Jamaica H.S. '82 Alumni Project - Reunion Committee Announcements

IMPORTANT NOTE: The info on this page was last updated in 2002. This page, like the rest of my Jam'82 pages, has been left up on my web site for historical/reference purposes only; I am no longer involved in any reunion planning. Current info on 30th Year Reunion planning can be found on this FACEBOOK Group.

Following are all the newsletters from Gail (Martinez) Gugerli, Jam'82 Reunion Committee chairperson. I've posted them in reverse chrono order, with the most recent first. Please read all postings if you're not up-to-date on all the info.

Gail passed along a quick note to me that she finally got the headcount from our reunion on August 3. Thanks to the INCREDIBLE number of last-minute ticket sales, we ended up with 152 attendees!

Unfortunately, the reunion company did not provide a breakdown of alumni to "others" (spouses, SOs, etc.), but based on our earlier estimates of the breakdown, I would say around 100 were actual alumni. What a turnout!

Gail's other history of notes from before the reunion is still below, of course.

Gail has advised me that she's got just a ton of stuff going on on the personal front, and hasn't had a chance to put together a final post-reunion note to everyone. She let me know that she'll do so when she gets a chance, but it may be a while. Please stay tuned.

Quick update: We only have 17 more days until our 20th reunion, and as of today we're up to 95 tickets sold. The last-minute rush in indeed underway...this is great! Based on past experience, ROA expects close to 130 tickets sold by the time the reunion happens on August 3. Join us!

Please read the previous update from 13 Jul 2002 (below) for additional important details.

We only have 21 more days until our 20th reunion! As of last Thursday we've sold 85 tickets with a HUGE hope that there will be a big rush during the next three weeks.

If you've already sent in your payment, hold tight -- the ticket(s) will soon be in your mailbox.

If you haven't yet gotten around to ordering your ticket(s), here is some important information:

Tickets and directions to the catering facility will be mailed approximately 2 weeks before the reunion. Requests for refunds will be honored until July 22. No refunds will be issued after this date, and there will be a $5.00 service charge for all refunds.

If you've purchased your tickets already, don't worry - our reunion company Reunions of America has assured us the actual tickets will be sent out to you all around 2 weeks before the reunion.

If you haven't purchased your tickets yet and are planning to attend, what are you waiting for? August 3 is right around the corner! (We're up to over 75 confirmed attendees, by the way.)

As of today, we've sold 65 tickets to the reunion so far, and the split between how many of us have purchased one or two tickets is pretty even. So, come alone or with someone; you'll surely find alumni with whom to connect.

If you haven't purchased your tickets yet, don't procrastinate...life happens quickly, and the date of SATURDAY AUGUST 3, 2002 is only 2 months away.

Our reunion will take place at a cool venue called 15th & West at the Nassau County Bar Association. It's located just west of Franklin Avenue in Garden City at Fifteenth and West Street in Mineola. Please take a look for yourself by visiting the Web site for Philip Stone Caterers (the exclusive caterer for this facility) at http://www.stonecaterers.com/Bar_Assoc.htm .

Please read further (below) for our previous updates for additional information. Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the reunion!

As of today, 43 is the magic number. 43 more tickets to be sold and we've hit the 100 mark!

As of today, we've sold 57 tickets for the reunion on Saturday, August 3, 2002, which isn't bad. But it could be better. Grab your checkbook or pick up the phone and call Reunions of America at 631-266-1836 to order your tickets today.

Things are beginning to take shape...the Web site activity is starting to pick up again, tickets are starting to sell, the DJ will soon be hired. All of our hard work to put this reunion together will soon pay off! Thanks to all who've sent Dave and me encouraging words of support -- they've been invaluable, offering a well-needed boost of moral support during the doubtful moments.

You CAN purchase your reunion tickets from our reunion planning company, Reunions of America, even though the original deadline (documented in the notes below) has passed. The purpose of that deadline was to get a preliminary headcount for event planning purposes.

Don't delay; purchase your tickets TODAY! And if you have not received your invitation yet, please drop an Email to Dave with your USMail address; he will immediately forward it to the reunion company so that an invitation can be mailed to you right away.

