I like the thought of a Washburn family reunion, but the organization behind putting one together is overwhelming to me. Someone has to plan at least my catered luncheon or better yet dinner that everyone will attend. Even though each attendee pays his own way, someone has to contact an establishment, or rent a hall and get a caterer and be responsible for paying the bill. There should be at least one planned activity - visit to an historical site, something just for the fun of getting together with family and interacting (No visiting a cemetery or going to a research facility is no a planned family activity!) The location where the reunion is held needs to have housing facilities equal to the number of people coming, at a variety of prices so that all can afford it. - Which leans things toward a metropolitan area. If you have a dinner, it would be nice to have a speaker for the dinner who could give an entertaining, but information talk on some aspect of the Washburn family. There needs to be some form of organization to get members of the same branch together. Probably broken down by descendants of William, descendants of Phillip and then a series of groups for descendants of each of the children of John Washburn & Elizabeth Mitchell. The first reunion would probably be a simple "long Week-end" affair. Perhaps, Get in on Friday, trip on Saturday, meals on your own, group discussion in the evening. Luncheon with speaker on Sunday and go home. Since the roots of most Washburn's are in New England - I would suspect the first meeting should be there. But for the most part any planning done this year would be for an event in 2001 - most place are now booked with summer vactioners in New England, and then in the fall with the leaf-peeping tours. I wouldn't do it in the winter - I moved out of New England because i didn't like the winters. Anyone belong to other one-name socieities that hold a reunion? What do they do? Susan Bingler Fairfax, VA