have been reading about the history of ORA.

"The ORA [this is in the 60's] did not possess any marketable products. It did not have a permanent office until 1986. Old Rafflesians did not enjoy any special privileges vis-à-vis RI. Their sons did not have priority in admission.There was, hence, neither advantage nor urgency in identifying with it. There were no rallying points in the way of an alumni house, a newsletter or regular events, which brought former Rafflesian together. Constant staff renewal did not encourage them to re-visit their alma mater. RI was a fully-funded government school, which did not call for alumni support. There was no urgency to build firm bonds. As Mr. Lee Kuan Yew said, “A government school is like a hotel. Students come and go. They do not become owners with a lasting interest in the future of the school.” "

the truth is that even today, being a fully paid-up member of ORA still doesn't confer special privileges on one - i haven't got any children to send to school - and i rather hope they will be clever enough to get in off their own bat, and not on account of their mother. but since the late seventies the old boys association began to wield the power they now still do - (and could be quite interfering when it comes to ri policies - i certainly remember hearing of proposals being challenged by old boy opposition, and always the appointment of the headmaster involves much behind the scene consultation and intriguing.)

sylvia tay wrote in a 2001 ORA newsletter:

'“Except for a minority who did their Pre-U in RI or are married to RI boys, RGS girls have always complained that they do not feel that they are part of ORA. Many do not see the advantages of joining ORA.” An article in the same issue claimed that in an attempt to woo the girls into the Rafflesian community, it extended a gesture of goodwill by having the first RGS Old Girl, Justice Judith Prakash, as the Guest-of-Honour for the 77th ORA annual dinner."'

but it is also true that rgs has always been the least tradition-bound, and least interested in tradition, or the re-creation of tradition, of the three schools. so that if it is true (and i think it is) that ORA has always been a sort of "what ho old chap" gentlemen's club which never really made the women welcome, rgs's school culture in its turn never encouraged a strong identity in connection to that past either - we do not teach our institution's history, in the way ri did, and other than the uniform, it never retained the ceremonial details of its own history, nor sought to foster the illusion of its connection to a grander past - (in this way it's rather like singapore) - and of course my memory is inaccurate and nostalgic and must necessarily be greatly romanticised - but i've always found great pleasure in what i remember as the formality at ri - the retention of the title of the office of the headmaster, the donning of academic robes for staff at assemblies, the strict order of ceremony on formal occasions - and i've been going to enough of them since i was 8, so i do have something to compare them to! - the one that stands out is when i was at school and heard a speaker thanked simply with "thank you mrs x" which was jarring, because over at grange road they said, "thank you, headmaster, sir." "thank you, minister, sir," or whoever. the playing of rugby and cricket, the name raffles players (whereas rgs used the singaporean term ldcs) not walking on the grass quads (though that one would have died by now - my mother remembers once, in her first year teaching at ri, being in a hurry and crossing the grass to get to her classroom, and when she had got to the other side she saw two prefects - who of course could not reprimand a teacher - shaking their heads!) - and these may seem old-fashioned and out-of-touch in post-colonial singapore but they come to acquire iconographic and ceremonial significance - because the school was willing to afford the emotional extravagance of rituals and ceremonies - to trace an ancestry to raffles. the rgs crest doesn't even have the eagle or the gryphon. and so i never felt it was really part of the family in the way that ri (and to a lesser degree, rj) was really so to me. do not misunderstand, i'm fiercely loyal to rgs too - but that loyalty is to a school - but not to a tradition. and if i feel pleasure in belonging to ORA, and if rgs old girls feel no connection with ORA, it is hardly surprising, given the different way the two schools have treated their pasts.