Hope to see you all at the reunion! Stay tuned to this web site for further details as the date (Saturday, August 3, 2002) approaches.

The countdown is on. Can you believe that our reunion is only five months away, on SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 2002?

All of you should have by now received the official invitation to our reunion. If not, please let us know immediately and we'll make sure that you get one.

Ticket sales are steady; according to ROA, this is to be expected. The mad rush usually doesn't happen until just under or shortly after the deadline to buy tickets, which is APRIL 3, 2002. That's when people start calling in a panic!!

Why not avoid the panic? Order your tickets before April 3, 2002 and breathe easy...one less thing to worry about! Let's do our part and get those ticket sales up -- the more the merrier! E-mail your friends to ask if they're going; encourage them to buy their tickets. After all, we want to get at least 150 people at our reunion -- what an incredible success it would be if we could even surpass the 150.

We've received some questions regarding dress codes and ticket prices. At our age (wow, that sounds old), it's probably fair to assume we've all been to enough events such as weddings and business affairs to be able to decide what we'd be comfortable wearing at an event in a nice facility. But if you really want to know more, we invite you to contact ROA to ask them what most people wear at other reunions.

As for the ticket price -- it's $89 per ticket. Each ticket is for one person. For a couple it's $89 x 2 = $178. (Sounds obvious, I know, but we've had some questions about it.)

As usual, we're still in the process of locating classmates. Updates and new additions to the Web site have slowed down lately. However, thanks to some very helpful classmates, we've been able to locate quite a few people; still the search continues. As always, if you know of anyone from our class that might be interested in reconnecting with old friends, please get them to us.

That's all for now -- if you haven't received an invitation, please let us know immediately. We'll make sure that you get one. Have a happy and healthy March!

Happy New Year! It's finally OUR year!! Each of us on the committee wishes you and your family a happy 2002; may it be one full of happiness, safety and anticipation for our upcoming reunion on Saturday, August 3, 2002!!

Our reunion invitations are currently at the printer and will be mailed within two weeks. You can order your ticket(s) as soon as you receive your invitation. ROA accepts checks and credit cards, which should make it easy for just about everyone. Complete instructions on how to order tickets are on the invitation. If you have any questions, ROA can be contacted via telephone at 631-266-1836, or via e-mail at lireunionsNOSPAM@aol.com . Of course you may also contact me at jhs82reunionNOSPAM@earthlink.net with any questions as well.

Let's order our tickets as soon as possible; it'd be great to know how many people are coming long before the event!

Wonderful news for this month's update: we have a date and a location for our reunion!!

Mark this info on your calendars and keep your eyes open for your invitation, which should be on its way to you in the coming weeks.

The committee is really excited about finally finding the place that fit our date and budget requirements. First, we all agreed that it would be best if we had the reunion on a Saturday during summer vacation so it will be (hopefully) easier for us to find childcare arrangements which won't interfere with school and sports activities. This is especially true for those of us who plan on taking this opportunity to have a weekend away with just our spouses/partners -- finding childcare during the summer usually requires a bit less work for the family or friends kind enough to watch our children while we travel back in time.

Second, for those of us who plan to come to New York with our school-aged children, at least they won't have to miss school. While we're at the reunion enjoying ourselves, they'll be having relaxed fun with family or friends kind enough to watch them while we get re-acquainted.

Our reunion committee co-chair Mercedes Marrero checked out four places offered to us by our contracted reunion planners, Reunions of America (ROA): two hotels and two catering facilities. The only way we could have had our reunion on a Saturday night at a really nice place for a reasonable price with EVERYTHING included (without any of us having to shell out more money for beverages during the party) was to consider something other than a hotel property. We liked 15th & West: the place is nice and the catering company has an excellent reputation. Also, it's a nice change from the usual "hotel deal".

