In 1993 my husband had his 20 year high school reunion, and I looked around that ballroom and thought, how could a room filled with over a hundred classmates, who grew up together, feel so estranged. And It hit me, whoever put this on, can’t be from here. I was right. The reunion company had such rigid vision for what a reunion should look like, they clearly never even asked anyone here what they wanted. Just then, someone at our table said “it’s too bad there’s not a local company doing this”.

My first year, I planned one reunion, year two, I did three, by year 10, I did seventy. All by making my business come down to two principles; First and foremost, listen to the reunion committee. Yes, we are the facilitators, but we need your vision. And second, make sure the class, not the event planner, gets what they want. So it’s a party that everyone who can come, will want to come.

Personally, I believe we live in a time of Zoom, message boards, and wearing headphones in public, where disconnection has become our default setting.