Twenty nine boys had a a wonderful time in the gorgeous French Alpine resort of Les Menuires, skiing, swimming, disco dancing and consuming heroic amounts of pizza. There were the expected bumps and bruises but no one broke anything!

Tremendous thanks and appreciation must go to the dedicated and funloving St James staff who made the trip possible; first and foremost, Miss Clark, who spent months organising every aspect of the trip, also, Mr Verran, Miss Thomas, Mr Wassell and Mr Kettle.

Captions:

1) Mr & Mrs Boddy with Rahul Varma, the chief organiser of the event, Mr RP Jain, the Indian Publisher who has published the St James Sanskrit text books in India and Mr Paul Palmarozza who gave a talk on the teaching of Sanskrit at St James.

2) Mr Boddy delivers his speech at the conference.

3) Mr Boddy receives thanks from the Chairman, Mr Hari Prasad Kanoria and driving force behind the conference with a member of the Kanoria family.

St James boys have taken a further step in establishing a tradition of service to the commmunity by donating and assembling Christmas hampers to give to the elderly and disabled an the Ashford area. In our final assembly today, Mrs Fuller from "Age U.K." received 26 hampers which will be distributed in Ashford.

&

Students from St James Senior Boys' School

Presents the first of three

STUDIO NIGHTS

in THE EMPTY SPACE DRAMA STUDIO

Single Image Theatre

&

Students from St James Senior Boys' School

Presents the first of three

STUDIO NIGHTS

in THE EMPTY SPACE DRAMA STUDIO

on FRIDAY 25^TH NOVEMBER 2011

COMMENCING 6.45 PM

at ST JAMES SENIOR BOYS' SCHOOL

Church Road, Ashford, TW15 3DZ

Stories of Wit & Wisdom - Suitable for all ages:

Wicked Tiger                                      Year 10

Pandora's Box

& other Greek Tales                          Year 11 with Caroline Stephens (Drama Teacher)

The Blind Man and the Hunter        Single Image Theatre

                                                                         (Marie Wood - Head of Drama & Ian Wood)          

TICKETS £10.00 (including Drink with interval refreshments)

All Proceeds to ‘Street Child of Sierra Leone'

‘The reduction of the number children living their lives on the streets of Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world.'  Since July, through a combination of individual endeavours and school-based projects,

the boys have managed to raise a phenomenal £15,000.

 St James is currently attempting to raise funds which will pay for a new school specifically for street children in Sierra Leone. The immediate goal is to reach £20,000 which will cover the entire cost of building the school.

FOR TICKETS PLEASE

email Ian Wood: ianwood@onetel.com

The Ashford campus was the perfect setting, with plenty
of space for all the many activities and stalls and even the weather was spot
on, dry and warm but not too hot.

The full afternoon included a Staff v Alumni cricket
match, delicious food and drink, tours of the school, Laser Clay Pigeon
Shooting, Dodgems, bouncy castles (plural!) a craft fair and much more.

Over twelve hundred people attended and the entire event
was universally regarded as "a roaring success!". Tremendous thanks and
appreciation go out to all the dedicated and hardworking Friends of St James
who made this wonderful day possible and who do so much for the St James
Family.

THANK YOU!

In September 1944 a large number of brave young men prepared, and parachuted into Arnhem to fight at one of
the most remembered battles ever to have taken place...

In September 2011 a small group of eleven, not such brave young men, prepared, and drove to Arnhem to commemorate this unbelievable battle. We set off early on Friday morning, we drove to the channel tunnel where we took the train, then drove up through France to Holland.
Although the journey was long we got there in fairly good time and I have to say the camp that we were staying at was the nicest camp any of us had been to.
That night we hit the town and just got a small taste of the atmosphere that was created by this commemoration. It seemed as if the whole city had turned up to watch the bagpipes blast out their tunes! The city seemed full with Soldiers from the Parachute Regiment and other Airborne Forces and so we retreated back to our billets to catch some much needed sleep. The following day was the day of the parachutes, we witnessed an amazing display of
jumps by the British, American's, Polish Dutch and even the Germans. There were also stalls and people walking around in 1940s traditional wear, this would have been enough but there was also a display from all the old vehicles that were used around those times. Towards the end of the morning there was a service which was very heart-warming and some extremely powerful words were spoken.

In the afternoon we drove off to a museum that is the place at which the valiant soldiers made their last stand. This museum gave us an even better insight to what this battle was like, we had the privilege of seeing some of the messages that the soldiers had written on the wall during this stand.

That evening we played the role as drinks boys at the officer's cocktail party. This was a privilege in itself due to the fact that Ambassadors, Generals and many other Commanding Officers were there, being served by us. This all went very smoothly and at the end of the evening we were addressed by General Shaw who spoke some kind words to us, very touching indeed!

After the party we hit the town again and there seemed to be yet more Parachute Regiment Soldiers (Paras) in the city and it had a buzz like something I have never experienced before. After a good evening of talking to Paras we headed back and had another good sleep.

We got up even earlier on Sunday morning, packed up the mini-bus and went to the official Arnhem remembrance service at the British War Cemetery in Ossterbeek. At one point in the service over a thousand local Dutch school children came, flowers in hand, and placed the flowers by each of the thousands of graves. It was at this point that everyone in the group admitted to getting goose bumps, it was a truly emotional service and we all were moved.

From a personal point of view I think that the trip was a great success. Everyone had a really fantastic time and we all felt very patriotic by the end but more importantly we learned more of the consequences of conflict. A wonderful trip for a very worthy cause...

These soldiers really do deserve every bit of credit that they get and more so please if you see a charity for them give generously, they are the ones keeping us safe...

By Edward Meltzer 11B