Fifty years?  No way!

Earlier this year one of my high school classmates dropped me an email, asking whether or not our class was planning a 50 year reunion.

"Oh, my God, don't talk ugly like that!" was my first response. Then I got to thinking about it and kicked it around with several classmates.

A friend of mine had just attended her fiftieth reunion and one of her classmates had created a book about each of the classmates, telling where they had gone and what they had done. It was a way to generate interest in actually attending the reunion and it worked.

Community Software Makes it Easy

I volunteered to spearhead this effort, even though it sounded pretty time consuming. In the process of looking for some appropriate clip art, I found a terrific little web site called "Class Creator". The owners, Brad and Jessica Switzer, have put together a well thought out package that automates the reunion process. Their instructions are very well put together so that even people who are not particularly adept on the web can learn how to manage segments of the reunion.

The site offers a number of cool features, like the ability to create your own polls or surveys, a number of customizable pages, design templates to suit the year of your reunion, the ability to download the database of classmates for print matter - it's pretty amazing.

I love to fool around with web pages so I got right to work, first uploading the names of all 260 classmates.

My co-conspirator, Jimmy Bishop, is on the ground in California where our reunion will take place. He started contacting folks, partly through classmates.com and partly by phone, and soon our classmates were coming to the website.

You can imagine that this software must be pretty user friendly if a bunch of folks in their mid sixties are having no problem joining, editing their profiles and uploading current pics.

Generating Traffic

I established a ground rule - you have to log on to the web site in order to get your yearbook photo uploaded. This has been a great way to motivate people to update their profiles and get involved.

Every week I send out an email, sometimes with quizzes about who did what during their life, or featuring a contemporary photo of classmates and asking for guesses as to their identity.

And by the way, there is no problem with anyone browsing the site and picking up confidential information. Unless you are an authorized member you can't see any details.

Terrific Rewards

The class has bought in - in a big way. The site has been up for two months and we already have 38% online. Classmates are on a crusade to find those who have not logged in yet. Classmates who originally indicated that they were'nt going to attend have changed their minds.

We even found our exchange student from Denmark and he has reconnected with friends.

People who haven't seen each other in years have met for lunch, to play golf and are emailing each other.

Another nice feature of this very well planned site is the "In Memory" section. Naturally, some of our fellow students are gone. We have been able to share our memories about them.

Last but not least, we have "discovered" four of our teachers who are still alive and alert and we have been able to get in touch with these people who meant so much in our lives.

My reward has been the constant emails from over 80 people so far, thanking me for managing the site and engendering enthusiasm.

We're going to have a Kick Ass 50th Class Reunion!