Alpha Omega Planning Committee in Action

First and second pictures, L-R - Frank Healey, Jan Lech, Jim McCutcheon, Gary Johnston

Bottom picture, L-R - Frank Healey, Jan Lech, Jim McCutcheon, Harry Burkman (and friend)

Absent - Steve Krizsan

Stuff for Spouses to Do

Hi there all my frat brothers: Here's some more silly stuff from the bush in Northwestern Ontario ... where it's still a chilly 7C ... and still raining ...

Because my wife has been able to schedule some free time and will be accompanying me to the reunion, I’ve spent some time checking out “stuff that’s happening” in the Niagara area during the few days before, during and after our reunion.

She’s planning to attend the reunion at the Badminton Club but she didn’t grow up in the Niagara area, or go to high school there, so a bunch of old fogies recalling ancient stuff dealing with ancient history could be a bit “yawn-yawn” after a few hours and a few beers.

If your spouse is not too eager to come along with you, maybe if you show her some of the following stuff she will feel more positive. Here are some of the events I’ve been able to locate so far …

a) Casino Niagara:

September 24 & 25: Reba McIntyre; $90+; Thursday @ 8:30 pm; Friday @ 9:00 pm
September 26: Davy Jones of The Monkees; $ 20; show @ 9:00 pm
September 27 to 30: Country Classics – country hits from the 1950’s to today’s chart
toppers; $15; 3:00 pm

b) Niagara Wine Festival: September 18-27;
Details are available at: www.niagarawinefestival.com

c) Free Concerts and Fireworks .. in the Park: September 25 and 27; concert @ 8:00;
fireworks @ 10:00; Can’t beat the price!


I’m sure there will many spouses who didn’t grow up in the peninsula and would love to have a list of stuff to do … How about some of you guys who live in and around The Falls adding to the list … I’m sure there are farmers’ markets, flea markets, antique shops, art exhibits, musical presentations, and so forth.

Looking forward to meeting old friends …

Jim (Peneseh)

Alpha Omega Fraternity - 2nd Update on 60th Fraternity Reunion - September 26, 2009

Hi again guys.

Ticket sales and planning are coming along extremely well for our 60^th anniversary reunion to be held at the Niagara Falls Badminton and Tennis Club on Saturday, September 26.

Your reunion committee headed by Frank Healey has been actively planning the day's activities.

The committee's focus has been to make this an enjoyable and worthwhile opportunity for each of us to reunite with our friends from years gone by.

Here are some updates:

1. Agenda

While the facilities are available to us from 11 a.m. that day until 1 a.m. Sunday morning, the core part of the reunion gathering at the Badminton Club will be in the afternoon from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Hot dogs and hamburgers will be included and a full bar will be available. Dress will be informal. Both indoor and outdoor facilities will be available.

2. Tickets

$20 each. Advanced sales are proceeding very well. We have already received payment for 30 tickets with limited initial promotion. Ticket sales will climb dramatically as the reunion nears and everyone realizes that this is going to be a great success.

3. Volleyball

Our members played baseball at our 30^th reunion in 1979. This time it is volleyball. The club’s volleyball courts are available to us so bring your shorts, sport shoes, etc. if you wish to play. Perhaps we can get some challenge matches going, e.g. Alpha vs. Omega chapters, etc. There are showers for afterwards.

4. Dinner

A sit-down dinner is planned for 6 p.m. that day. We will proceed to TAPS, a new nearby brew pub located at 4680 Queen Street, Niagara Falls (near Victoria).

TAPS has a broad range of reasonably priced menu items along with 8 variations of beer and ale which are freshly brewed onsite and Ontario wines. There will be live music and a tour of the beer-making process.

TAPS has an outdoor patio. If the weather is particularly nice, they can seat us outside.

Everyone (members, spouses, partners, sons, daughters, parents, friends, etc.) is welcome to join in for dinner. Each is to pay for their own food and drinks. Separate cheques will be provided. Those who wish to can return afterwards to the Badminton Club.

5. Accommodations

From initial ticket sales and communications, we realize that members will be coming in from all over North America for this reunion and will need places to stay over the weekend. A list of available accommodations, including hotels and B&Bs etc. run by members, is being prepared and will be posted soon.

How to Order Tickets

We hope that you will be joining us on September 26. You can purchase your ticket(s) by the following ways:

1. Mail your cheque for $20 a ticket to Harry Burkman at Suite 2810, P.O. 129, 1 First Canadian Place, Toronto, Ontario M5X 1A4 (cheques made payable to him); or

2. E-mailing your payment to Harry Burkman at hburkman@burkman.com . Your confirmation question should be Name of Fraternity / Answer = AlphaOmega. (AlphaOmega should be one word.)

