Reunion 2010

So, how do we do this registration stuff anyway?

Can you help me?

It was a lot of work but the reunion book turned out really well.

PeeChees-dances- sports-cars-report cards; they all bring back memories

We miss these people

LaQuinta provided a super bar

and the buffet was first class.

We had salmon, chicken, and prime rib too.

And then we went for the dessert bar.

There was slow dancing

and fast dancing, complete with coordinated soft flashing lights,

all D-J'ed by Mike

Comments & Suggestions

with your thoughts and suggestions and we will post them here

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Apologies to those in the smaller room. When we booked the venue over a year ago we had to 'guestimate' how many would come. We thought maybe 275-300 would attend, tops. We were wrong! If LaQuinta hadn't offered to set up the smaller room too we would have had to cut off the registration early. (Fire marshall capacity maximum reached) Coming at 4pm gave folks a better choice of seats. Anybody want to guess how many will come in 5 years?

Wow, that was a super event. Really enjoyed the fruits of all your labors. Thank you for all your hard work making this a great memory.

Lars

Thanks for the great party It was a lot of fun. Food and music was also good.

I thought I would pass along some possibilities for improvement when we do this again.

I was frustrated trying to find/meet people. My initial reaction, as I looked into the crowd, was "I don't know anybody."

Here are some thoughts that may help. (I came to see old friends, not necessarily meet new ones!):
- Separate Stadium and Wilson alum into two halves of the room. This cuts my chances by 50% and may instill some Rah-Rah rivalry.
- Provide a list of who registered to attend. At least I know who might be there.
- This one is some work... Have seating assigned (and posted). If people are attending together, they can request seating together. This would be a no guarantees deal.

Others may have ideas on how to find people, without having to read everyone's name tag.

Thanks again.. I'm having a blast reading the Reunion Book.

Dave

Colleen's thoughts:

We were victims of our own success! I understand how hard it was to find a particular person in the crowd, especially if I hadn't seen him/her in 20-30 years.

There was a large display list on the wall of folks who registered. You may have missed it.

Here is my idea-- seriously. Have everyone include their cel phone # on the registration. We post a list of registrants again-with their cel phone #s this time. Attendees can call each other at the reunion and arrange to meet by the bar or whatever. Takes out the middleman (us). This could work!!

We discussed assigning tables and seats, however it would have been too much for us to do at the end. I think that folks would rearrange themselves no matter how we tried to organize them by school or friends ahead of time anyhow.

Colleen (weblady)

Pat, it was great to see you as well as many others of our class. Thanks to you and all the other members of the committee for your hard work and such a successful result...it was a blast!! Please pass on my thanks to the other committee members as you probably have a broadcast list.

Warm regards, Wayne

Don't hold any events on a holiday weekend, Its too hard to get flights for out-of-towners.

Larry

I would recommend in the future to send the letters out in envelopes even if the cost is a bit more, as I think many of the mailers were thrown away due to folks thinking they were not important.

Pat (Co-Chair)

