Yes, I was looking at this thread.
I don’t know of any high school reunions happening in Canada. It sounds like it’s a standard, what 5, 10, 15, 20 year type thing in the U.S? Why on earth would you want to go back and get together with the same pimply-faced nerds you were glad to get away from 20 years ago?
Do other countries participate in this regimental torture?
They do reunions in Alberta and NWT.
I’m pretty sure schools in China don’t.
My University just celebrated their 30th anniversary, and they had a big party with fireworks and dancing. The next day all alumni were invited to sign up, meet their old teachers, and enjoy a pretty fabulous meal on the school’s dime. So it was kind of reunion like.
Schools in Cameroon don’t and they would find the idea pretty absurd.
It’s done in certain schools in Ireland.
My husband went to his 20th high school reunion in Australia (New South Wales). All his buddies seemed to think that was a normal thing to do.
Jeez, maybe it’s just a conspiracy in my home town then?
My high school has reunions which I studiously ignore.
I don’t know about secondary schools, but I helped set up a few reunions (aka “gaudies”) for an Oxford college. They were extremely popular, possibly because of the large amounts of booze on offer.
It’s not unheard of in Ontario either. My old high school in Toronto has a reunion every ten years, on its anniversary (it opened in 1936). My graduating class (class of '79) has had reunions on important anniversaries too.
My mother’s old school in Barbados is constantly trying to arrange alumni databases and keep their info current, and my mother left school over 40 years ago. She’s not too interested. They don’t do reunions because I gather almost all former students soon left Barbados.
I finished high school, in Canada, almost seven years ago. No five year reunion, and I don’t think there will be a tenth. It’s impossible to keep in touch with everyone, and really, who cares?
They aren’t unheard of in the UK but they’re entirely down to the people who organise them making them happen. There is no convention about them and I’m not even sure how anyone from my school would contact me to invite me even if it happened.
Even if I did get an invite, the only way you would get me at a school reunion is tied up, gagged and in the boot of a car (you’d probably need to sedate me too). Unless I go to prison in SE Asia at some point in my life I will never again have as horrific experience as I did at school.
My Mom went to her 60th high school reunion this summer. (New Brunswick, Canada.) I wouldn’t bother even if I found out one had been organized.
My year from school has had ten year (1991) and twenty year (2001) reunions. The thirty year one should be in 2011. I didn’t attend either of the first two reunions. I had other things on and I didn’t care enough to reschedule them. The format of the reunions has been sensible though. No sit-down dinners or anything like that. Just drinks at a pub in Sydney, allowing people to stay for as little or as long as they like.
My father, who attended the same school, went to his sixtieth reunion in 2005.
My high school class in Australia has had reunions, but i think they’re organized by some keen members of our class, with the school having little to do with it.
I didn’t go to my 10-year reunion because i couldn’t be bothered, and i didn’t go to the 20-year one because i lived about 10,000 miles away.
They’re pretty common in Japan as well.
Are you still a pimply-faced nerd after 20 years? Odds are neither are they.
General school reunions happen here usually on special school anniversaries (25th, 50th, 75th etc.) I’ve heard of class reunions happening where they’re organised by past pupils – and I’ve expressed my opinion to fellow past pupils of my school that something be organised for 2010, special anniversary or no.
Schools here don’t have the capacity to fit the time into staff schedules to organise reunions anymore. This surprises people these days, who remember things very differently just 15 or more years ago.
FTR, they’re far from univesal in the US. And generally they only happen if somebody from the class who still lives in the area is willing to stand up & do the volunteer work necessary.
My host mom in Bulgaria went to a reunion of the people she graduated from eighth grade with. It sounded very unofficial, though. Plus, a lot of them still live in the village, so it’s not exactly like they don’t know what they’re up to.
No school-organized reunions that I have ever heard of here in Germany, but a lot of privately organized graduation reunions (I went to the 10-year, 20-year and 25-year ones) and some ad hoc get togethers (I was to an evening with my classmates of form 7e of 1977 at the KGB last year). Times and formats vary very much with who steps up to organize - from a formal-ish catered event to an evening in a bar.
My old school thankfully hasn’t had any. I wouldn’t attend anyway. I couldn’t wait to get away from the mongrels; certainly have no burning desire to ‘catch up’ ever again.