If we have your latest mailing address, you'll receive an official invitation in the next weeks, which will give you all the information regarding how to order tickets, get questions answered, etc., all of which will be handled DIRECTLY through ROA. We will post updates on a regular basis on this site; however, all transactions/questions regarding the reunion will be handled by ROA. For example, if you also need a hotel room reserved, ROA will help. Want to purchase your tickets over the phone? ROA. The reason we hired them in the first place was to manage our reunion -- and they're experts at it.

If we DON'T have your latest mailing address, or if you haven't received an acknowledgement postcard from ROA, please EMail Dave (your Jam'82 webmaster) at daveNOSPAM@ratisher.com with your mailing address ASAP, so he can update the records and forward it along to ROA right away.

A quick note regarding the ticket price: most of you who have responded to the Reunion Survey have indicated a comfortable per-person ticket price in the range $75-$100. Because it's New York, though, a price between $75-$85 was unrealistic for a quality affair; we're looking at closer to $90 per person, per ticket. The ticket price will cover food, drinks, location, entertainment, reunion management, EVERYTHING related to the reunion. Considering how expensive it is to hold a party in New York, it's not a bad deal for an evening with good food, cold drinks and old friends!

If there's enough interest, the committee may consider having a family picnic or some type of family event on Sunday, August 4th. However, we won't even be prepared to make these kind of plans until much later on down the road. If anyone wants to volunteer to help coordinate such an event, please Email me.

So, folks, we hope that you're as excited as we are about these new and exciting developments! Things are moving; look out for your invitation and keep checking this Web Site for additional updates.

If you're hesitant about committing to attend because you're not sure if the particular old friends you want to see will also be attending...DON'T BE SHY - EMail them directly yourselves and ask!! We're all grown-ups now. Use the Email links posted on the Names/Locations page of this web site. Your old friends will be glad that YOU made the effort to reach out to them...someone has to take that first step - it really works!

Plus, as 2002 rolls in, we expect plenty more alumni to wake up and realize that it's our 20th anniversary, so there will probably be plenty of last-minute attendees...you'll be surprised how many of your old friends will show up. Don't be left out...buy your tickets as soon as possible!!

And last but never least: Keep looking out for your friends from 1982, and refer them to this web site (http://www.jamaicahighschool1982.com) so that we can add them to our "contacted alumni" list and get them their invitations to the reunion - the more the merrier. Let's make this party the best it can possibly be.

It's been a while since I've provided an update on what's going on with our reunion. After the tragic events on September 11, it was hard to even think of doing anything more than helping out wherever possible, even if it meant simply sending a card to the rescue workers, our true heroes.

Many of our fellow classmates are part of the heroic effort to help the victims and people of N.Y.C. get back on their feet: police officers, firefighters and medical personnel. For our alumni who are part of this brave group of people: thank you for your extraordinary bravery, eagerness and effort to help us get through this together.

You all have, without a doubt, given our children today and for generations to come a new and true meaning of the word hero.

And then there's the group of people in our class who are in the military, heroes in their own right, protectors of our freedom. Nigel Reece, Bobby Lue, to name a few, who are either already there or preparing to go to help our country defend its freedom. God Bless. We're all there with you in our hearts and minds. We will see you at the reunion, cheer you on as you so deserve.

Because Bobby Lue is now on active military duty, he had to step down as our committee co-chair...after all, he definitely has more important things to attend to these days! Thank you, Bobby, for the time you've given to help make our reunion a reality.

Please welcome our new co-chair, Mercedes Marrero. Mercedes will be my "on location" right hand. This weekend, for example, she'll be visiting the three hotels we're considering for our reunion. Once she comes back with her findings, we'll set the date, which will be either in July or August 2002 (most likely on a Saturday). By having the party in the summer, school schedules and weekend babysitters won't be a problem for those of you who are planning to bring your families.

As of this past Monday, Reunions of America have received 96 postcards. They have around 150 confirmed addresses (many have come in since my e-mail a few days ago). Again, if you want to receive an invitation and have not sent us your most current address, please do so.

With these numbers, it looks like we can expect between 125-200 people! That's great. Hopefully, we can bring those numbers up even higher.

Webmaster Dave will soon publish our MIA list. When you see it, please take a look at it to see if you know anyone on it. If you have any current information on them, please let us know!

