Alumni Affairs

Swimming Pool

From artist's concept (larger image)...	to schematic (larger image) ...	to reality! (larger image, another one)

Alumni of my vintage would be surprised at the technical landscape of SMS in 1998. A large water tank up on Mars Hill east of the junior dorm; solar heated water in the bathing rooms; laundry machines assisting the dhobi; a digital RGB projector hooked up to a multimedia computer, projecting movies from CD-ROMs.

The next major project is to construct a swimming pool, and to teach swimming as part of the curriculum. This has been a dream project of many principals, over the decades; it has now assumed centre stage because of two recent drownings. Estimated construction cost is Rs 20 lakhs (USD 50,000), of which alumni are being asked to raise Rs 8 lakhs (USD 20,000).

June 14: Br Noel D'Sa (principal) explains the background and makes this appeal.

Undoubtedly this will be the first of several projects in which we get involved. To handle large sums of money responsibly, we* are examining ways to make contributions tax deductible. Pending resolution of that, we'd like to secure pledges of support, i.e. you earmark the funds for SMS, but don't actually move them. Once we have a good idea of the sums of money involved, and can come up with a good transfer mechanism, we'll establish a collection date and ask you to translate your pledges into cheques.

The target sum can be raised with, for example, 100 contributions of $100 each and another 200 contributions of $50 each. Clearly if we round up 500 names, that's a smaller per capita load. But with only 100 e-mail addresses currently on file, a fair bit of work remains to be done to spread the burden. We'd like to complete the pledge process by July 31, and have the funds reach SMS by August 31, 1998. The challenge is to gather more alumni on our contact list, F-A-S-T.

A pledge/feedback form is now on-line. You'll notice it's partly a consultation, to help us get a handle on the size and scope of the task. You may prefer to skip all this organizational stuff and send your contributions directly to SMS — that's fine, but we'd still like your pledge for record-keeping. Here's the pledge/feedback form [now disabled]. Pledge according to your ability, $5 or $500. How's the fund doing? See below.

*Editor's Note: I have taken the initiative to present the funding issues to the alumni body on behalf of SMS. I'd sooner limit my commitment to the task of hosting this site, leaving others to assume formal/informal leadership on funding and other matters. In short, volunteers required.

Contributions to the Alumni Pool Fund

Updated 1998 August 25

Target (US$)	20,000
Number of pledges to date	21
Amount pledged to date (US$)	3,916
Rupee equivalent	156,646

Want to throw your weight behind this?

Register your contact details if you haven't done so yet
Pledge your contribution; we'll contact you at collection time [now disabled]

Fund transfers may be made

By cheque to your national bumble bee (thus far we have a volunteer for USA only, and arrangements are underway to secure charity status), or
Direct to SMS by rupee draft to the Principal, Project Fund, St. Mary's High School, Account # 13/25111, payable at State Bank of India, Mt. Abu. For those taking this route, note that the currency exchange is done at source; you might want to check exchange rates (Federal Reserve, IMF) to get the most out of your contribution. Please fill out the pledge form anyway to help us monitor progress.

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