Reunion Committee Meeting Notes

Most of the members of the Tocci Family Reunion Committee met last Thursday at Ed's house. Those in attendance beside myself were:
Ed and Nadine Tocci, Kim Shea, Pam Tocci DiGiantommaso, Karen DeLuca Billings, Kathy Cioffi Berry, Rose Barisano Tocci, Cheryl Mercuri Brown and Sharon Mercuri Zimmerman.
Special guests Danny Mercuri and Ed Tocci (with Sammi) floated in and out. We missed Glenn Tocci and Donna Cappola Baker. We hope they can make the next meeting.

Here are some notes from the meeting. We made some decisions and came up with some questions for all of you - yes, if you are reading this, that means YOU! We want as much input as we can get so everyone is happy.

And away we go....

Finances:
After Kathy deposits the money and checks that Ed was hiding from the cookbooks, we've got about $100 in the bank (Kathy, correct me if I'm wrong. Math skills aren't my best feature!).

Place for reunion:
Two places were mentioned for the reunion. Glenn was right to think we were talking about him since we assigned him the task of getting information from both locations.
The first location is the American Legion in Plymouth, where we had the last reunion. We think that everyone liked that location, it was nice to have the pond for the kids and great to have an inside and outside for food and mingling.
The section location is also an American Legion in Natick on Lake Cochituate. The Barisanos had a reunion there and it is a similar set up. Glenn will get back to us and give us the details soon.

Date:
As I mentioned, we picked the weekend of July 14/15, 2007 for the reunion. Glenn will see if both dates are available. If they are there is a decision to be made. LISTEN up, this is a BIG decision....
Do we bring our own prepared foods or do we bring the standard cookout fare and hire someone to cook it while we only bring side dishes and desserts?
Here is the reasoning behind both ways:

Bringing our own prepared food: Yes, we have the best cooks in the world in the family. However, a few folks spent quite a bit of the afternoon in the kitchen preparing (reheating, organizing) the food and didn't get a chance to mingle and catch up as much as they would have liked. If we vote to bring our own prepared food we will need help organizing this from the get-go (for example, really getting people to say what they are going to bring and not bring duplicates unless we think it is needed with that dish). We will also need volunteers to be on a clean up crew. And, we'd like to hire someone to heat up the dishes - someone not in the family.

Bringing cookout foods and having it prepared for us: This is what they did at the Barisano family reunion and it seemed to work out well for them. They hired someone to do the cooking right there on the grills (hot dogs, hamburgs, chicken, veggie burgers etc) and everyone had a chance to mingle and catch up without the added responsibility. Those that wanted to bring a side dish did just that and many people brought desserts.

Also, think about this when voting on the option you'd like to see happen - if we bring prepared foods the committee voted to have the reunion on Sunday again so everyone has time to cook on Saturday. If we have the food cooked there, we voted to have the reunion on Saturday so people have the chance to continue the fun out somewhere in groups, if they want.

Pond safety:
The committee voted to hire a lifeguard this time around, no matter where we have the reunion. This takes a little stress off of some parents so they can mingle and have a good time, too.

Cookbook #2
Since some very important recipes did not make it to the cookbook that just came out in December, there will be a Tocci Family Cookbook volume 2.
Cookbook committee is: Linda Cioffi, Kathy Cioffi Berry and Sharon Mercuri Zimmerman
To speed up the format and print stage of the book, Sharon is going to create a form that we will email out and have on the blog so people can fill out the form and get it back to her electronically. Please stay tuned for that - it will be coming shortly.
Plan: The plan is to have all recipes to them before the reunion so that the cookbooks can be purchased at the reunion!

Misc:
We voted to not have t-shirts this time around.

We voted that we do not need to have a family photo CD or family tree CD. However, we know that there have been additions to the family since the last reunion - Nancy's grandchild, Judy & Ralph's grandson and Pam's granddaughter come to mind. We will recognize them at the reunion in some way (possibly by photo) so people know to add them to their tree! We'll keep you posted.

We talked about Karaoke (sp?) again. Anyone have thoughts on this? Good. Bad. Indifferent. Let us know.

Sharon is in charge of getting a basket together for the ladies room like in those fancy-dancy restaurant or hotel bathrooms.

Sharon is also in charge of researching a give-away item for the reunion with the family name on it for everyone to have - kind of in place of the t-shirts. We mentioned mugs, a wooden spoon and a few other things. If you have an idea, please comment here!

Something else that was mentioned was a raffle. People who wanted to donate an item, say, for instance, Marcia would donate a bracelet from her fabulous collection, someone else may donate a basket from Bath & Body Works etc. etc. Everyone gets raffle tickets when they come in and we raffle throughout the night. Thoughts on this? Let us know. Comment here.

I think that is all of the reunion stuff we talked about. Yes, we talked about food. A lot. Did you expect anything less from us? Really now. And, yes, we got off topic quite a bit so Rose had to use the gavel. Many times. Thanks for keeping us on task, Rose.

Committee members, if I missed anything, jump in here!

Danny agreed to let us have the next reunion committee meeting this July by his pool. If you want to join the committee let us know. Anyone can join!

Remember - we want your input on everything so start commenting!