Minutes W-L Class of 1969 Reunion Planning Committee Minutes
July 18, 2009

　The subject meeting was held at the Westpark Hotel Saturday, July 18, 2009. Meeting participants included: Catherine Faul Bridger, Sean Carey, Angela Dinkle, Lorraine Drance Walton, Kent Krotzer, Mike Taylor, and Bill Wilber.

The following items were discussed.

The Reunion Planning Team discussed the plan by Big Hit Reunion to provide copies of the bios and scanned pictures from the 69 yearbook to registrants at the reunion. Instead of providing these copies, the Planning Team asked Big Hit Reunion if they could use these resources to support items judged to be a higher priority for the reunion including: faculty guests; beverages and food for the hospitality room, music and food upgrades at the reunion banquet. Big Hit Reunion and the Planning team agreed on a credit of $10.75 per registrant. The Reunion Planning Team will compile the bios available that can be downloaded off of the web and will make hard copies available at the reunion for those that wish them.

Steve Rogers suggested that we make available a Conference Call Line for classmates to that might want to begin reminiscing and catching up. The first call will be Sunday August 2, 2009 from 9-11 pm ET. Steve will manage the calls. The conference dial in number that will be used is (218) 844-8230. The access code is 464207#

Catherine Faul Bridger has set up a Facebook page for the Class of 69. The Facebook page is set up under Washington Lee High School Class of 1969 and can be shared with anyone. Anyone can upload photos, etc, as well.

We discussed the music portion of the Reunion banquet. The overall plan is to have music playing in the background for the first 4 hours of the evening. During the last hour; if folks wish to dance, the volume will be turned up. We believe the ballroom may be large enough that playing music and dancing at one end will be possible without significantly affecting conversations at the other end.

Kent Krotzer and Mike Taylor agreed to be responsible for providing the music during the banquet. Kent drafted Van Brower from Denver to help as well; although Van may not know this yet. Mike has a massive collection of songs from the 60’s that he is making available for the reunion. Kent agreed to contact a friend to determine if we can borrow/rent his sound system for the reunion. (Action: Kent to let the committee know the outcome of the discussions). The guesstimated costs of renting the equipment were $150-200 for the evening.

Kent, Mike, and Van will work together --to compile the songs onto the system and program the songs on the system in the order that they're to be played. My understanding is that the system can be easily overridden such that if someone has a request during the evening -it can be easily accommodated. Kent, Mike, and Van will set up the system beforehand, provide whatever operational oversight needed during the banquet; and disassemble the equipment at the end of the evening.

Action: Wilber to request that Big Hit Reunion return Mike’s CDs to him.

Next Planning Team Meetings

The next two meetings of the Reunion Planning Team will be Saturday, August 22 and Saturday, September 12 at the U.S. Geological Survey National Center (12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192) All are welcome. For those that wish to participate by phone, the dial-in number is: (218) 844-8230 Access code: 464207#

W-L Class of 1969 - 40^th Reunion

Planning Team Meeting Notes May 16, 2009

The May 16, 2009 meeting of the Reunion Planning team was held at the National Center office of the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia from 10 am to 12:30 pm.  Meeting participants were:

Sean Carey, Shellie Chambers, Angela Dinkle, Diana Castle Fredenburg

Catherine Faul Bridgers, Bonnie Gillespie Keul, Kent Krotzer

Connie McAdams Williams (by phone), Randy (Steve) Rogers (by phone)

Frank Sweigart, Lorraine Drance Walton, Bill Wilber

After reviewing the general plan for the reunion; we went into more detail on the plans for several of the activities.

General:

Most of the activities that are being planned outside of the Saturday evening banquet require more accurate information on the number of people that plan to participate. 

We don’t know how many out of town guests may attend the reunion but, we realize that the area has changed a lot since 1969.  For those that would like to avoid driving in the area; we will try to arrange transportation to/from the airport as well as to/from the hotel to W-L for the football game and Saturday morning tour. 

Action:  Bill to develop a form to be shared with Reunion Registrants to help us better determine: 1) transportation (or other) needs of out-of-town guests, and 2) interests in specific reunion events so that we can get a more accurate head count for planning purposes.   We’ll probably need a tiered approach to obtain this information-(e.g. mailings, email and phone calls) 

Friday night:  Pregame Reception with W-L Alumni Association

Catherine Fauls Bridger briefed the group on the recent meeting of the W-L Alumni Association.    The Alumni Association is planning a pre-game reception for the homecoming game and they would welcome our class to attend.   The Reunion Planning Team decided to support attending the Pregame reception over the alternative of organizing an event at a local restaurant because it sounds like fun and because it will be simpler and easier for people coming in Friday night to drive to one location and park.      

Ordinarily, attending the reception is a perk of membership in the Association ($10/year or $100 lifetime).  But, since most of our classmates won’t be members; they agreed to a different arrangement.  Membership in the Association will not be required for people to attend.   The initial cost estimate from the Association is about $2/person; Catherine initially estimated that 75 people from the Class of 69 would attend.   We’ve agreed to publicize information about the Association to our classmates and will provide a table for them to recruit new members at the Saturday evening reunion event. 

