from the Principals report for the year 2002-2003.

Approximately 1097 students took CXCs in the last year in 25 different subjects. The overall pass rate was 74 percent.

As usual the School entered the Optimist Oratorical Competition. This year we were represented by Head girl Cherisse Whitehall-Small and Terrell Thompson. After competing locally they were selected to represent Barbados in Jamaica. Cherisse having won the overall competition was invited to read her speech at the Jamaica international convention. Thanks were given to Mrs. Simmons Jemmott for her efforts. 

In the Visual Arts Department the pass rate was 60 percent. The Students were encouraged to enter various competitions. The most prestigious of them being the NIFCA Visual Arts competition. The School won one silver medal and three bronze medals for their labour. Students were also exposed to the work of practising artisans and attended workshops ran by Visual Arts Artist from Ghana.

Individual performances showed that 3 students gained 9 CXC subjects, 24 students gained 8, 18 students gained 7 and 33 students gained 6 subjects. The Principal noted however that although qualified to enter tertiary education the competition there was tough and students sometimes become frustrated and drift into other areas.

Following is a list of the various subjects taken at CXC by the fifth form students. Overall there has been an improvement in the number of students at Foundation gaining passes at CXC. With certain subjects such as Social Studies, Information Technology, Clothing and Textiles and Mechanical Technology gaining 100 percent passes. Other subjects like Mechanical Technology and Electrical Technology were observed as making a dramatic improvement in the pass rate. 

 As you can see, over the four year period, the average number of students gaining passes at CXC have continued to rise. There was a dip of 1.3 percent in 2002, from 73.7 in 2001 to 72.4 percent in 2002, but this was compensated for by a further increase of 2.6 percent to 75 percent passes in 2003.

I was unable to secure the students report in time for this update. Neither do I have any information regarding what was spoken about by the guest speaker.

News Archives Two full years of news waiting for you.

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