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Dear fellow SLOBA-ians,
Welcome to the SLOBA website.
Old Boys had been arriving at donwunder very slowly in the 1950s and 60s. When the students policy changed in the late 1970's, there were more Old Boys coming here to study. And since Mrs. Thatcher had her little fall in Beijing in 1982 and announced that Hong Kong would be handed over back to China, there were greater influx of migrants from Hong Kong. Naturally the number of Old Boys increased rather markedly.
The push of forming an Australian version of SLOBA was increasingly evident especially when priests such as Fr. Foster, Fr. Deane, Fr. Joseph Lee from St Louis visited here and we had gatherings to meet them. In those days, I saw no point of gathering just for gathering's sake. I could not identify a common goal among those meetings, I am a Catholic and I used to think along the line of religion whenever we gathered. I was most reluntant to form SLOBA. However, things shifted for me in the mid-90's when I started to study psychology and counselling. I witnessed the Old Boys' network in Hong Kong. A lot of Old Boys supported and got support from each other. I was much more readily aware of the importance of such a network and support. And Fr. Foster pointed that out beautifully during his most recent visit in January this year.
I hope you will join SLOBA. I hope we are beyond our school boys' days of competing against and rivaling each other. Most of us have gone past the significant age of 40. This is the time when we can make use of such a network of Old Boys for each other's benefit in the areas of business, work, leisure and emotional support. There are some examples: an Old Boy who is an insurance agent has saved us hundreds of dollars in the public liability insurance which is necessary for the registration of SLOBA. The same Old Boy has a special interest in building web sites so he combined his effort with another Old Boy who is a computer analyst to form the SLOBA website. There are solicitors, accountants, dentists and doctors who can point you in the right direction if needed.
Last but not least, a catch phrase from a Salesian, "May Don Bosco look after you." For me the version becomes: "God bless you!"
Yours sincerely,
Ben Lau
Chairman
SLOBA Australia
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