Calm before the storm

As I have mentioned in previous posts, our upcoming 20th high school reunion has turned into quite the escapade between Stephanie, the person that first took it upon herself to plan it and was organizing a free, relaxed, 'come as you are' kind of shindig at a local bar/restaurant and Monica, the insane woman who took it upon herself to claim her team of minions as the 'official' high school reunion organizers with a more fancy setting - hotel banquet room, food, drinks, d.j., etc.

The last 6 weeks have been strangely quiet. I was wondering how the "official" reunion stats were looking since about slightly less than half of the 350 graduates have Facebook pages and are members of this discussion group and they need a certain number of tickets purchased for this 'classy' event to even take place (the free, 'come as you are' gathering has been moved to the night before). Much to my amusement, Monica and her own mini-me Todd sent out an email update yesterday:

Subject: Ticket Update for YHS 20 Year Reunion

From the desk of Todd

Dear Fellow Alumni,

The reunion committee met again this weekend, and it was brought to my attention that I have posted inaccurate information on the group page. I posted on the group page that we only had 45 tickets remaining - and that was an error on my part. For this I apologize for any confusion this may have caused you. In an attempt to correct this error we have agreed to extend the July 3rd late fee until July 25th. With that said, tickets purchased before July 25th will only cost 60.00 each – no July 3rd late fee will be applied.

We will be having our last meeting on July 28TH to count ticket sales and to see if the tickets sold will cover the event cost. We need a min 129 tickets sold to pay for the event. If it turns out that we did not sell the min required amount of tickets to cover the cost of the reunion, we will have to consider canceling this event altogether and refund all tickets purchased up to that point. For that reason, we have also decided that we will not be able to continue to offer ticket sales at the door. Please understand if you are coming to the reunion, you will need to buy tickets before July 25th.

Doing it this way we will have an accurate headcount by actual ticket sales. Once again July’s late fee has been extended until July 25th and after that date tickets will no longer be sold. This is to ensure we have an accurate head count for our July 28th committee meeting, and if we have not sold 129 tickets (64.5 alumni and their date/spouse) we would still be able to get our deposits back from the Venue before Aug 1st.

Apologetically,
Todd



From the desk of Monica

Class of 1989 Fellow Alumni,

Hello and I hope that you are truly enjoying your summer. As Todd previously stated, it is getting to "Decision Time" regarding the Reunion Banquet. Todd and I especially, along with the Alumni Committee have put forth a lot of effort in an sincere attempt to have a great 20th reunion. It would be disappointing to think that after this effort, we might have to cancel this event.

In the same aspect, during these economic times in particular, revenue gained from fellow alumni for this event must weight out the what is in our hearts. After a massive effort that included securing a nice hotel and banquet hall, planning a nice menu and beverages (including Well Drinks), gaining some sponsorships, allowing open votes on the location, menu and music by the alumni, securing a top-notch photographer, negotiating a discount hotel room rate fee, gaining gift certificates for games during the event and planning event activities; we might have to come to the final conclusion that a majority of the alumni did not want to attend a well-planned and open event such as this one.

The above was not mentioned to make any person feel bad about not wanting to attend this event. If a banquet hall setting is not your "Cup of Tea", so be it. In turn, for the alumni that HAVE paid for themselves and their significant other and/or spouse to attend....THANK YOU. You have let me know personality that the efforts put forth to making this event idea, "thisclose" to reality, has not been in vain.

As Todd noted, we are going to do a "Hail Mary" pass and give it another two weeks in order to see if we can hit the NECESSARY number of 129 tickets sold. If you have been sitting on the fence about attending this event for whatever reason and think that you might want to see fellow classmates and truly have a nice event; please support our 20th Reunion Banquet and process your payment as soon as possible, BEFORE July 25.

If the banquet is something that you do not want to attend, period, if you could be so kind to shoot Todd or I an Facebook Inbox response to this decision, we would highly appreciate that also. We do not want to continue to keep contacting you in regards to the 20th Reunion Banquet, if it is a waste of your time, and ours.

Thank you again for reading this inbox mail and I truly hope to see you at the Reunion Banquet on August 22, 2009.


The bit about letting them know if you will not be attending made me chuckle. This was sent out as a mass email to all the group members. By letting them know that you are not attending, does that mean you get booted out of the group? Considering that they've deleted any message board comments of dissention, I would guess yes. I'm not going to this debacle but I'm not letting them know. I'm using them for blog entry material, dang it. The best part of it all - all the ticket payments are sent to Todd. He has no idea how many people they have currently signed up to attend?!? I'm guessing the total must be lower than they want to admit.

I really hope they don't get the minimum number of people to hold this event. I can't wait until that message gets sent out.