That's about it for now. Keep checking back in the next few weeks for our date and location announcement.

It's been a busy few weeks for our web site. Dave has received many updates, which is fantastic.

Even more fantastic, though, would be if we could get back as many postcards as possible to our reunion company, Reunions of America. As of last count posted, we have 112 people who've indicated they would attend a reunion.

As of this week, ROA had received 71 postcards. This is an 8% return -- we should be getting at least 15% return (other reunions get close to 25%, but we'll be happy with something in the middle).

ROA only has 11% of confirmed addresses for our class. Average amount? 80%. Granted, 80% is high to expect for a city school. But we have to try to bring these numbers up.

How? Over 40 of you haven't sent your postcards back. Send them back with a current address, as well as the current addresses for fellow classmates.

Please sift through your mail to find the card. Take a moment to fill it in and send it back. If you can't find it or haven't yet received one, let us know. We'll make sure you do get one. PLEASE SEE THE 11 AUG 2001 UPDATE BELOW FOR THE INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO SEND YOUR INFO TO US!!

We'll be selecting a date and location for the reunion at the end of this month. Let's get the info to ROA so we can reserve a place big enough to accommodate 200...PLUS GUESTS!!

We hope that you're all having a great summer. It's been a quiet summer for our reunion efforts; Reunions of America has been busy getting our names into their database for our future mailings, a big job for any company.

The good news is that ROA has sent out the first wave of postcards from our new database this past week. These postcards are what they will use to send invitations; it's also a chance for you to tell them of any classmate's contact info.

This is the first true test, folks. The results from this first mailing will determine how many people really want to attend, which will guide our location decision in September. A few of you have kindly sent me some location recommendations, which I've communicated to ROA. However, it looks like we're going to have to make some compromises to make sure that as may people can attend (pricewise); everyone has to get something out of this. For this reason, we may not be able to choose the most fancy location. ROA has contracts with various facilities, which we'll find out more about in September. The overall goal, for both the committee and ROA, is to make our reunion a nice, quality affair for everyone - worth the trip without breaking the bank.

PLEASE send this postcard back as soon as possible. If you do not receive the postcard in the next few weeks, or if you have not yet provided your current USMail address, please send it both to me at jhs82reunionNOSPAM@earthlink.net , and Dave at daveNOSPAM@ratisher.com . (Sending to both of us will ensure that one of us gets the info promptly and forwards it along to ROA). I'll then check back with you to see whether you've received a new postcard.

As you can all see from our Web site, we've only had a few updates this past month. Let's see what we can all do to keep up the momentum. Reach out to anyone any everyone...now's the time to get them in on the beginning of this incredible effort.

P.S. We've had a few positive replies from teachers who also want to attend!! This reunion is going to ROCK.

Wow! What a month! Since we posted the reunion information on the Web site, Dave Ratisher has received a rush of updates and new names for the Web site. This is great!! If we keep this up -- meaning all of us do whatever we can to locate fellow alumni -- we'll really have a great reunion. Perhaps we'll even hit the 200 attendee mark! Wouldn't that be well worth the effort?

Thanks so much for doing whatever you can to strengthen our site and reunion efforts!!

Just wanted to give you an update on our reunion activities. Dave Ratisher met with our contact at Reunions of America (ROA) last week during his visit to New York. He exchanged his database information and contacts, and they set up a process, which will be used from now on to transfer alumni contact updates as they come in.

ROA has started the process of entering all our information into their database. This will take a few weeks, as we have well over 800 names and addresses to enter. ROA will also hand over our list with the last known addresses given to us by Jamaica to a new company they've started working with -- a company that will (hopefully) help find these people. A few members on our committee are also helping out with this effort. Again, though, there's nothing like having people come forward themselves; whatever each of us can do to find our fellow classmates is greatly appreciated.

ROA will then send the first wave of postcards announcing the reunion effort to every last known address we have. I'm going to speak with Dave and ROA about posting these figures, i.e. the percentage of addresses we have (old vs. current), so we can all see our progress during this initial search period.

