This will be the place where every detail you need to know will be posted.
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What Is the Date for the Reunion? Great Question, and one that so many people have been asking. The most direct answer is “as soon as is practical”. We’re not trying to be vague with the preceding answer and we know you’re disappointed. We're well aware that many of the out of town people need to make travel arrangements and therefore need specifics. Our hope is to make it as easy as possible to get to the reunion and to have a more definite answer as soon as possible. In order to understand why the committee has been unable to schedule a specific date we’d like to share with you the issues with which we’ve been struggling in organizing the Reunion. The 30th Reunion was an incredible success. Hundreds of people attended and had a genuinely fantastic time. Many other people were disappointed because they were unavailable for that particular weekend and still others were disappointed because in spite of everyone’s efforts, they couldn’t be located and notified. There were those who didn’t find out about the Reunion until long after the event. To prevent that kind of disappointment we need to accomplish two things. First, is to schedule the Reunion far enough in advance to give everyone time to plan, and out of towners the opportunity to make the best travel arrangements. Second, is to make sure that every effort has been made to locate and notify as many classmates as can be found on the Internet and through our personal networks. Picking the best date has been very difficult. The job of “getting the word out”, and verifying that people are aware of the Reunion, has been far more of a challenge than any of us could have imagined. The last thing we want to do is to announce a date, have a great reunion, and then find out that so many more were disappointed because they didn’t know. At the present time nearly 90 people have registered on the Reunion Website. We have also heard from these 90 that they know of an equal amount who have expressed an interest on Facebook, Classmates.com, or in personal conversations or emails. The website has had thousands of visits so it is clear there’s tremendous interest. We now need numbers. All classmates have to stand up and be counted. To book a location, we need to give a caterer an accurate estimate of how many we expect to attend. We can only base this estimate on the amount of participants we have on the website. So if you want to help make this Reunion a reality, the minimum we ask of you is to CONTACT us at the website – jamaica1969.myevent.com Leaving your name and email address simply means: “Here I am. I know about the Reunion. Tell me more and I’ll decide if I want to attend.” That’s IT. If you can do a little more, here’s what would really, really help: · Send us contact information you may have for any classmates who are not yet registered · Encourage everyone with whom you’re in touch to register · If they are reluctant to officially register have them contact us privately through the “Contact Us” page · If you’ve been postponing registering, please consider it now · Visit our Facebook group – we’ll be posting announcements there, also If you can participate on the website, it would be a bigger help: · Leave a comment on the Message Boards. · Upload some pictures. · Submit some humor or nostalgia. · Expand your profile. · Give us some site feedback - let us know what you want to see or music you want to hear and we’ll try to accommodate you. · If you have trouble posting anything, email it to us and we’ll put it up for you. If you can spare a little time, contribute your research skills, administrative knowledge, or party planning experience. Our immediate task is finding as many people as possible, as quickly as we can. Everything else will be easy after that and we can then schedule a date. The actual date: Unfortunately, the difficulty in locating classmates and the need to give advance notice to a caterer and attendees have made October and early November unrealistic choices. Late November and December is holiday season – there are too many conflicting family events and party venues were booked long ago for office parties. Any weekend in January or February could be wiped out by a snowstorm. So a spring weekend looks best. We see this as a good thing – there’s the possibility of having an even larger turn out. Finally, we want to make clear that this message is the consensus of the hard working people who have committed themselves to making this Reunion a reality. No one is suggesting it is the only way to proceed. We are willing to listen to any and all alternatives and we sincerely seek your input. Some people have suggested we just pick a date and hope for the best. If anyone remembers the 18th Reunion, (that’s right, the 18th) that was exactly what was done by the lousy company that tried to organize it. Very little preparation and that was very evident in the results. Few people were aware of the 18th and fewer showed up. The best word to describe the 18th was “Disappointing”. The 30th reunion was, without exaggeration, a phenomenal experience. We want nothing less this time. Please help!!! Thanks to all of you, Your classmates, Richard and Larry for the Committee PS from Richard: If writing a detailed e-mail is too time consuming, please feel free to call me. I’d love to hear from everyone. My office number is 718 298-1053. Please keep the phony phone calls to a minimum ;-). And yes, my refrigerator is running. |
