Northern California (NoCal) Minutes of the Meeting

May 28, 2006, Sunday 12 noon at Ressie Dizon’s residence in Sacramento:
Batch 71 Attendees

Guests: Merlita Martinez (Loren’s sister); Mrs. Carol Cruz; Beth Palo-Gonzalez; Mrs.Catalina Maniti

The gathering began before 12 noon. Prayer and blessing of the food (pot luck) was led by Remy. Some batch mates arrived later and after bonding with each other and all had finished their meals, the meeting took place at 4:20 PM.

Commencement:

Prayer was led by Pastor Bernard Cruz.
Edith Balanza summarized what was discussed at the Southern California meeting.

Discussions about a grand reunion:
Las Vegas was the popular venue
Maximum of two days only for the event – formal dinner and picnic the next day
Plans for booking only one hotel; at the picnic – provide T shirts to commemorate the event, games
Reunion open to batch mates’ family
Family members can help in the registration so members can enjoy fully
To utilize an event planner was mentioned but that will be costly

Another Meeting to plan:

There are plans to attend the La Naval fiesta so Nocal and SoCal can get together again. Rey Ramos has always been a participant of the October fiesta and gave us his input.

A suggestion was made if someone can come early and save us a table(s), so all our batch mates can be seated and be in one group; also to notify the coordinator about our mini-reunion. In the past, the leader did acknowledge and announce to the crowd the presence of batch groups if he/she was advised.

Tony Guiao is welcoming all to his home in Santa Clarita for a meeting before or after the La Naval fiesta at Burbank in October and there hold the election of officers. This will be either Friday or Sunday.. Plans by the Northern California regarding commute, car pooling and all will have to be planned and settled. This is still to be determined. The purpose of this suggestion is to shoot for these two events in one trip.

Organization and Election of Officers:

Tony recommended that our US chapter be established as a non-profit organization. This involves completing the by-laws and filing legally if we are to do fund raising and to open a bank account. Allowable funds at the bank should not exceed $ 25,000.00. No problem, any overage can be disbursed
for parties and other needs.
Tony who is currently a VP of their Fil-Am association suggested that he can pattern the by-laws from it and we can just make adjustments to fit our requirements.

Nominees for Officers were given but then it was decided that ALL who are in these two meetings are nominees. Casting of votes will be done via internet (or telephone?). Each person voting will need to indicate the position best suited to the name. The given positions are: Chairperson; 2 VPs ( one in NorCal, one in SoCal); Secretary; Treasurer; 3 Pro’s. Voting ending date is June 30th.

Contacting Batch mates:

Remy pointed that we can only encourage batch mates to join. There are those who can not or maybe reluctant for personal reasons that we just have to respect. Others may just remain on the side but have expressed their willingness to contribute to a worthy cause that we will undertake besides our group fun and parties.

We have so far seen so much enthusiasm on the website and most everyone are excited that we got connected with each other and can not wait for the US grand reunion!

Finale:

Meeting lasted in about 2 hours.
There were a qty of 5 (out of 15) Phil 35th reunion DVd’s distributed.
It is worth mentioning again that during the meeting, boisterous laughter can be heard at Ressie’s huge living room. The culprit? Tony Guiao, at his usual funny and joyful self.

Additional Comments:

Karaoke singing followed until midnight; solos, duets, group singing with dancing, what a blast !
More jokes and laughter, more eating, more picture taking
Ressie doing more cooking: banana turones, freshed cooked corns on the cob, boiled peanuts for us to devour and her famous “buru” for each one of us to take home. How generous!
We all left past midnight – it was Monday morning already, Memorial holiday, May 29
What a joyful day to treasure and reminisce. THANK YOU, Ressie!