We are working on keeping our members’ database current and obtaining additional information. With your payment or e-mail message, please include your street address, phone numbers and e-mail address so that we can keep in touch with you going forward.

Tickets will be sent electronically before the reunion to those with e-mail addresses or mailed to those without e-mail addresses.

Database

Doug Bowering has been building the fraternity's most valuable resource, its membership list, and keeping it current for many years. Doug is constantly updating the list of our members and their contact information and making it available to all of us.

As a resource to be able to target more direct communication with our members, we are hoping to further identify the chapters of the individual members and the years in which they were most active. It would be great if there were separate contact lists for the guys in each of the chapters.

Should you wish to assist in this project, and we encourage you to do so, please let Doug know. He can be contacted at: dougb@thebowerings.com Doug can forward to you an Excel spreadsheet of the members so that you can add additional information to identify the chapters of those whom you know and their active years with the fraternity. When you have done this, you can return it to him.

Your Ideas Please

Guys, this event is about you and your friends from years gone by. The planning thus far reflects the intial thoughts of a reasonably small group of guys. We do not presuppose that we know what is of most interest to you and what would work best. You may have much better ideas and refinements for our reunion day and we encourage you to make your suggestions and input. Please help us make this a better event for everyone. You can post your comments below for all to see or send them to Frank Healey at abusash.healey@gmail.com .

Further details to follow.

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday, September 26.

.

A Great Reunion Coming

Sunday, August 09th

Hi there to all my fraternity brothers ... from the bush of North-western Ontario:

Another day of rain and cold temperatures ... at least it hasn’t snowed recently ... but a few mornings of only +4C ... which is about 10 degrees cooler than normal.

I understand that the Niagara Peninsula was blessed with some decent weather this weekend ... congratulations ...

I’m posting my anticipated schedule as I will have my laptop in my saddlebags and will be checking the blog every evening ... so if I’m passing nearby you can post a comment or e-mail me at: thebushprof@gmail.com or penesehwaubemaygwun@yahoo.ca and maybe we can connect for a coffee or a lunch ...

I hope you’re as excited about the upcoming reunion as I am ... I plan to fly out to Thunder Bay the weekend of September 19th and start riding south on the 21st. In an unexpected turn of events, my wife Ida has been able to take the time off to come along. She and her sister will probably spend most of the weekend at the Casino ... but hopefully she'll get to meet lots of other old cronies .. verifying that there really are other people in the world as old as her husband!!

It should take a couple of days to get to Sarnia ... and then on to visit a friend in Bolton – after 51 years of not seeing one another I hope she recognizes me!! ... and a fun-filled evening of Geritol martinis, pre-chewed salad, and perhaps a good bottle of wine if we can remember what to do with it ... (just kidding!!). Actually, we went to public school and high school together so we go back close to 60 years and we have all that time to talk about ... I'm sure she'll have lots of horror stories to tell my wife.

From there, we're planning to spend part of a day in St. Catharines with our son and 3 grandsons. This probably will be the 24th. He works all day, and 2 of the kids are in University so their time is limited.

Then off to Niagara Falls for the 25th so that I can just cruise around the city, Queenston and NOTL for the day and revel in memories, and maybe hook up with Keith (Alpha & Delta) and any other bros living in the Falls for the evening ...

A couple of questions about the reunion:

1. Will it be held indoors, outdoors, or both?
2. How formal/informal will it be? ... so that I know what type of clothing to jam into my saddlebags ... leathers and rain-gear may not be in vogue ...
3. Will there be on-going music? ... hopefully someone will lend his 100+watt system ... and lots of “oldies CD’s” ... or we could just crank up CKOC 1150 Oldies ... I don’t know about you, but music was a big part of my high school life ...
4. How about some suggestions for places to eat ... I’m sure things have changed a bit since I last lived there 50+ years ago ...
5. Are you sure that $20 is going to cover things? Please let us know, preferable after a few drinks, and we’ll be more generous.
6. Has a “taxi hotline” been set up? ... because I’m “taxi-ing-it” from the hotel to the reunion and it would be nice to have a list of taxi numbers to “call me a cab” back to the hotel ... at 1:00 a.m. may have trouble reading the phone book!!

Will close for now, but watch for more silliness ...

All the best, and looking forward to seeing you ...

Peneseh, ... Jim McKernan