A second planning meeting was held yesterday (Sunday, Jan 19, 2020) at Ross Kyllo’s home.  Seven committee members attended, delicious food was consumed, deep-memory discussions were held, and even a few decisions made.  At one point, after congratulating ourselves on all this, there was a spontaneous eruption of the Orono Spartans Fight Song! 

Here are the relevant notes I took:

–  Progress was made in updating and confirming the classmate contact list, but there are still members without either a street or email address and not all have been confirmed.  Ross had filtered out those with one, but not the other address, and those without either.  We will now focus on confirming the remaining classmates.

–  Poldi will draft a letter to be sent to the available current contacts with the following items:
–  a notice that a 50th reunion is being planned for 2021, probably in August.
–  a request to confirm or update their email and street addresses and their contact preferences
–  a list of missing classmates and a request if anyone has recent contact info for them
–  a query of their interest level in attending the reunion, soliciting suggestions of what they’d enjoy doing.

–  We all have some time before the letter is sent out to gather contact info and update the list (either directly to the Dropbox spreadsheet, or send the info to Nan, who will enter it).  The more we can confirm now, the fewer bounced or returned mail messages we will have to deal with.

–  Kris will contact the Orono school offices to find out if there are resources available for class reunions.  They may have a contact person for this activity with experience from other reunions, and perhaps online mechanisms for registering classmates etc.

–  Depending on what Kris learns about online resources, Thor will look into setting up a class reunion website.  We prefer avoiding Facebook or other commercial reunion sites for reasons of privacy and advertising avoidance.

–  Ross and Betsy revealed their obituary-locating skills and will be drafted onto the memorial subcommittee (currently headed by Poldi).

–  Sue, in absentia, was unanimously selected as treasurer.  Linda volunteered to be paymaster/payment coordinator.

–  There were multiple offers to provide recordings of the Orono High School Concert Band.  Fearing that this would dominate the event’s playlist, the committee was reminded of the generous offer by Jeff Dayton to help with the music.

–  A number of suggestions for a reunion venue were made.  Committee members were urged to continue seeking candidates that meet location, size (50?), catering options and noise-level constraints.

–  The next planning meeting will be held at Thor and Poldi’s (This Odd House) at 3:00 on April 4.  It was suggested that cold beer and other refreshments be held up until the committee’s work is completed, at which time fight songs will be permitted.

Feel free to add anything I missed and correct whatever I may have gotten wrong.

Regards,
Thor.