As we enter a beautiful summer in the historic year of the golden pig, I truly hope all of our fellow alumni are enjoying the warm weather by celebrating and making wonderful memories with family and friends. The St. Mark's School Alumni Association of Ontario is here to serve you, as one of our many honourable alumni, to catch up with old friends from years past and to meet new ones. I hope this biannual newsletter will assist to keep you informed with our latest developments and our many upcoming events.

In December of 2006, a new board of directors was elected for the 2007 to 2009 term. They include:

President:	Raymond Kong	1971
Vice President:	Miranda Kwan	1966
Secretary:	Edward Chan	1975
Treasurer:	David Leung	1963
Public Relations:	Kenneth Fung	1958
Website:	Mabel Lee	1965
Newsletter:	Allison Chan	1962
Recreation:	Helen Tio	1969
Membership:	Timmie Lee	1966

As president, I am so fortunate to have this opportunity and greatly look forward to working with such a dedicated, experienced, and pleasant executive. My confidence to take on this challenging responsibility was further strengthened by the outstanding results of this year’s first event. The lunch gathering which took place on April 28^th turned out to be a successful one as there was more than 90 people in attendance and everyone enjoyed the good food and joyous games. We were extremely excited and happy to see new faces at this gathering. They included Rennie Tang ’71, Chi Ching Ng ’71, Karen Lee ’91 and Frederick Leung ’68. We would like to welcome and thank these new members for coming to celebrate with us and we look forward to their continued support and participation.

On top of our traditional activities and events, a Putonghua course program was introduced this year to our alumni. I am happy to report that the program, which began on May 1, 2007, experienced a high attendance rate. A big thank you goes to Helen Tio, our dedicated recreation director, for allowing SMSAA Ontario use her property as the venue for the course. A new course is currently being arranged for the upcoming term which begins in September of this year. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our course teacher, Madam Betty Li, for her long term and continued support.

Our summer event, the annual BBQ picnic, will take place on Saturday, August 11, at Milne Park in Markham. Since the location of the park is convenient for everybody, we hope more people will join us for this year’s exciting summer gathering. We are trying our best to arrange a car pool for those who would like to attend the BBQ, but do not drive.

Since the Christmas Party will be held every two years, there will be no winter event this year. I believe the Christmas Party will definitely be something to look forward to in 2008.

SMSAA Ontario will be celebrating the 10^th anniversary of its newsletter at the end of this year. The support from the alumni for the newsletter has been outstanding and enthusiastic. We would like to thank all the alumni who kindly shared their writings, information, pictures, poems, etc. from the past 10 years with all of us. Your continued support and submission of these articles is the only way to keep our alumni newsletter going. A special thank you goes to the members of SMSAA BC who continuously give us support both financially and by submitting articles.

Last but not least, you are highly recommended to visit our friendly and informative website at www.stmarksalumni.ca . There, you will be kept up-to-date with all the recent developments and the upcoming events by SMSAA Ontario.

Thank you to all the alumni and directors who have worked so hard in organizing the events. They would not have taken place without the help and dedication of every single one of you.

On behalf of the entire board of directors, I would like to wish all of you a wonderful, safe, and joyous summer.

Sincerely,


Raymond Kong ’71
President