After we get an initial reaction from this mailing, we'll be better equipped to make a decision regarding location. We won't be able to choose the best location until we have a more representative count, including those we haven't yet reached -- and who we will, hopefully, find either through their parents or an updated address found through our resources. Once we hear back from this mailing, we'll estimate a number of attendees and choose the location. The faster we do this, the better -- because we don't have that much time, especially if our party gets larger and larger. I'm sure you'll agree that it makes no sense to choose a location that fits 150 when we could possibly have 250, or vice versa.

By the way, if anyone would like to recommend a hotel and catering facility (one where the food, accommodations, service, etc. left a lasting, positive impression, of course), please e-mail me at this address; I check this e-mail fairly often.

So, that's the latest scoop! Pull out your old address books and make some calls. Let's keep this snowball growing...

After more than one year of discussions, it's finally�time to�give you all some news about our upcoming reunion.�

First, we'd like to thank every person who has signed on to the Web site and filled in the reunion survey. Your answers gave us a good idea of how many of�you really want a reunion. Fortunately, the majority of us do, so let's get on with the news:

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce your JHS 1982 Reunion Committee. I'm Gail (Martinez) Gugerli, your reunion committee chairperson. Dave Ratisher and I met last year for the first time (we live 10 minutes from each other) and decided to give this reunion effort a try. First we sent out the survey, then I started looking for a reunion company and a group of graduates�interested in joining our reunion committee. So far, it's been a rather interesting ride, to say the least. But we've come a long way, and I'm proud to introduce the members of your reunion committee who've�committed their help for our reunion efforts:

We Now Have A Reunion Company: Introducing Reunions of America, Our Official Reunion Management Company

We're pleased to announce that we've signed a contract with Reunions of America (ROA), a well-known reunion management company based in Long Island. We've searched long and hard for a decent, reputable reunion management company able to effectively handle our reunion. ROA's Owner, Donna DeFiliptis, has owned�her company�for 20 years, successfully managing reunions for hundreds of schools in the tri-state area. With a staff of�eight people, ROA will:

Help us to find the best and most cost-effective location, food, entertainment and decorations for the event
Help us research to locate classmates
Handle all invitations, questionnaires and reservation processing
Publish an Alumni Directory with biographies and addresses
Provide professionally trained reunion staff to attend the reunion and oversee all aspects of the event
Organize class picture/candid photos/memory book
Offer continuous support and guidance throughout all phases of reunion planning

We will have a per person ticket price, which will cover the location, food and drinks (how many drinks has yet to be determined), entertainment, decorations�and the cost of all of the above reunion management services. We're targeting May/June 2002.

The committee will be working with ROA over the next months to get everything set, and we will keep you informed. Please check back on the Web site for additional updates.

Please keep in mind that ROA is the officially contracted reunion management for our reunion. If you are contacted or receive anything from any other company, please ignore it and let us know.

The committee is excited about working with ROA. If you'd like to learn more about them, check out their Web Site at www.reunionsinc.com .

If you'd like to receive an invitation to the reunion, please send your mailing address to Dave Ratisher at daveNOSPAM@ratisher.com as soon as possible. At this point Dave is keeping the master list.

With the help of Dennis Jensen, the current Librarian at Jamaica High School, we've been able to obtain the names of 622 graduates along with their parents' address (or the address they had registered when we attended school). A few of these addresses have been updated, but the majority haven't.

ROA will work to find alumni, but the best way is still to find friends through friends.�Dave is in the process of finding a way to post two lists: one is a list of names where we have last known addresses and the other is an�"MIA List," which means that we have only a name from the yearbook.

Please check on the Web site to see if you know anyone on these lists (when they are finally published). Please help us to find as many graduates as possible to make this reunion a huge success! Traditionally, city schools have lower reunion turnouts, so we can't even expect�more than 200�students to attend the reunion. But we can do our best to collectively to find as many friends as we can.

Thanks for reading this newsletter. On behalf of the committee,�I thank you for your time. Please feel free to e-mail me at jhs82reunionNOSPAM@earthlink.net with any questions.

Reunion Committee Announcement Page