reunion

Well, another family reunion is in the bag. I’ll write a little bit about what I thought, and maybe you can add some comments as well. We’ll look back at this post next spring when we are setting stuff up for next year.

First of all, it was wonderful seeing you all again. We should definitely keep doing that. After that, in no particular order…

1. I thought the group photo went reasonably well. But several of the people around me, myself included, were waiting for Christina to run to her position before we “really” smiled. It might be good for someone to remind us that that isn’t a thing anymore.
2. Aunt Lolly counted 106 people. Did anyone else get a count?
3. It seems to me that we are Lunch and Dinner about an hour after we said that we would on the schedule. No one mentioned it at the meeting, so I think maybe the times we actually ate in 2022 should be the times we plan to eat in 2023.
4. Was the table layout okay at the Ascension Haus? Moving tables is the first thing I do when I get to Heit’s Point (well, I don’t actually do it, I find people to move them). If anyone wants to move them before I get there, that would be lovely too.
5. There was a lot of cheese for lunch. I think that’s because about 3 of us thought, “I won’t sign up for anything. I’ll just bring down whatever is left on the list.” That was a good thought, but I think we know now that it isn’t so good in practice. I’ll sign up for something before the last day next year. You should too.
6. Derek Sommerer talked about putting some family pictures together. He was, as I recall, thinking about older pictures. Each of us has some of those, but it would be nice to get them all together to share in someway. Derek, why don’t you chime in with how you see this working, and how we can help.
7. I feel like maybe not everyone had a chance to update contact information and new family members in the Mauve Binder. If the Mauve Binder didn’t make its way around to you, and your contact information has changed, or you have new family members, let me know.

If there are any other notes for next year, please add them in the comments below.

Below are my recollection (and brief notes) of things we decided after church on Sunday:

1. The Celebration of Life for Aunt Naomi will be Sunday, July 24th from 1:00pm to 4:00pm at Capital Bluffs Event Center north of the river. It will be an open house for anyone to come at anytime
2. Next year’s reunion will be from Friday, June 30 to Sunday, July 2.
3. Last year we had decided to give $1500 to start off the donations for an outdoor kitchen at the Ascension Haus. Doug and Jim were going to be involved in the planning and perhaps constructions. This year we decided to fund that we would donate an additional $3500 to that project. Mark, from Heit’s Point said after the meeting that He really wanted Doug and Jim to be involved in the project to make sure the outdoor kitchen would be useful for us as well as for Heit’s Point in general. We also decided that we didn’t want Heit’s Point to spend all $5000 on the outdoor kitchen if they didn’t need that much money for the project, so they can spend any “excess” amount on other capital improvements. We discussed the need for separate electrical circuits for the outdoor kitchen. Aaron talked to Mark about this after the meeting, and Mark agreed that it would need seperate electrical service.
4. A little over $1100 was raised by donations from the items that Aunt Naomi’s family brought to Heit’s Point from Grandma’s house. Thank you, Vetter Family. We included that money in the $5000 donation to Heit’s Point for the outdoor Kitchen. Some people are planning on making their donation over time, or didn’t have a way to donate at the time. If you are one of those people, you can contact me on the best way to do that.
5. Sam & Rachel will get bricks for our Aunts and Uncles who have passed away.
6. The Outdoor kitchen will have a plaque with something to the effect of “In memory of the departed grandchildren of Adolph and Theresa Sommerer”. The exact wording will be worked out by Sam & Rachel in conjunction with Heit’s Point.
7. We will try to put together a work day at Heit’s Point for the Sommerer Family in the spring of 2023. We will use Thrivent Action Teams as part of the work day. Christina will coordinate with Heit’s Point on picking a day that will work. We know that we will pick a day that will not work for our whole family. That’s fine.
8. Assigning dishwashers was a good idea. It kept the same three people from having to wash dishes after every meal. We talked about opening it up to more than 1st cousins, and I think we could open it up to more jobs as well. Most of us don’t have any idea what other people are doing to make sure that the Family Reunion runs well. We know what we do, but not what everyone else is doing. We could expand this idea and have a “Job Board” that has the dish washing and other jobs that people could sign up for. If you have thoughts about this, add them to the comments below.

Was there anything else from the meeting that I forgot?