The search for Alumni begins...

The reunion plans are now changing.... Heard it's still raining in the Phils in October, so maybe November? We will entertain suggestions from everyone, except February is out, for sure. We will have to discuss that more in our next meeting in the Bay area in October.

In the meantime, we need to start working on our respective duties:

I. Locating other alumni: So far , this is the biggest hurdle for us. Our goal is to find as many members as possible and get a firm commitment from them that they're attending this event. Needless to say, we need a head count so that we can have an idea of how much we need financially to cover the 3 days reunion in a yet to be determined venue. It'll be discussed in another section below.

a. Philippines team: Epoy Nierva and Mon Alegre has agreed to search our classmates in the Phils. My personal feeling is that since more members are there, they need to recruit more members so that they can spread the workload and won't be overwhelmed. So Epoy is going to call some of our tsikahan members whom he thinks can help. If you ever get the call, please consider helping them, because as you know, teamwork makes a lot of difference. After all, finding them is just the first step. We have to convince them to commit to joining us next year in the reunion. Maxi, our fearless leader, have some great reunion ideas that we would discuss further below..

Epoy has talked to Yvonne Valdez, the past president and current adviser of the FEU Medical Technology Alumni Society @ FEUNRFM. (She was also one of the RPH staff when we were interns there, remember her?) Anyway, she promised Epoy that she will mention our plans at their next alumni meeting. She will even meet Epoy next week, so that the two of them can search in the FEU Alumni office for the names of the reunion members in FEU alumni's current member roster.

As our webmaster, Epoy also has added a link in our tsikahan group of the FEU-NRMF Medical Technology Alumni Society (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tsikahan_FEU-NRMF_SMT_76_and_Friends/links) for the roster of graduates that we can use as reference for our search.

b. U.S team: We are composed of Maxi DelaCruz-Edora, Irma Aguja-Dela Cruz, Malou Manlutac-Manalo, Jojo Torres, Kim Matibag, Romy Francisco (Class '77), and Cyd Sartoris. We have made a flyer advertising our plans in the next Northern California PAMET newsletter, and the souvenir program of the 2010 reunion of FEU Med Tech Alumni Association of North America to be held in Vancouver, BC on July 31-August 1, 2010. All members of the tsikahan group also received a copy of the flyer, which they can post in the hospitals or clinics where they work, both here and in the Phils. If you need another copy of the flyer, I can post it in our tsikahan group, so you can download it from there, too. Please feel free to add your name to the contact list in the flyer.

Romy Francisco, drawing from his FEU MT Class of1977 reunion planning experience, has graciously offered his assistance in helping us find our reunion members. He also suggested using the cyberspace, www.zabasearch.com, to find them. He said that for women, we can type in their maiden names, and it will still produce their whereabouts, if they're in the database. From his experience, finding one or two persons often led to more people in the long run.

So, now that we have a tool, are we up for the challenge? Ok, let's see, if we all download the roster from the files section of our FEU tsikahan group, and divide the list amongst us, we will (I hope!), find one or two persons. So here's my suggestion:

How about we split the letters of the alphabet so that each one of us will work on finding them by their last names, regardless of the graduating year? There's currently 9 people in the team (both here and in the US), so that's 2.9 letters per person. However, if more people would offer to do this, the task won't be as overwhelming, and maybe each one of us will just have to work on one letter of the alphabet. Given our current numbers, I volunteer to look for those whose last names start from A-C. Would someone take on the next 3 letters, etc. etc..

II. Finance:

Maxi's idea is for the US group to shoulder the major expenses for the 2011 reunion in the Phils. so that we can entice more of our friends to join us. Hence, the monthly contribution from the 12 core group members. However, unless we have a head count of the attendees, we won't know how much money we would need. Also, we might run into a real problem of not having enough funds for this endeavor.

So we need to think of ways to raise more funds, or increase the number of our core group members. How about if we invite our Philippine friends to join the core group? It's going to be a voluntary contribution on their part. As we agreed in our initial meeting, we will take whatever anyone would like to contribute, kahit in kind. For instance, kung merong resort ang one of our members, and would like offer its use that as a venue instead of contributing to the general fund, we would gladly consider that idea. Any suggestions on how we can raise more funds?

Speaking of venues, we need to get bids from those places we've identified before (Caliraya, Tagaytay, Batangas, Subic, Taytay) asap so we would know how we can proceed. (Calling Mon and Hec! ) Please include 3 nights accommodations, food, activities (dinner/dance, etc). For games and prizes, maybe people can donate some door prizes, so we can save the funds on major expenses?

Mon has mentioned a medical mission to dovetail with our reunion. Since we have a lot of classmates who are now physicians, that will be a great thing to do. Maybe they (Kim, Rey Santos, Rey T, Ason, Julie or Joji), can coordinate this one? Maybe United Lab or Lycos would like to donate some medicines, too? Another thought would be to donate something to the FEUNRMF School of Med Tech or the Alumni Society!
How's that for starters?