St Johns Ravenscourt School - Eagle Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

Page 53 text:

Never have so many people got out of S.J.R. in so little time. By 4:00, Friday, January 22, the two buses were loaded with their 80 occupants and on their ten hour trip to Fort William, Ontario. After a hardy, if somewhat late meal at Dryden, the senior bus settled down to the serious task of raising a storm. You haven’t lived till you’ve ridden in a bus at 1 o’clock when half the people want to sleep and half want to sing. We arrived at Prince Arthur Hotel at 3:30, Fort William time relatively sleepless. However, thanks to the masters’ tender care, we hit the slopes of Loch Lomond’s at 10:00 A.M. It wasn’t long before Ravens were hitting the slopes quite literally. Fortunately, lessons were given by Meredith, Malcolmson, Shandro, Gardner and Gray to the rank novices. However, this didn’t prevent the tenderfoot class from showing the rest of the group how to ski, and following McGoey’s example of taking full advantage of the powder snow. By noon, it became very easy to recognize a skier from St. John’s Ravenscourt. However, they stuck at it gamely, and by the end of the day, were greatly improved. Meanwhile, the other skiers took full advantage of Loch Lomond’s excellent range of ski runs, from expert to novice. Buses were scheduled to leave at 9:00 and after a slight delay for an overeager skier, we headed back to the Prince Arthur. At dinner, we were joined by Peter Schuldermann, and Bob Colquhoun who raced a downhill at Mt. Baldy that day, Cooney placed third and Schludermann came tenth. That night, most of the seniors went to the Forth Dimension for a dance, where everybody proved that dancing was much harder then skiing, except for Schmidt and Meredith, who played it safe, and got home early. As the 12:00 deadline approached, boys were stuck with the sobering problem of how to cover the five miles to the hotel in time. Various means of transportation were used, from taxi-cabs to G.T.O.’s. Sunday morning, after a good night’s sleep everybody was fresh and eager to get out on the slopes. Skiing was just as good as on Saturday, and S.J.R. somewhat regained status, by reinforcements in the persons of Calquhoun and Schludermann. Fortunately, casualties were light, with only one novice (Woodhead) and one intermediate (Magnus) sustaining injuries. After dinner and thanks to Mr. Weir, the buses headed back for Winnipeg. The trip home was somewhat more uneventful then the trip there and we arrived more or less intact at 3:00 A.M. The day was unanimously declared a ski Monday and so most people managed to get a full night’s sleep; although some felt that wasn’t enough and slept Tuesday also. However, except for Mr. Bredin, who lost a hockey player, everybody enjoyed the trip, which was very suc¬ cessful. Thanks gjo especially to Mr. Wellard, who worked very hard to make the trip a success, to Mr. Weir who so generously provided the skiers with free rooms, and to Mr. Leonard, Mr. MacKenzie, Mr. Geith, and the prefects, who so capably helped to manage the trip.

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tml Sw ' tM The choir put in many hours of work practising for the choral concert at Christmas, and their work was well rewarded. Under the direction of Mr. Shepherd, the choir produced a very good performance and the members of the audience expressed the point of view that the performance was one of the best put on by the school choir. There were many personal congratula¬ tions on the performance by members of the audience, and Mr. Shepherd himself seemed quite pleased at the outcome. Over the years that I have been here, I have noticed a distinct improvement in the quality of the music of the school choir each succeeding year. If this continues, and there is no reason why it should not, we will soon have one of the best choirs in the city. Chow Last year, S.J.R. added a choir to its many other activities. This year, it continued under the careful guidance of Mr. Shepherd. A new member was added to the choir in the form of Mrs. Barret who plays the piano and thus complicated the situation with irrevelant matters such as the meter of certain hymns. However, with big booming basses such as Peter Fahlgren and famous tenors such as Angus Campbell, the choir made great progress, making their first appearance in the Carol Service which proved to be quite successful. Mr. Shepherd introduced many new songs to the choir, among which were This Land is My Land” and Chim-Chim- Cheree.” Both were readily accepted by almost all the members of the choir. The only disapproval came from the tenors who complained of the high notes in This Land is My Land.” A trip was planned to Breck School in Minneapolis this year, as a return trip from last year’s appearance of the Breck Choir. However, this was soon called off because of the lack of attendance of certain Upper School members of the choir. Hardly a week went by when somebody did not come. Because of this, Mr. Shepherd had to teach the parts of various songs over again. Due to this slackness on the choir’s part, the choir never did make it to Breck. However, there is always next year and let’s hope that the boys are a little more enthusiastic about it then. The members of the choir would like to express their thanks to Mr. Shepherd and Mrs. Barret who give so much of their time and effort into the making of the choir.

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This year the winter carnival was held on February fifth. The day was perfect as the temperature was twenty above and the sun was shining brightly. Events began at about one-thirty with a broomball game, which never did seem to end. Armed with brooms, shovels or broken hockey sticks, the broomball crowd set the jubilant mood for the rest of the day. Following the broomball game the senior hockey team played a game of HACK-EY against the fierce oppostion of four Balmoral Hall players and several other girls. Many thanks to those girls who helped to knock the senior team and its helpers down a notch or two. Several ski-doos were giving people rides and many thanks to their owners. Just before the ski-doo race was held, end¬ ing the afternoon, a toboggan race was run. The two teams, each consisting of four boys and four girls batted it out on the snow covered football field. There was no winner, as in the end, all the boys were pulling all the girls on the same toboggan. The afternoon ended with Mr. Gardiner winning the long and skill test¬ ing ski-doo race. Hockey and tobogganing seemed the favorites of the lower school. There were several families out at the carnival and I would like to express my thanks to those parents who helped supervise and support the carnival. The carnival ended for the lower school with a party for the younger boys and a tally-ho for the older ones. Events in the evening began with the annual beauty queen contest. Miss Bryan Ryder won the contest and Miss Jamie Little and Miss Peter Fahlgren were chosen as her princesses by the applause of the on¬ lookers. Following the beauty queen contest, the carnival mob left for the tally-ho at Western Stables. It was a warm evening, but many of the boys complained about the cold (?). On the arrival of the mob back at the school, Mr. Girard and two of his friends entertained the group for about half an hour by singing folk songs. After the hootenanny the dance began. The SPECTRES did an excellent job and the dance seemed to be a great success. At last, however, twelve o ’clock signalled the end of the 1966 winter carnival. It was a big success financially. The carnival committee now has a large sum of money which is going to be given to Fort Providence as a gift from the school for some object the town has urgent need of. In closing, I would like to thank Harold and Mrs. Fitzsimmons and all the boys who helped to organize the carnival, for there assistance in making the carnival the success it was.