CAMP DOUGLAS SMITH REUNION POSTPONED!!!
Unfortunately, we will be postponing the reunion due to low attendance. Thank you to everyone for their feedback on the recent survey that was sent out. The overall consensus was that the timing was not convenient for most and most would like to have a one day event. I would especially like to thank Lauren Rein, Jack Coladarci, Tom Coladarci, Margaret Freeman and Rich Rotblatt for the time they spent on the committee.
We will keep you posted regarding an event that will be planned next fall.
All the best,
Alana Flatley
Director of Development
Winnetka Community House
Everyone – I am so sorry about the reunion – the feedback we were getting was that the date was bad (too many conflicts), we had too many events planned, and it was too expensive. When we looked at the FB and blog comments by everyone – only a few people were committing to attending, and only a few had contacted us outside of FB and the blog, saying that they were attending We only had 12 confirmed with 9 ticket sales, I think, and only 16 had taken the poll (out of 183 possibles- from the FB group size)
When we added that in with the low poll and e-mail responses and ticket sales, we thought we should take a mulligan for June, and try for a new date with something smaller and less expensive. It looked like both Friday and Saturday were bad for everyone who responded (school was the most common conflict) and none of the three events seemed to be more or less popular than the other- so no way to weed out anything and trim the reunion down.
Although we know people sometimes wait until the last minute to register to go, We were worried that waiting until later to decide on having the reunion could cause a cascade of unintended disasters on a lot of levels: tying up valuable (rentable)space and personnel at the Community House during a high demand time of year (for an event that might not take place), financial commitments for the food services, keeping WCH staff working on this event, and away from the WCH’s “Centennial Year Celebration” (I know from my Board of Governors’ meetings that Alana and Josh are up to their eyeballs, and are already under huge time and attention pressures for planning and managing other WCH events, esp a huge one taking place in May), causing people to set up travel plans, buy plane tickets, etc..
Finally, I feared that putting on a reunion that turns into a bust in June would kill the CDS reunion idea for years to come, and possibly forever.
Given all that, and the large amount of work and planning still to do for June, spread over very few of us we felt we had no choice. Originally, we though we would have more people to help with planning and working, but in the end, everyone’s schedules were booked, and we didn’t have enough volunteers, and time was running out (Only 6 weeks away).
My enthusiam for CDS and the idea of how cool a reunion for everyone would be, caused me to underestimate the difficulties of pulling this off.
As always, any input or feedback is welcome.
Sorry again,
jack c
Camp Douglas Smith 