April, 2007

Dear 1964 Classmate:

With our 45th Reunion just two years away, it is time to begin planning so that our gathering ‘Neath the Elms in the spring of 2009 will be provocative, enjoyable, instructive, meaningful, and well attended. To this end, I am writing on behalf of our Class Council to invite your help in designing a reunion that will appeal to as many members of our class as possible -- a class enormously rich in talent and experience, remarkably diverse in interests and outlooks, and unusually committed to Yale. You can start by returning the enclosed questionnaire, or by emailing me and our Committee Chairs at addresses listed in the paragraphs below.

The planning for our 45th Reunion will address three broad areas.

PROGRAM

The first is Program. Recognizing that many of us attended past Yale reunions because we found relevance in the themes and presentations relating to our various transitions -- from college to work, from single to married, from youth to middle-aged, from hockey dads to empty-nesters -- what themes will appeal to us now as we enter a new transition from work to retirement? Will they include workshops on what new post-retirement interests are available to us? Should we be concerned about our legacy and, if so, what we can do to shape it while time allows? Or should we focus on themes that are significantly impacting our lives such as:

• Our Natural Environment: the threat of global warming or the importance of the new building which our classmate Rick Kroon and his family have generously funded for the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
• Our Political Environment, both national and international: the rapidly escalating and dangerous conflict between Islam and the West, immigration, campaign financing, corruption
• Our Economic Environment: how to compete with China and India, the stock market, Social Security, and Medicare (will we become wards of our children?), the affordability of education and fuel
• Technology: the possibilities and perils brought about by the advancement of science and technology, finding energy sources to power our ravenous nation

These were some of the ideas generated by our Class Council in a spirited discussion last month, and by John Evans who has kindly agreed to chair the Program Committee. We invite each of you to take a few moments to express your views by emailing John at john_evans@snet.net. We also hope you will help identify promising speakers and presenters, ideally, although not preclusively (remember Bill McDonough from our 40th…?) from among our classmates.

ATTENDANCE

The second area is Reunion Attendance. While the Alumni Office tells us that the average attendance at a 45th Reunion is 283, a heartwarming 419 of us attended our 40th! We hope those of you who attended in 2004 will come back in 2009, and will encourage friends who did not come in the last reunion to come back for this one. We also hope more of you will be free from the workaday grind to find the opportunity to spend a few days in New Haven participating in recreational and social events with old and new friends. I am delighted that our Corresponding Secretary, Tony Lavely, has agreed to chair the Attendance Committee as he has the most direct interaction with us now, as well as a blossoming interest in maximizing communication through the internet. He can be reached at AMLavely@aol.com. We both urge you to add our Class website, superbly designed by Sam Francis, to your Favorites at www.yale64.org as it will include Reunion updates.

FUND RAISING

The third area is raising funds for a reunion gift to Yale. We hope to continue the tradition of giving generously and consistently, again demonstrating to Yale the degree to which we are grateful for the doors she opened for us over 40 years ago. I ask those who are interested in chairing the Gift Committee or serving on it to contact me at waldojohnston@hotmail.com.

IN CONCLUSION

Our last reunion was successful principally because so many of us joined in the effort to make it enjoyable and meaningful. Our Class Council and I plan to build on this tradition, and look forward to hearing from many of you in the weeks ahead.

With thanks and best wishes,

Waldo C. M. Johnston, Jr.
Chairman, 45th Reunion Committee

waldojohnston@hotmail.com
Winter 772-299-7898
Summer 607-547-9472