The Meliorian

ERRORS AND SPELLING MISTAKES

The website is written in notepad and mainly by my rather clumsy typing. If you should find any errors on any page please feel free to let me know so I may change them and keep up the high standard fitting of ‘your’ old school.

There are some REUNIONS being arranged by various years. It is a thankless task trying to track down people from 25+ years ago so if your year group is holding a reunion please support your organiser in any way you can. Every scrap of information about your old classmates gives another clue in towards making sure that everyone is invited

If your year has held a full blown reunion (or even if it has not) the website can be very useful for little get together. I can offer the following examples

1. Four 1972 starters who met up for a weekend in Australia
2. Two 1968 starters who met up for a cup of coffee, seeing each other for the first time in 25 years. The met up in Canada
3. a group of 1968 starters who met up post Christmas for a night out in Blackpool on the occasion of many out of town members being present.
4. A large Posse of 1972 ex-Geologists who meet up on quite a regular basis - later this year they are having a weekend in Cornwall
5. 1968 starters who turned out one Friday night as an ex-classmate who had not been seen since leaving school was in town for the night
6. Dozens of similar groups from all years who have found lost pals through this website and who have taken the trouble to thank or advise me

Being forever a child (at heart anyway) I still get excited about my forthcoming birthday. Just a little reminder to those of you who wish to remain listed on the site that this event will take place as always on May 11th

The website is allowed to grow freely, like wild flowers!. I exercise very little editorial control or guidance.
To this end each starting year can be viewed as an individual website and will thrive or fail dependant on the members of that year. The supply of articles or photographs nearly all come from individuals not from any official archive. One feature that everyone could assist in though is the submission of names for your year list of pupils. These lists again are from the personal memories of website members. One major benefit of these lists is that anyone who is unaware of the websites existence will have a better chance of stumbling across it if they are on a list. This occurs when the natural curiosity to see what happens when an individuals name and home town are entered into one of the major search engines. To test this type in your name and Blackpool into www.google.co.uk . This opportunity to find your long lost pal is only there if they are listed somewhere on the website!

A comment was recently passed by on the websites ‘wisest and original members’ that MELIORA did not appear to be doing anything. Other than continue to add the photos I am sent and add new members and their memories I was at quite a loss as what else I could do. However I have been lent a small quantity of old school magazines. I have decided to add an exciting (?) new section to the website that will contain re-published items taken from old magazines. If you have any old magazines or other similar documents from which items could be plucked please let me know. I have decided that anyone who was the original author of a chosen item (or who is mention in one) shall be given the right of reply. A delightful example of this can be seen in an article from c.1971 by Susan Green.

I am very grateful to Tricia Allitt and Peter Barton who became the websites first two sponsors. The website can be sponsored for one month at a time and the ‘honour’ of being listed as the websites sponsor is listed at the bottom of nearly every one of the sites 1200 pages. If you would like to be a future sponsor please let me know and I will send you details.

MELSEQ an earlier manifestation of MELIORA has now passed quietly away into internet history. The address that had been used as a forwarding address to www.meliora.co.uk ceased in January.

There is nothing more annoying than discovering a ‘dead’ e-mail address and deleting it from the website only for the owner to be ‘born again’ a few weeks later. This is a real annoyance a the website is written in notepad and all changes have to be performed and uploaded manually. Therefore if you change your address for any reason please let me know ASAP in order that your entry may be simply amended rather than deleted and recreated.

Following a comment from a cheeky young nameless 1970 starter who commented that the website looked too Grey I have changed the background to a rather nice blue. The website year index pages have also had a background of a transparent school crest added.

If you have any comments ideas or suggestions for this website please let me know. If you have any information you wish to share with members of your year list please I will forward it on