Update 5-26-09

Hi,

Several notes, and then the Facebook report.  First, from Liz King Giordano at South:  I received the scholarship checks in the mail today.  Many thanks for your successful fundraising efforts, and a sincere "thank you" to the entire group of generous supporters. We appreciate all that you do for South.
   
    From Joanne Shapiro Polner:  Can you please pass this on to Betsy Fels Pottruck and others?
        Open up Veromi.net and type "Randee Gordon" in the box.  That should open to Randee L. Gordon, age 61, with addresses in Forest Hills and Boca Raton listed. There is also Randee B. Gordon, age 66, with three addresses in Washington state.
        Here is the Boca Raton and Forest Hills listings information from Switchboard:  Randee Gordon, 3878 Candlewood Boulevard, Boca Raton, Florida  33487.  (561) 241-2993.  R Gordon, 11020 71st Road, Forest Hills, New York 11375.  (718) 793-1343.  Hope that helps.
   
    From Barbara Blitfield Pech:  On Facebook, Ken Getnick mentions that the class of 1964 is planning a reunion in Hauppauge some time in October or November.
        Also, following up Peter Rosen's suggestion:  Please sign me up if anyone's organizing a class of '65 45th reunion.  And, as long as we're casting location votes, home, sweet, home on Long Island is my choice.  I'm sure that now, more than ever, many of us want to visit the old and familiar stomping grounds.
   
    From Emily Kleinman Schreiber:  Please remind people about the July 1st Booker Gibson Night.  Thanks.  and please check the Alumni Association web site for more information.
   
    From Amy Lieberman, for those in Los Angeles who are Billy Valentine fans:  He'll be back at Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica, on Thursday, June 4th, from 6 to 10 PM.  He'll be in the lounge by the windows showing the setting sun, with the Stuart Elster Trio.
        He's also been playing at Shutters Hotel in Santa Monica on many Saturday nights -- just Billy and a piano.  And he'll be back at Spazio in Sherman Oaks on July 17th.  Please come and join us.
   
    And Ken Ulric wrote saying that his wife Laura Waxman Ulric's mother had died.  I sent Laura and Ken our best.
   
    Finally, the Facebook report, in a series of letters and explanations.  First, the note I sent out to a couple of people on May 8th, under the subject line "My Latest Stupid Experiment."
         Hi,
        This is only going to a dozen-or-so people, so I don't completely embarrass myself.  I've just tried to create a group for our class on Facebook.  I don't know why because we've located over 200 of the 300 people in our former class, but I do know I've just spent too much time trying to create this group without really understanding what I'm doing.  If anyone can help, that would be great.
        Meanwhile, I think if you sign on to Facebook and browse "groups" or, if you know what you're doing, go directly to "Valley Stream South High School Class of 1965" and join, that might be helpful.  Or it might not.
        Thanks.  Hope all is well.  If this is the technology of the future, then I'm going to be computer stupid really soon.
   
    This got some replies:
   
    From Stu Borman:  I joined the group, but I don't understand Facebook very well, either.  I'm registered, and some South High School people have "friended" me, but they're writing stuff on my "wall" that has nothing to do with me, and I'm not alerted by Facebook when these comments are posted.  So I find the whole thing kind of baffling and try to keep it to a minimum.  I'm not disparaging your effort, however, as it might pay some benefits.  I'm just not the best source of insight on that issue, as I'm not a Facebook maven.
   
    From Barbara Blitfield Pech:  I'll check "Valley Stream Groups."  That's where I found other Valley Stream pages.
   
    From Robert Fiveson:  I'm on Facebook, and, as far as I can tell, it's literary CB radio.  But I'll look for the group.
   
    From Irene Saunders Goldstein:  Not so stupid.  I've joined the group.
   
    From Robin Feit Baker:  My incentive to become a Facebook member was to look at some photos someone else had posted.
   
    From Ellen Epstein Silver:  I see the Facebook problem is solved -- Barbara Pech sent me the link.
   
    From Barbara Blitfield Pech:  Actually I didn't find the group -- it found me.  There was a sidebar group advisory on my home page.  I double-clicked, and there it was, offering me an option of inviting friends.  I advised everyone from the class who was listed.  That was about 10 people.  And when do we see you on Facebook?  I just get something called "Valley Stream South."
   
    Back to me:
   
        Creating a profile called "Valley Stream South" was my first mistake.  Actually, it was my second.  The first was creating a profile called "South Sixty Five," which I did because the program asks you to list your first, middle, and last name, and when I tried "Valley Stream South High School Class of 1965"  the program rejected it.  "South Sixty Five" was the first combination it would take.
        But that name didn't lead me to Valley Stream South people.  It led me to people with "South," "Sixty," or "Five" in their profile names.  So after some hunting around, I figured out how to delete that profile  -- or at least send it into hibernation -- and I created the more seemingly useful "Valley Stream South."  That led me to the folks Stu and Barbara mentioned, but, as Stu pointed out, it also led me to a group of people I didn't know but who wanted to be led to people they did know and thought I could do it.  Still, creating "Valley Stream South" also let me create the "Valley Stream South High School Class of 1965" group page, which is all I wanted to do in the first place.
        Bored yet?
        After I created the "Valley Stream South High School Class of 1965" group page, I added some explanatory notes and the quick contact information for our class, and then I linked the page to our e-mail address blog, to Stu's class photo site, and to the Alumni Association site.
        Only it turns out I wasn't supposed to create a group page that way.  It seems that if you're a representative of a group, you're first supposed to create a personal profile and then create a page for your group.  That makes you the administrator.
        But I didn't want to create a personal profile because I wasn't sure I wanted to be on Facebook.  I have enough electronic connections already.  And I also didn't want to create a new profile because then I'd probably have to recreate the Valley Stream South High School Class of 1965 group page, which would probably mean reposting the explanations and links.
        Still, I didn't want to lose the new page because it had already led to a few class reconnections, and it might be as useful as Classmates.com had been when we were first reconnecting class members in 2001.  So I sent up a personal profile for myself, listed my name as the co-administrator of the group page, then deleted the "Valley Stream South" profile, leaving me as sole administrator.
        Only doing that also deleted the explanations and links I'd posted.  So I had to go back and repost everything, just as I didn't want to.  I probably should have just left things as they were.
        And that's pretty well where I've left things.  We have the group page.  We have about a dozen of our class members connected to it.  There's a brief explanation of the weekly update and how to get on its mailing list, and there's another brief explanation of the Vince Tampio and Booker Gibson scholarships.  There are also the three links.
   
    Barbara Blitfield Pech also asked another useful question:  Since you list reunionclass65@gmail.com as the contact address on the Facebook page, should I be writing to that address now, instead of this one:  reunionclass65@aol.com?
   
    No, please continue to use the AOL address.  The gmail address is something I had to create in order to create the class blog, and I'm only listing it on the Facebook page to try to avoid spam here.  Clear?
   
    10-4.
   
    The South '65 e-mail addresses:  reunionclass65.blogspot.com
   
   
    Rich