Woodstock | Milestone Reunions at WS Campus – Class of 1984 and Class of 1994!

29 Apr Milestone Reunions at WS Campus – Class of 1984 and Class of 1994!

Posted at 10:30h in All, Alumni by Aditya Manral 0 Comments

Celebrating the 40th and 30th Milestone reunions on campus, both classes were engaged in campus tours, walking down memory lane as they toured the campus, and interacting with our students!

We take immense pride in sharing these significant occasions with our alumni and we would like to share some highlights from these milestone reunions below. We hope they bring joy to the attendees and also inspire other classes to include Woodstock School in their reunion plans. We’re always here and excited to make a visit to campus special for you. Just drop us an email at alumni@woodstock.ac.in.

Class of 1984: 40-Year Milestone Reunion

Photo caption above: Back row – Nicole Langenfeld, Taina (Sisi) Lance, Jenny Olsen, Mark Glover, Soe Soe Thwin, Sarabjit (Fibi) Thind

Front row – Monisha Ahmed, Hassan Dhasti, Nilmini Jayasinghe, Rajesh Kohli, Shabnam Merchant, Arjun Sarup

Here is a short write-up below shared by the Class Rep, Sisi Lance!

FENOC at 40

“MONKEY!!!” Funny how a single word can transport you 40 years back to Midlands’ senior floor, chaos ensuing as a monkey gallops down the walkway with someone’s bra/Maggi noodles/other prized possession. Only this time, the marauding simian is in front of Rokeby Manor’s log cabin, eyeing snacks on the table until it’s chased off with the help of a monkey-stick. Plus ça change…

FENOC—the Class of 1984—celebrated our 40th reunion in April between Delhi & Mussoorie with 17 total in attendance: Kohli, Monisha, Shailly, Sajni, Ravi J, Brinda, Phil, Shabnam, Dashti, Soe Soe, Nilmini, Arjun, Fibi (with wife Alex Wagner ’85), Jenny, Mark G, Nicole and Sisi. In addition, two 2nd generation Fenocians attended who had overlapped during their Woodstock stints: Mark’s daughter Sarah and Jenny’s daughter Livia (a.k.a. Jenny’s mini me). Nicole also brought her son Harry and it was fun to add their youthful energy and observations to the gatherings (although during one bout of reunion shenanigans sitting around the fire pit, on the “cringe scale” of 1-10, we scored an 11…out of the mouth of babes, as the saying goes!)

Highlights included lovely dinners in Delhi hosted at the homes of Monisha and Kohli/Seema, another wonderful meal in Mussoorie at Arjun/Bhavna’s home, campus/dorms tours, visiting our favorite haunts like Chardukan for chai and bun omelettes, Prakash for peanut butter, yak cheese and jams, a leisurely stroll to JB for more chai and rhododendron jam, followed by a girls hike up to Flag Hill, shopping in “the buzz” (sooo many cars now!) and delicious dosas at Café Madras. We had amazing weather every day and gorgeous sunsets every evening.

A huge shout-out to the Alumni Office for pulling out all the stops for our campus visit! They tracked down our long-lost class banner and had it cleaned and repaired. To see it hanging in the quad with a 40th reunion backdrop was incredibly touching for all of us! At tea with principal Dr. Cook, they had a table with all sorts of memorabilia from our class, which was so fun to peruse and bask in the remember-whens. And we each got an awesome swag bag.

For me personally, sitting around the fire pit or log cabin, enjoying each other’s company with conversations both silly and serious—often with a classmate I barely knew at school–has always been the best part of these reunions. If you have never attended a reunion and are wondering how you’ll fit in, members of our class who have done it said they wished they had attended sooner. You can’t grow old friends and boarding school relationships are like no other. Love you long time, Fenocians (IYKYK) and see you at the next one!

– Sisi Lance, Class Rep

Class of 1994: 30-Year Milestone Reunion

Photo caption above: Front row, left to right: Kate Witjes-Saounina, Muneesh Mahant, Sarah Doebler, Anna Titus, Ringae Nuek, Natasha Elangbam, Bibhu Sahu, Rifaee Sattar.

Back row: Erik Geissal, Stephen Moyer, Manav Kohli, Mattias Borgstrom, Azar Niekamp, Shakey (Abhishek) Ghosh.

On day one of the milestone celebrations at campus, the Class of 1994 gathered at the tea garden, where they reminisced over their class yearbook and various notes from the archives from their time at school. This was followed by a school tour, interactions with staff members and students, lunch at the dining hall, and a tour of the dorms to conclude their day on campus. The class also visited the Hanifl Centre the next day, followed by a trip to the Jabarkhet Nature Reserve, fondly remembered as the Flag Hill Forest. The final event for the class was a celebratory dinner hosted by the school Principal, Dr. Craig Cook, and his wife, Jamie Williams, Director of the Centre for Imagination, to honour the class. It was a delightful experience for our school community to engage.

Here is a write-up shared by the Class Rep, Sarah Doebler:

The Class of ‘94 – EREBUS- celebrated their 30th reunion this April with a kick-off in Delhi, and then travelled together to Mussoorie, Haridwar/Rishikesh and back to Delhi in about six days. The highlights were being together again, and of course, seeing Woodstock and the hillside! We cherished the beauty of the hillside that we were too young to appreciate 30 years ago, while living there.

The alumni office arranged a wonderful school tour by students, letting us exclaim and wonder over what brought back memories and seeing things that had changed.

We followed the familiar ramp and steps, between monkeys and cicadas, to our home at the bottom of the hill, 30 years after leaving it. As one in my class said, “magical!”

We spent our last night together in Haridwar, with an excursion into Rishikesh – sensory overload! Then a dawn safari drive through Rajaji Park before heading back to Delhi.

As a classmate said, “30 years … and it’s like you have never left. I wish for all Woodstock graduates to feel what I feel now, at some point in their life.” You could be surprised how connected you feel to your classmates, both those you spent time with at school and those you didn’t, now when you reconnect. We all hold this unique collective part of our formative years in common, and we cherish it, and it connects us all tightly to each other. Looking forward to the next reunion!

– Sarah Doebler, Class Rep