1962 Old Royalists’ mega summit in Toronto

The 1962 past pupils’ batch of Royal College Colombo, who also had formed themselves into the ‘Association of Old Royalists’ 1962 group’ and have been meeting regularly since inauguration in March 1978. The members who are residents in Canada/USA have planned a week-long mega summit in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, commencing with a welcome dinner on Thursday 4 July, where two-minutes silence would be observed as a mark of respect and remembering 27 classmates who are no more.

According to the constitution, those who joined Form I, at Royal College in 1962 and others who joined the batch of students in later years (Form II in 1963, Form III in 1964, Form IV in 1965, Form V in 1966, lower VI in 1967 and Form upper VI in 1968) are Royal Life Members with voting Rights of the Association.

Those who were students at Royal Primary School during the years 1956 to 1560, but failed to get admission to Royal College are also treated as Royal life members.

Spouses and Children under 18 are eligible under non-voting categories of membership free-of-charge, whilst siblings when over 18 years of age have the option to continue as members with a very nominal annual membership fee.

The batch, who follows the Motto ‘Friends-forever’ will be celebrating their 62nd anniversary by the end of June.

The seven days of fun and frolic with families to follow would include a soft ball inter-house bare-foot cricket tournament at Simeon Park with old suit-cases in which they carried their books to school as the wickets.

They will be using their shoes as the bowling crease to reminisce the way they played during their ‘old’ school days before commencement of classroom studies/teaching at 9:00 a.m., and during the lunch-breaks between 12 noon and 1:00 p.m., after which the second session of studies went on till 3:40 p.m.

The program also includes a banquet dinner, sight-seeing trips around Toronto and visits to Niagara/CN Tower/1,000 Islands.