President's Letter Spring 2001

Dear Classmates and Partners:                                                                
Linda and I are back from Antarctica, having gone way South in an attempt to escape the New Hampshire winter. Picking our way through icebergs to land on Elephant Island, Ken and Carol We joined us in laying claim to a craggy outcropping on behalf of the Great lass of 1960. Denny Goodman, with his disinclination to mix with crowds of humanity, will love this place for our 70th Birthday. Ken and I attempted to interview some of the million penguin and elephant seal inhabitants but concluded that, until SAT scores are completely done away with, there were no likely prospects for the Class of 2005. Too bad - the rock-hopper penguins, who can jump almost their own height again, could have been of interest to the basketball team!

This is by way of encouraging each of you to share your travel experiences with other classmates who wish to roam the girdled earth - or better yet, to step up and spearhead a trip with other classmates to that place you've always wanted to go. You can publicize both your experiences and your travel proposals in the "Class Online Forum" section of our Website or in Denny's Newsletter or Ken's Alumni Magazine column by contacting them.

On the topic of our website, Walter Daniels has done a superb job of creating it and it's now up to each of us to make it the useful sharing medium we all envisioned at the Reunion. In addition to the Forum capabiilty mentioned above (which can be used for health/fitness and community service exchanges as well as travel) you'll find class materials including the Newsletter, Secretary's column and interesting photographs from recent events. There's also information on how to add your contributions to the site. Check it Out! http://www.alum.dartmouth.org/classes/60/

The call for suggestions for our 65th Birthday Party venue brought such rich and varied responses that Alan Danson and his helpers are working on possible sites for 63rd and 64th warm up celebrations. Alan (at adanson@optimarktech.com) is happy to receive suggestions for (and help promoting) these celebrations providing the suggestor is willing to act as the sponsor. We have pretty much zeroed in on Chicago for the main event, with Messrs. Freedman, MacLean and Notaro working on dates and activities and seeking the help of others in the area to assist in the preparations. Having partied on both coasts, our midwestern colleagues now welcome us to the heartland, where a variety of cultural, athletic and gastronomic experiences await us! We're looking at a possible June date in 2003, for those with mufti-year calendars.

Jon Richardson's Reunion Town Meeting proposal to the Class, to replicate '53's Trust Fund and provide a vehicle for classmates who wish to contribute to a separate gift to the College for our 50th Reunion, has been pretty thoroughly researched - along with a related proposal to tie such a gift into the upcoming capital campaign. Tom Brock and Jim Adler headed up this effort, with three objectives:

1. To raise bigger $$ for our 50th
2. To offer alternatives to classmates seeking other giving options
3. To maintain strong class support for regular fund raising activities (alumni fund, capital campaign, etc.

The appropriate members of the Class of '53 as well as the Development folks at Dartmouth working with them and with gifts to the school in general were most helpful in providing information and discussing our proposals. A short summary of '53's experience is:

1. The '53 Trust was initiated by a small core group of regular generous ivers with some five and six-figure up-front gifts that were invested aggressively at the right time and grew to seven-figures (note: major up-front funding is critical, somethin that has not emerged in our class).
2. The use of their gift was only chosen recently, when agreement was finally reached to fund a new student commons on the north campus.
3. '53 advised us to be in concert with the college, to define our purpose up front and to pick an aggressive, skilled investment manager.

Dartmouth's Development Office, responsible to the President for capital campaigns, major gifts and the ongoing Alumni Fund offered the following:

1. The next capital campaign is in its preliminary stage but is tentatively planned to start in the next year or so and end around '08, so it will be finished before we could count it as part of our 50th reunion; in addition, reservations were expressed about our ability to find a college priority project to fund that all our classmates could agree on, especially given that some of our most generous colleagues have already focused their giving on areas of special interest to them.
2. They are continuing to work on expanding their reunion year gift recognition policy, both for type of gift and timing, so that as many donors as possible can feel especially good about the use of their gift (this may help address the "other giving option" desired by some) and the class can focus on presenting a large consolidated check for its reunion celebration.

Given the above, Tom and Jim recommend that we not diffuse our class giving efforts but work with the College on achieving a truly significant gift for our 50th, much as we did for our 40th. I concur, with thanks to them for their work and to Jon for the challenge. We will be looking for other ways to make both our 45th and our 50th reunions memorable, with ideas welcomed. At the same time, if there are classmates who are not now giving to their potential and would like to do something special but separate, they should definitely go ahead, either individually or as a group.

That's it for now from the "Uppah Valley". We're presently shovelling out from under 36" of fluffy white stuff, but mud season is just around the corner and the black flies can't be far behind. As the song goes, "dare a deed for dear old mother" - if you haven't, send in your dues to Jay, please think about adding a bit for our scholarship and dorm art projects (they're running short this year) and be kind and generous with Ken Johansen's Alumni Fund agents when they call.

Rick