23 October 2024

Wittevrongel Family Reunion

Committee meeting

We had a committee Zoom meeting Wednesday evening October 23rd.

Present were:  

·      Suzanne Maes-Toay & Elaine O’Keeffe (Maria) 

·      Norman Wittevrongel (Michel)

·      Maurice Claude (Marguerite)

·      Joanne Prejet (Madeleine)

·      Kim Magalhaes (Maurice)

·      Lynne Lafreniere (Clara)

·      Barry Wittevrongel (Leon)

·      Leo Lane (Rachel) was unable to join us.

·      Ray Temmerman

The first thing we did was get to know each other again after so long.  Following that, we moved to issues around the reunion itself, the first of which was catering.

Meals:  

Breakfast: It was decided not to offer breakfast on the Saturday and Sunday.  There are numerous restaurants and food options in the area for breakfast.  Some may have brought their own cereal, etc.  Cutting out a catered breakfast will mean we don’t have to have people register for the meal, don’t have to involve a lot of setup and cleanup – and we don’t have to pay for catering for that meal.

We could, perhaps, have a supply of things like muffins on hand, more for ‘grazing’ than for a sit-down meal.  This will be decided later.

Lunch: this meal is still under consideration, no final decision made.  Each family on its own?  Pot-luck?  Or...?

Dinner/Supper (name depends on where you live): this will be a catered meal on the Saturday evening.  Joanne is contacting several caterers to come up with options from which the committee can choose.

We need to book our caterer(s) fairly soon, before they are booked by others.  Several names of caterers were offered, with Joanne agreeing to contact the various ones, talk with them about what is needed (food, plates, etc.) and get back to the committee.

By December, we will likely have to come up with a rough number of participants so we can give the chosen caterer a ballpark idea of volume.  To that end, we will be asking, somewhere around Christmas, for a tentative indication of who is planning to come to the reunion.  Closer to the reunion itself, we will need to finalize numbers so the caterers know how much food to prepare.  For the moment, we are working with a suggested number of 100 – though we hope more will be able to attend.

A website is being developed to share information on the reunion, as well as to gather family information, registrations, and perhaps even payments – though the latter will likely be by simply providing an email address or mobile phone number where the money can be e-transferred.

Also included on the website will be things like 

·      Map of the town of Carman

·      pictures of the campground and campsite (Ray and others)

·      list of accommodation in the area (Joanne)

·      churches and church service times (Ray)

Kim indicated Shirley still has some $1200 in the Reunion fund, an amount which can be used to pay any expenses before registration monies come in.  Kim and Shirley will talk together to come up with a proposal as to who might handle the money and how much.  It was recommended that we open a bank account for the Reunion, and have monies paid flow from a ew

Joanne will gather together a list of accommodations for the area.

Ray will gather information on the various churches and church services in the area.

Joanne & Denis Prejet have invited all to their home in Carman for the Friday evening before the reunion formally begins the next morning.  They have a large yard, and a hot tub.  People will be welcome to bring musical instruments to join in the fun.  Thanks, Joanne and Denis, for your generosity.

Suzanne proposed that we have one or more ice-breaker activities to start the event, just to make sure we don’t all break up into our own groups.  This was readily agreed to, with some ideas of icebreaker activities tossed around.  More on that in due course.

We plan to have games of various kinds, e.g. Belgian Bowls, Viking Chess, etc.  Games for adults and games for kids.  Anyone wanting to bring a game is most welcome to do so.

Elaine says she has a lot of Wittevrongel family history books left.  Anyone who wants one is welcome to have one.  Contact Elaine at eokeeffe@shaw.ca

We plan to have some kind of visual recognition, e.g. a different colour lanyard, name tag, bandanna etc. for each family line.

A question was raised as to whether someone might have a drone which could be flown over the group for a group photo.  We are not sure that would be allowed on the campground, or even possible among the trees.  Joanne will do some checking on that and report back.  Meanwhile, if anyone does have such a drone, please contact ray.temmerman@gmail.com

Another question was the costs for the last reunion.  Ray will check his records to see if he can find anything.  Perhaps Shirley can also check any records she might have.  Does anyone else have any records or recollections on this?

We are fortunate that Joanne was able to book the Carman Campground for the two days, at no cost.

Carman Campground has a lot to offer.

·      Outdoor gym

·      Children’s splash pad

·      Swimming pool and water slides

·      Tennis

·      Pickleball

·      Golf nearby

·      Lots of trees

·      Large roofed area where we can eat, chat, etc.

·      We may look at sun tents to augment our covered space if needed.

Other things to consider:

‘Merchandise’, e.g. T-shirts, mugs, etc., which people could purchase.  (We already have a Wittevrongel Reunion logo, which is being updated at the moment.)  We are open to ideas, with the proviso that any idea has to be able to self-fund from the sale of the ‘merch’. 

                  Pins of some kind?

We might consider a small fundraiser, e.g. a silent auction or 50/50.  It was suggested we donate part of the proceeds to the town of Carman as a ‘thank you’ for the free use of the grounds.