Reunion invitations

When I mentioned organizing the reunion before, I mentioned that sometimes there were names coming up that I knew were questionable, because it was simply an issue of graduation credits.

This is not speculation. When the 10 year was approaching, they sent out a list of people they couldn't find, and I tried to help locate people. One of them I remembered as being class of '89, but I called him  up anyway, and he was surprised to find out that he was showing up. I think there had been an issue with a math credit, but he had never thought of himself as class of '90, even if that might technically be the date on his diploma.

Falling back on my usual method of using spreadsheets, I went through the yearbook first, and then the memory book from the first reunion. I thought the graduation program or memory book from the 20 year reunion might be good, but I have no idea where they are right now. Still, it seemed like a pretty complete list.

There are names I don't recognize at all, and some I recognize as older. Two I have gone ahead and left off the spreadsheet - the one I called up fifteen years ago, and another that I saw a few years ago. His year was 1988, whether he got a diploma then or not.

(It feels appropriate to leave names out, though that would make things easier.)

With everyone else, I am more cautious. For example, one guy, I always thought was a year older. Is that because I met him and socialized with him only in the company of another guy who was class of 1989? There is another girl I always thought was younger. Did I just never see her our sophomore year, so when I saw her in junior year I thought she was new? I don't know, but clearly I can't just assume I am remembering the age right.

Also, it occurs to me that it is not always clear-cut. Two girls came up, both of whom I remembered as only being there for senior year. One's family moved when her father got a new job; another was sent to live with her aunt. They both had more years at their previous schools. They might feel more connected there, even though their graduation was here.

That's one reason that I'm leaving it fairly loose. If someone from a different year wants to come, and they feel a kinship, that's nice. I'm not going to fight that.

I currently have it an invitation only event, because I want to make sure everyone on the list gets invited, and it can only get harder to track as more people are added. However, once the spreadsheet is filled out, I think I'll change it to "Open".

After the names were all added, I went through all the invited and matched their invitation status. I am now going through the names with nothing by them, and seeing if I get an auto-fill when I start typing. I am finding a fair amount this way.

Next I will take the remainder and try regular searches, outside of the invite field. I will probably also try LinkedIn, because a lot of people who won't use Facebook still use that. (How often they check it, I don't know.) After that, I hope it will be just a small list where I can ask for help. With a big list, people would get lost reading it.

Is this process overly laborious? Probably, but I wasn't sure of a better way to do it. Believe me, now that I have a fairly complete digital list of the class members, I am hanging on to it.

I have found a way to put up a survey on whether people are going to Friday, Saturday, or both, but it feels too early to do it now.

Memory books and memorials are still a question. There must be someone more technical than me in our class. Surely we have a few programmers and web designers out there.