Action:   Catherine agreed to continue serving as the point of contact between our class and the Alumni Association for the pre-game reception and to assist with planning and coordination.  

Suggestion:  contact Nancy Adler Halliday to see if she might be able to assist with the reception through her connections with Whole Foods.

Suggestion:  Consider more substantive Tailgate Party with Alumnae Assoc to include. burgers, dogs, potato salad, , a little boombox with Motown tunes, etc.  

Football Game:

There was a lot of discussion about reconstituting the Go Go Boys for the Football Game.  Catherine mentioned that 1969 was the last year of the Go Go Boys at W-L.   Few committee members admitted to remembering) many of the cheers.   Marilyn Tucker Nicol responded earlier with a couple of cheers that she remembered.   People attending the game will be encouraged to wear blue shirts and ties. 

Action:  Wilber to post a request on the web site and send an email to classmates requesting the cheers. 

The W-L band would play music from the 60’s during half time in honor of our class if we provided them with specific song requests.  Catherine indicated that last year, the

W-L Football Coach had some special recognition for alumni football players.

Action:  Diana Castle offered to contact the music director to arrange music. 

Action:  Wilber to contact Football coach to discuss

Hospitality Suite

The hospitality suite will be open Friday night beginning about 9pm after the football game and Saturday evening beginning about 10:30 pm.  

Action:  Frank Sweigart agreed to be responsible for planning beverages and snacks. Angela Dinkle and Bonnie Keul offered to assist.

Suggestion:  Contact Nancy Adler Halliday to see if she might be able to assist through her connections with Whole Foods. 

Saturday

W-L Tour:  Lorraine briefed the group on the option of renting a yellow School Bus for 3 hours Saturday morning to transport people staying at the Westpark Hotel to the school.  The Williams Bus Company charges $375 for 3 hours and the bus will hold 40 people.

The other option that we discussed is carpooling.  Both options require that we have a better head count of people staying at the Westpark Hotel that are interested in the school tour. 

Banquet Registration

Lorraine offered to take the lead organizing the registration table.  We’ll need several additional people at the table to assist her. 

Memorial Board  Several committee members volunteered to make contacts to obtain Additional information about some of our deceased classmates for the Memorial Board. 

Invitations to Faculty Members

We will extend invitations to those faculty members that taught at W-L in 1969 that live in the area.   Sean pointed out that Peggy Jeens lives in the area but was not included on the list of faculty (her contact information is not included on the W-L Faculty page).

Action:  Wilber to draft letter of invitation

Action:  Find Peggy Jeens contact information—Done  (8517 Buckboard Dr.  Alexandria, VA  22308-2211 (703) 780-0692)

.

Facebook page  There were several suggestions to set up a Facebook Page for our Class to provide another mechanism for people to learn about the reunion and exchange information and ideas. 

Action:  Catherine, Diana, and Bill to check into this and discuss further and develop a preliminary plan

Next Reunion Planning Team Meeting will be at Saturday June 20 from 10 am to noon at  Cynthia Booth’s office at 111 Berry Street, SE in Vienna---its just two blocks down from Westwood. 

Folks,   The first meeting of the Reunion Planning Team will be Saturday, September 20, 2008, from 10 – noon at the Westpark hotel.  If you’d like to join us; either drop me (wgwilber@gmail.com) or Karen (Kataandy@aol.com) a note (or just show up).  We’ll meet initially in the lobby of the hotel.

There are two primary goals for this first meeting: 1) Discuss and decide on the basic characteristics of the reunion and start identifying and assigning tasks; and 2) organize an effort to update the class roster and find the “lost” classmates.  

As a jumping off point—we’ll start out by assuming that the basic character of the reunion will be similar to the last reunion--and we'll refine and modify aspects of the reunion based on feedback from you and other alumni and from the discussion at the meeting.  Big Hit Reunion is helping us again with the planning and organization.  They did a fantastic job for us 4 years ago.   One consistent piece of feedback we’ve received is a preference for heavy hors d’oeuvres instead of a buffet/sit-down meal—so that people can move around more freely and have more time to talk with people.   Let us know what you think about this idea.

I've summarized what I know from Karen about next year's reunion and tried to outline some preliminary ideas assuming that we have 7 possible planning periods (Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon).  Don't panic--I don't think anyone wants or expects this much "reunion".   The events shown in bold are probably the most important.   Of course our main focus will be  the Saturday evening event.  There seemed to be good attendance at the Friday evening mixer last time and was minimal work.  In contrast, there was relatively little interest in Sunday activities at the last reunion.  I suspect most folks had travel plans to get back home or were "reunioned out".    I've included these other time slots to solicit ideas in case my sense of the mood last time was wrong or folks want to try something different.  Just as a reminder--Tom Jones (tom@ncmt-uae.ae) is leading  a small group to help organize a golf tournament; so, if this is something you’d be interested in let him know—so that they can make the appropriate arrangements  

Please give us some feedback!   Are there other activities that we should consider or you would prefer?  Our goal is to develop a plan for a weekend that will provide a diverse mix of  interesting/fun opportunities for people to get together; at reasonable cost/effort. 

Cheers,

Bill

 --------------------------------------