Wednesday 9 January 2008

Labour of love

Hi Everyone,

It's the 9th of January 2008 - a watershed date for this blog. We broke the 1000-visit mark in just over 6 months!

THANK YOU to all of you for visiting the blog, contributing your stories and forwarding the link. Thank you for caring.

Many readers have written kind and encouraging words to me about this blog. Allow me to share with you about this labour of love.

Last June, I was in a hotel room surfing the web when I googled "BBGS" just to find out what was available. I found very little. And the little I found was outdated, sentimental and not of the quality that BBGS is known for. There was a lot of negative emotion about the loss of the school building, school name, school legacy and moaning about the evils of the Pavilion. I felt it wasn't representative of the BBGS I know and love. "Be the change that you want to see in the world" is a quality that I learnt at school. And so I decided to help re-build a positive image for BBGS in cyberspace.

When I started doing research, I learnt that a key to having a successful blog is to write about your passions. And so I started blogging about my two favourite things: BBGS and travelling -- check out http://aunty-jo-jo.blogspot.com/. I have always wanted to be a writer and these blogs have provided me an avenue to fulfil those dreams.

Standards? That was easy. The BBGS blog had to be good enough for Miss Cooke or my mother to read!

Content? That was a little more challenging. I began with some self-indulgent memories and semi-autobiographies. Thankfully, I found a stash of school magazines while moving apartments so I began to draw on these well-researched resources. I also began hunting down old classmates and teachers and begged them for stories. Felt like being Editor of the School Magazine all over again!

Networks? It began with a handful of emails to close friends - 6 to be exact. And the word began to spread -- slowly. Somehow, this little blog found its way to Facebook and the networking really began to gain momentum. And today, we're here celebrating 1000 hits.

So let's keep writing, networking and sharing those BBGS dreams and we'll make it to 10,000 hits by the end of 2008 shall we?

Take care everyone and remember...

NISI DOMINUS FRUSTRA

Warmest regards,
Joanna

5 comments:

Q's. said...

Hey Joanna, were you from BBGS as well?? which year?? I was from BBGS too. But now it has changed to SBU. and things were so different now. Im doing my form5. Im so surprised to see you writing about back to BBGS. I enjoy reading it. my blog is niquegallery.blogspot.com

Joanna Yeoh said...

Thanks for stopping by! I represent BBGS in the 1980s so you could say I'm a "super senior" ha..ha.. My details are listed under the category "From the Editor's Desk"

Anonymous said...

Hi Joanna,
Great Job with this Blog Site!
Could not find a decent site of BBGS, until now.
Also, Thanks for suggesting going on FaceBook.
What do you think about setting a proper website to pay tribute to BBGS, the teachers and for BBGSians to have one place they can reach out for their long lost school mates?
I am no web designer but I think I can do a pretty good job in setting up a site.

Joanna Yeoh said...

Thanks for calling this a "decent" blog :-) Setting up a website is the easy part. Keeping it going is the challenge. Whatever we choose to do, let's just make sure it's nothing less than the BEST - BBGS style! Cheers.

Wai Kuan Tang said...

Hi Joanna,
I was in Form 5 in 1989. Just yesterday I stumbled upon the BBGS group on Facebook which brought me here. And now more and more memories of the past are coming back to me. You can say that I am quite exhilirated and excited. I couldnt recognise you now. But as soon as I saw your old photo. I went like, "O my!" much to the surprise of my not so interested husband who was sitting beside me. This blog is fantastic. Till today, I pride myself for being a part of BBGS though small it may be but I was there from year 1 to form 5. Carry on your great work. Love Wai Kuan, Tang. (kuan_91@yahoo.com)