OFA annual dinner 2026

I've attended so many OFA annual dinners that I've long stopped counting them. In the early days, the dinners were held at the club premises, first in Leith Street, then Hutton Lane, Mandalay Road and finally Northam Road, until this latest clubhouse was renovated in 1997. Since then, the dinners have been held elsewhere, usually in hotels with big ballrooms, although restaurants have also been used once or twice. For the past several years, St Giles Wembley has become the venue of choice.

Last Tuesday, the 103rd OFA annual dinner was held there, and I attended with five other mates from my batch in Penang Free School. I had hoped more of our old schoolmates would sign up, but that wasn't to be. They all had their own reasons, of course. Still, with those of us from the 1970 Form Five and 1972 Form Six batches getting on in years, I thought this would have been a good opportunity for more of us to get together again for old times' sake. Better response next year, perhaps?

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at this year's dinner, catching up with these mates and bumping into many more old farts along the way. At our age, there's always plenty of pleasantries to share and talk about, even if we sometimes have to remind one another of names and events from years gone by. Never mind. That's part of the fun of meeting up again. Some of my personal pictures follow below.

Dr Amir Shah, Ivan Ooi, Dr PP Shah and Dr Choong Sim Poey

See Swee Sie (present PCA President) and Dr Choong Sim Poey (former PCA President)

Penang Free School Prefects

My batch mates

My chess kakis

Miss Asia Global 2026 brought dozens of beauty contestants from multiple countries to Penang this week, and they chose to introduce themselves at our OFA annual dinner. I had bumped into five or six of them earlier when they squeezed into the hotel lift. As I left on the 10th floor, I gave them a bye-bye and said, "Too bad, we can't follow you up to the 26th floor."