Dear folks,

As we discussed over the weekend, there are lots of alums who are (a) not on any mailing list, (b) on one or more mailing lists but not participating, or (c) forgoing the mailing list for any number of reasons, one common one being they didn't like the volume of email, which sometimes can be high.

In anticipation of the 50th anniversary celebration, which is now about a year away, we'd like to reach out to alums we haven't heard from in a while, whether they've been on a mailing list or not. So, to start with, let's write people who are S-at-W alums from any year, or who were part of Camp Shakespeare, perhaps, or otherwise affiliated through Outreach or some other connection and ask them the following:

1) Do you want to be on a mailing list (the main one is the Google Groups mailing list these days) where reunion plans are being discussed?

2) If you want to be on the mailing list, do you prefer to be in a "digest" version (which keeps the volume of mailings down but will "digest"--that is, include--all contributions for, I think, a 24-hour period)?

3) If you don't want to be on a mailing list, is there a way you'd like the rest of us to know how to contact you and keep you in the loop about anniversary celebrations?

4) Should we include a Facebook page just for the celebration (I vote yes!)? No one would have to join, but it might be good for those of us who are comfortable with Facebook's ease of use. 

5) Are there thoughts using other social media (Instagram or Twitter, say)?  I think there may be some interesting things to do here, but I worry that if we fragment our channels too much it will be too easy to miss critical stuff.

6) If we build a website, will they come? (We talked about setting up a website that would easily enable people to post things like old pics.)

7) Regional mailing lists--we could absolutely use Google Groups to set up (for example) an S-at-W-Houston mailing list, an S-at-W-New-York mailing list, etc. to facilitate regional get-togethers and planning. My only suggestion here is that we make sure to share that info with me, with David Ziegler, and with others who want to share in the joyful labor of keeping everyone in touch with everyone else. 

These are just the thoughts off the top of my head this Tuesday morning, and I'm sure I've passed over some ideas that ought to be included. I just want to make sure it's clear to everyone that we can do many things to bring people together, so our goal should be to co-ordinate whatever we do so we don't duplicate effort, get crossed signals, and so on. I'm happy to be a central switching station for this, and I think David is too, and it seems likely that one or two other people (Brooks?) will share in this. 

It seemed to me that there was an immense amount of joy and enthusiasm at our brainstorming session, even though my inspired idea to do five reunion plays in one weekend was not universally well-received(!).

I probably have some stuff wrong up here, so I invite corrections and additions! 

Your faithful servant,

Mike