Reunion News E-Mail, September 2, 2011

Registration Deadline Blown Away, Could We Have Lost Your Registration?

Friends, Classmates,

Well, both Hurricane Irene and our registration deadline have come and gone. It was quite a storm in Deep Creek, Tidewater, NC and many other points along the east coast. We hope the only impact of the storm had on you was inconvenience. Here are our headlines this week...

• Hurricane Irene blows away the registration deadline.

• We think we've lost at least one registration letter. Could it be yours?

Here are the details...

Hurricane Irene blows away the registration deadline.

Hurricane Irene has really disrupted the last week for many of our classmates. Storm preparations, power outages, phone outages, Internet outages were all part of life in the last week for many of you. We hope these inconveniences were the only impacts you suffered.

Three months ago, we set a registration deadline for the end of August. We did it to assure that we would know how many folks would be attending. We knew we would need an accurate number for our caterer.

We also wanted to make sure we had enough people coming to actually have a reunion. Cancellation was never a real part of our plans. After all this is a resilient group. We did hold our last reunion less than a month after 9/11/2001. But, when you have locations and caterers under contract, bands who want to be sure the event will occur, etc., you really need to hear from the folks who will attend.

Good news! Plenty of people have registered! But we've heard from some who are having difficulty resolving conflicts, or for other reasons have needed to delay their decisions. We also recognize that Hurricane Irene was a major disruption for many of you just as the deadline approached.

Because of your feedback and the storm, we've taken a close look at our needs for September. Our major remaining need is to have a good number and be ready to cut a check to our caterer by Sept. 15. So, we plan to accept any registrations postmarked by September 10. If you can get your registration in the mail to Millie by September 10, we'll still be in good shape.

Keep those registrations coming in, folks! If you have extenuating circumstance that prevent you from making a decision until sometime later, let us know. We'll try to work with you.

Need a registration form? They're here... http://www.dchs71.com/DCHS71ClassReunionRegistration.pdf

We think we've lost at least one registration letter. Could it be yours?

No, this is not some silly gimmick to allow you to register late. Millie really does think we've lost one registration letter. It likely arrived on August 21. But, unlike all the other registrations she's handled, Millie did not open it and immediately record the receipt. She set this one aside for later processing as she was heading out the door. Somehow in the confusion surrounding the hurricane and preparations, the unopened letter got misplaced.

Was it yours? We think we know how to figure that out. But, we need your help. Check you e-mail from earlier today and see if you've received a registration confirmation.

Today, we have e-mailed a registration confirmation to you if we had your registration by yesterday and know your e-mail. If you sent your registration in around August 18 and did not receive an e-mail confirmation earlier today, please let us know as soon as you can. We need to arrange for a replacement registration and payment.

Our apologies for the confusion.

Miscellaneous other stuff...

That's all the news for this week. We're still looking for some missing classmates and trying to verify others. If you haven't already, take a look at the lists on the web site and see if you can help.

We are making phone calls to check with those of you who haven't registered or let us know they can't attend. If you haven't done either, make it easy on us and contact us. Or just reply to this e-mail.

We want to say a special thank you to Debbie Sands Salomonsky. Many of you have received phone calls from Debbie reminding you to send your registration. She contacted nearly 100 of you! She found out last week that a work conflict will keep her from attending. We will miss her. She's done quite a bit - both to help get this reunion off the ground and to help make it a success. Thank you, Debbie!

For all the rest of you who have registered or returned our calls or helped us find a missing classmate, thank you! You are also helping us to make this a reunion to enjoy!