“Whoever is responsible for putting my high school photo on Facebook will be shot at dawn. Remove it please…Otherwise, the firing squad will be doing target practice and then it’s for real!” This e-mail marks the low point in my effort to use a Facebook group to help facilitate a reunion of my high school class of 1964 from a small town in southern New Jersey. More recently I have had e-mails thanking me for all my efforts. And the writer of this “death threat” e-mail has assured me that all was in good fun. We are now Facebook friends reminiscing about high school escapades.
Despite a rocky start with various e-mails saying things like “I don’t want my personal information on Faceboook.” “I cannot find the reunion site.” “I keep getting lost in Facebook,” I now pronounce the effort a success. We have 42 members in our site. We have over 105 photos posted from our reunion. And, now we are using the site to plan our next reunion. Here is our saga.
The initial nay sayers were not only some of my classmates who are in their early sixties, but even a young co-worker of mine who asserted that baby boomers would not use Facebook. The main reunion organizer thought it would be a fun idea and thought it might make things easier for us. And so, I proceeded to create a Facebook group site.
Do baby boomers use Facebook? While it was true that the majority of my high school classmates did not regularly use Facebook, many of them did have Facebook accounts–used primarily to view photos of their grand children. It was also true that the majority of my classmates were not very experienced in social networking, somewhat fearful, and found the Facebook interface confusing.
Why did I choose to create a private Facebook group? First of all I explored the idea of creating a Facebook fan page, a separate Facebook account, and a group, either private and public. In choosing a private group, I created some logistical hurdles for my classmates, but I gave them the assurance that their information would not be posted to the world. The functionality is sufficient, but it could certainly be improved. That’s a topic for a later date.
As we neared the date of the reunion, we were having some logistical difficulties. We decided to revert to e-mail for the final details. Some thought that this was the end of Facebook and our reunion. I thought I might be forever associated with a failed experiment and perhaps the target of jokes. But, truly at my age, much worse things have happened.
We did have some momentum. We had about 25 members in our group. A tech savvy classmate had posted some high school photos. Several classmates who were unable to attend the reunion sent photos of themselves. Some of us who had been caught up in the hippy generation wanted to reflect on our journeys through the haze of that time.
Right after the reunion, some wrote that it was “more like a love-in than a reunion.” Others instantly commented about how they wished they had been able to be there. Soon the photos from the reunion started to be posted. We have doubled our members in the month since the reunion. Comments are coming in like, “This is the next best thing to being there.” New requests from “lost classmates” keep coming in along with new postings.
I confess that I frequently need to look people up in the old year book and even then I may draw a blank. But the shared time and place give us something unique in common. A discussion has begun about the next reunion. Since we have 5 years and a way to keep in touch, we are currently discussing a “moveable feast” with gatherings at various homes and locations across the country. We may even go to Hawaii! As for those deeper connections, they still appear to happen in e-mail or over the telephone. The role of Facebook is to make the connection and keep us at least superficially in touch.
What made this work? We had 2 site administrators and several evangelists. With 2 administrators, no one person will hold things up. One of my classmate who was familiar with Facebook jumped in and started posting photos from high school and recruiting other classmates. Others joined her. Some of the newbies became evangelists and began to reach out to others.
And finally there are now the new photos and fresh information that keep coming in from the class. It is truly a group rather than an individual effort. I don’t know whether or not we’ll have a progressive reunion in 5 years, but I do know that I have reconnected with many good people and many memories. We shared a particular time in a small town. We have roots in an era when many are rootless. We have rediscovered and rejoiced in and bashed these roots together. We have a place to reminisce and to keep the connections growing. Thank you, Facebook.
