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Class of 1961 Officers

Class of 1961 officers meeting

Sept 21, 2013, Collis Center, Dartmouth College, Class Officers Weekend

Presiding GH Denny Denniston Jr, class president

Attending: Thomas S, Conger, newsletter editor; Robert Conn, co-webmaster, John L Damon and Peter M. Palin, gift planning chairs, Roger W. McArt, immediate past president and Alumni Council representative; Ken DeHaven, vice president; Ivar A. Jozus, treasurer;  Maynard B. Wheeler, mini-reunion chair


I.                    Denny opened the meeting with congratulations to Ivar, class treasurer of the year.


II.                  Conference Calls. The amount of class planning business is too extensive for one meeting at COW,   so Denny proposed monthly conference calls of the officers. After some discussion, we determined that the best time was the first Wednesday of every month at 1 p.m.  Ken  proposed that each conference call will be limited to one hour, which was agreed to by consensus. Bob Conn noted that the Dartmouth Club of the Piedmont has a mechanism for free conference calls; Denny asked Bob to explore the details of that and report back to him.


III.                Denny noted that these officers meetings have tended to focus on officers who in general are doing their jobs well. But he proposed that as we contemplate and do each of our jobs, we focus on: “How do we engage the people in the class who are not engaged.”


IV.                Denny said the primary topic on which we would spend the most time at this meeting is Planned Giving: the Bartlett Tower Society. Peter Palin and John Damon earlier in the weekend met with the Office of Gift Planning and discussed a series of issues.

a.        The Legacy. We have exceeded $1 million in assets. Do we continue? There was a general consensus that we ought to continue raising money for the Legacy, but the two co-chairs who got us to $1 million, David Birney and Oscar Arslanian, do not want to head up another major campaign. We need to thank them for their 14 years of hard work. But then what do we do?

b.      One major possibility might be to intertwine the Legacy with Gift Planning, as a way of getting additional classmates to become members of the Bartlett Tower Society. Money in wills could be designated for the Legacy. The Legacy, in other words, could be a major  focus of gift planning.

c.       The Society includes all classmates who have included Dartmouth in their wills, or made the College a beneficiary of an insurance policy or IRA and have turned in the evidence to the College. In addition to the 31 classmates who have already met those requirements and are included in the Bartlett Tower Society, Peter and John said there are another 28 classmates who have already indicated to the College that they had included the College in their wills, but have not sent the specifics to the College. John and Peter called these classmates the “low-hanging fruit” that could easily boost the total class membership in the Bartlett Tower Society. They plan to send a letter with a follow-up phone call to try to get these classmates to enroll.

d.      Attention then turned to addressing the rest of the class with a goal of increasing the number of classmates including Dartmouth in their wills. Maynard said the class ought to provide information on the step-by-step process for including Dartmouth in their wills, a process clear for people who are not lawyers. Communication was deemed critical. Roger suggested a   continuing flow of communication to tell people how to do it. At our age, wills can suddenly loom as an immediate issue, so classmates may think of Dartmouth when they are writing their wills. But communication ought to be tailored, since one letter will not fit all.

e.      Denny proposed that we have short-term and long-term goals, Peter and John said they are aiming at contacting the “low-hanging fruit” by the next COW to reach at least 40 Bartlett Tower Society. Denny pressed further, asking for a goal before the next major in-Hanover reunion of at least 10 percent of the class, or at least 50 members.

f.        Maynard suggested that the campaign to enroll more people could be built around President Hanlon’s push for more community in the alumni body – why our classmates need to support the College. Denny cautioned, however, that we first tap the “broad” class support for the Legacy.


V.                  Metrics. Denny reported our score this year is 89; the median score for classes out more than 25 years was 74. But though we won mention of the Legacy at the awards dinner, we are still falling short of where we need to be to become a Class of the Year. We don’t have details yet of how the metrics are calculated. Tom raised concern that we’re not being credited for our newsletters because of the way we publish them, despite the fact that each is posted on our website and Harris sends a copy to the class activities office. Denny suggested that the metrics be a major focus of one of the conference calls once we get the details. In the meantime, he suggested we read copies of the class activity reports for the class of 1955, the winner, and the class of 1978, the runner up. It was also suggested that we start preparing the class activities report further in advance, so critical details that might enhance our report would not be forgotten.


VI.                Class surveys. Many classes are successfully using surveys for getting information back from classmates. We ought to consider the same thing: what are people interested in. The link for the survey could be sent out separately or perhaps included in the newsletter. Bob pointed out that we got extraordinary participation from classmates in the survey published in the 50threunion book. You get a 10 question survey free on Survey Monkey; longer surveys require membership. Bob is a member.


VII.              Obituaries. Tom Dalglish did an extraordinary job for our 50th reunion, but has not prepared any since then. Harris McKee has been finding newspaper obits on classmates and posting those.  Bob Conn pointed out that he has written several, based on material on the web, most recently for Barry Fentin. But these are not the same as Tom’s detailed obits. Denny said he spoke to Tom and they had set a deadline of 21 obits by Feb. 15.  Bob urged the officers (and all classmates) to send an email to Harris McKee as soon as they hear of the death of a classmate so that we might be able to get funeral details out by email to the class as a whole so we might actually enable classmates to attend the funeral.  (h4mmckee***sbcglobal.net)


VIII.            Hanlon events. President Hanlon will be speaking to a number of alumni clubs; Denny suggested that we consider doing an associated cocktail party or gathering that could constitute a mini-reunion, especially for folks who do not get to Hanover. For discussion at one of our conference calls. At a minimum, we should directly encourage our classmates to attend the event.


IX.                Facebook. Denny suggested increasing use of Facebook, rather than email, since Facebook offers the opportunity to follow a thread – the sequence of conversations. Bob noted that there are some hazards of using Facebook. Linked-In is another possibility but it does not include the following of threads. There are several other options that we will discuss at a conference call.(Webmaster McKee notes that he is following several threads with Linked-In connections.)


X.                  Goals. We need to establish a Dartmouth College Fund goal and a Bartlett Tower Society goal. We need to set goals for each of the sections of the class activity report. This will be done in one of our conference calls.

 

XI.                Class meeting. In addition to the student presentations, we should have a class meeting during the mini-reunion in October, perhaps while we are eating the box lunch. Maynard said it would be added to the schedule.

 

XII.              Dartmouth College Fund leadership. Peter Stuart has resigned as head agent; Denny has appointed a nominating committee to find a successor. Former president Art Kelton will chair the committee, which also will include Vic Rich; Mike Murphy, Don O’Neill, Dave Prewitt, Jerry Kaminsky and Roger McArt. Denny pointed out that participation had dropped from 88.4 percent to 60.4 percent in one year (a loss of 102 contributors). Last year, we got back up to 64.5 percent.


XIII.            Minutes. The minutes of this meeting will be posted on the website, and Tom will include a pointer in his next newsletter.

 

XIV.            The first conference call is Oct. 2 at 1 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Bob Conn

Co-webmaster