2010 Committee-how we did it
JoAnn Levinson Sponberg Co-Coordinator 253-759-3956	waiting for comments
Patty Iverson Gibbs Co-Coordinator	My main duty was to keep track of our $$$, All of the registration and book order forms came to me first for processing! ...and, JoAnn & I spent bunches of time looking for the very best venue to hold our reunion ...and going over our master registration list as changes came in to try to keep it up-to-date as possible. Sending e-mails to other committee members as information came in ....and anything else that may came up that needed attention.
Pat Ryan Crawford Wilson 'Lost Grads' & address updates	My efforts began as a continuation of classmate search 5 years ago at the 45th reunion. I picked up that list and first confirmed the addresses, which sadly to say were very out of date so we had many letters from the first mailing returned to sender. I searched again for all of those folks and added their new address for resending of the letter. It becomes easier to find people as there are more and more search engines available. My main source was ZABA search and USA people search. Face book was another very helpful tool this year as we were able to connect with so many classmates, who in turn knew of other folks we had failed to find. I only worked on Wilson and at times it was overwhelming. There should also be a person just in charge of Stadium grads, in addition to a central person who has both lists. Finding and updating addresses is an on going project to be continued until the next reunion. I also attended committee meetings and worked at the registration table the first hour. We had a separate table for Stadium and Wilson and that worked very efficiently.
Gini Paine Drummond Stadium 'Lost Grads' & address updates	Gini is on vacation in England right now. When she gets back she will have a new master lsit for us. Our old one is a much-modified 34 years old!
Carol Brubaker DeJardine Grads who have passed on	waiting for comments
Norma Kembal Dauer Photo Wall	Hi! My name is Norma Jo [Kembel] Dauer, generally designated as the "Art and Decorations" person. This reunion was fun because we decided to forego table decorations and I made oversized scrap book pages instead, thanks to you who responded and sent pictures &memorabilia to make those pages possible.I also made the covers for Betsy's book project. In addition I attend all the meetings to help fold, seal, address and stamp all those mailers we do. We have fun looking for halls, entertainment and printers or just going to the post office, it always involves at least a lunch get together with time to brag about grandkids and such. We found more "lost" class mates this time than ever before, I hope some of you can help us locate the others. Thanks for coming and enjoying our efforts, we had a blast...
Betsy Crippen Freeman Reunion Booklet	Thanks to you, my classmates, the Reunion Book was a huge success. Thank you for sending your contributions. Your entries made the book so much fun to read! And now we have addresses and phone numbers to keep in touch with one another for our 55th! Betsy Crippen Freeman
Lars Vedvick Wilson Photos & More	I scanned yearbook pictures from Nova 1960 for Woodrow Wilson pages of website, and scanned Wilson senior pictures from Nova 1960 to be used to make name tags. I also provided scans of some other pics from our HS & grade school era. Then I contacted Nova 1960 photo editor, Lon Varnadore, to see if there were any pics in his collection from 1960. He didn't have any. I attempted to locate "Lost Boys" from Wilson by running the "list" through Google, DEX White Pages, Classmates.com and Intellius on the internet, narrowed multiple finds by age, cold called numbers located, and had some friendly discussions with people who were not at Wilson in 1960. I left a lot of messages on answering machines and was successful with a few of them being returned. Altogether I found at least 10 people. Lastly, I attended and enjoyed the reunion!!
Mike Thompson Music & More	waiting for comments
Joan Knightlinger Cronk Editor	I wrote the letters that went out to classmates alerting them to the upcoming reunion, the cost, the timelines, etc. and also the follow up letters. I had the letters proofed by all committee members, took them to my local copy center; had copies made and had them folded, bought stamps and met with the group to assemble them. I was also a "helper" on projects..like assembling the name tags, where I sat and did what I was told. Also worked on the sign in table on the first shift, which proved to be the busiest, but we got it done. All in all, it was a wonderful experience of people working together for a common goal. I'm still smiling about all the friends I re-connected with - such a fun evening. A group of us partied for three days..still recovering from that!
Jim Hren Consultant	waiting for comments
Art McLarney Consultant	waiting for comments
Colleen Clayton Weblady 206-546-5276	I designed & manage the website, and keep the information there current. During the last 5 years I added the pages for Jason Lee & more for Wilson too. Its amazing how long it takes to get all the links and menus atc to work together on a site! I went to all but 2 meetings-the drive from Shoreline to Tacoma in rush hour is a bother, so any potential volunteer should keep that in mind. For the reunion I created a separate head shot graphic for every grad in the annuals (about 700 in all), & made each attendee a custom label and nametag. Plus the book purchasers it was about 1200 labels). I coordinated information as it came in and did many custom spreadsheets for others on the committee for registrants and book purchasers, as we are all using different computers and programs, Whew, Its a good thing I have a tv next to my computer!

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