{"id":374,"date":"2014-08-29T09:14:30","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T09:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/29\/newbold-college-alumni-reunion\/"},"modified":"2014-08-29T09:14:30","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T09:14:30","slug":"newbold-college-alumni-reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/newbold-college-alumni-reunion\/","title":{"rendered":"Newbold College Alumni Reunion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rtejustify\"><span style=\"color: #696969;\"><a href=\"..\/sites\/default\/files\/reunion.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a>21 August 2012, Bracknell, United Kingdom [Helen Pearson]<\/span> The Newbold College Alumni (1970-85) Reunion began quietly with Vespers in Moor Close Lounge on Friday 17th August. Before, during and after Vespers and Sabbath morning services there were sidelong glances at faces and furtive looks at name badges as Newbold College alumni and staff who hadn\u2019t seen for over 30 years struggled to recognise faces. The atmosphere mounted throughout the day to a banquet with a riot of reminiscences on Saturday night. The weekend came gently down towards earth on Sunday morning as alumni shared brunch and left for the four corners of the globe from which they had come just for this weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rtejustify\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"rtejustify\">The Friday night Vespers speakers, Drs Harry Leonard and Mike Pearson used teachers\u2019 stories \u2013 gospel teaching stories and their own &#8211; to focus on the importance of our asking good questions and to think about why we\u2019re asking them. \u2018Be prepared,\u2019 they said, \u2018to examine your motives for questioning and then to be disturbed, shocked even by the answers.\u2019 Once the questions are answered \u2013 and many cannot be \u2013 \u2018Go and live the answer,\u2019 they said. \u2018An unlived answer is no answer at all.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"rtejustify\"><a href=\"..\/sites\/default\/files\/Dr Jan Paulsen.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-right-hascaption\" style=\"width: 180px; height: 270px;\" title=\"Dr Jan Paulsen, fromer Lecturer in Theology and later principal of Newbold College\" src=\"..\/sites\/default\/files\/Dr%20Jan%20Paulsen-m.jpg\" alt=\"\" align=\"right\" \/><\/a>The honoured guests for the weekend were Kari and Jan Paulsen whose time at Newbold, when Dr Paulsen was a Lecturer in Theology and later principal, coincided with the student years of many alumni present. Dr Paulsen subsequently went on through various offices to become Seventh-day Adventist world church president until 2010. But it was as Pastor Paulsen that he preached twice on Sabbath morning. He, too, talked about the rights of people, young and old, to ask questions. \u2018You don\u2019t have to park your intelligence outside before you enter the church,\u2019 he said. He recognised that people\u2019s freedom to respond to the invitation of Christ and ask questions means that many Newbold graduates, \u2019park Jesus somewhere along their life\u2019s journey.\u2019 But that is not the end. \u2018God\u2019s most important gift to us and ours to each other is \u2018the gift of a second chance\u2019,\u2019 he concluded.\u00a0 Hear the full sermon online at <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/47873353\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/vimeo.com\/47873353<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"rtejustify\">On Sabbath afternoon, alumni gathered for a cream tea in sunlit Moor Close gardens and in the evening 115 people attended the banquet in Salisbury Hall.\u00a0 The live-streamed programme ably MC\u2019d by Victor Hulbert included testimonies to Newbold\u2019s power to change lives, email and Skyped messages from absent contemporaries, pictures and reminiscences, interspersed with updates on Newbold today. Friends called in from the USA and Australia to hoots of recognition from those in the Hall and a variety of allegations and counter allegations about responsibility for various student pranks in the 70s and 80s. Erik Somme described\u00a0 the manoeuvrings of the \u2018ox \u2018in Moor Close and Bryan Webster knew the details of how the bucket of water meant for a fellow student fell instead on Dr Leonard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rtejustify\">This long-awaited Newbold Reunion was voluntarily organised by Director of Student Life, Pastor Henrik Jorgensen, a 1982 graduate. He and his army of student and alumni helpers were left in no doubt as to the gratitude of the participants for what the reunion and their time at Newbold had done for them. Taste more of the flavour of Newbold and the weekend at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/195239577242347\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/195239577242347\/<\/a><br \/> \u00a0[<em>ted<\/em>NEWS]<br \/> _________________________<br \/> <span style=\"font-size: 9px;\"><em>Reunions always end with calls for more. Anyone who wants to be involved in organising an alumni weekend should contact: <a href=\"mailto:alumni@newbold.ac.uk?subject=Alumni%20weekend\">alumni@newbold.ac.uk<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"rtejustify\"><em>ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor<br \/> 119 St Peter&#8217;s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England<br \/> E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org<br \/> Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n<p class=\"rtejustify\"><em>ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.<br \/> You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify <em>ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rtejustify\"><span style=\"color: #696969;\"><a href=\"..\/sites\/default\/files\/reunion.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a>21 August 2012, Bracknell, United Kingdom [Helen Pearson]<\/span> The Newbold College Alumni (1970-85) Reunion began quietly with Vespers in Moor Close Lounge on Friday 17th August. Before, during and after Vespers and Sabbath morning services there were sidelong glances at faces and furtive looks at name badges as Newbold College alumni and staff who hadn\u2019t seen for over 30 years struggled to recognise faces. The atmosphere mounted throughout the day to a banquet with a riot of reminiscences on Saturday night. The weekend came gently down towards earth on Sunday morning as alumni shared brunch and left for the four corners of the globe from which they had come just for this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1571,1588,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-educational-entities","category-ireland-united-kingdom","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}