We want to thank all of you who bought tickets for our reunion. Unfortunately, we were unable to get enough financial support from our class to put on our reunion at the Marriott Hotel on October 23rd 2010 as well as the tailgate party on Friday October 22nd. We are writing to let you know that we have canceled the Saturday night event and will not be able to sponsor the football game admission tickets for the Friday night football game. For those who have paid by check, your check will be shredded immediately and those who paid by credit card will be receiving a reimbursement check, minus the 4.9% processing fee that the website charges per transaction.
We still hope to see all of you at the football game Friday night and also on Sunday for the family picnic at Franklyn Field. There is also the Alumni football game scheduled for that Saturday. Please note that there is another class of 2000 reunion Saturday the 23rd at Hacienda Restaurant in Taft that you all are invited to. There are still plenty of events going on during our reunion weekend in addition to all of the Oildarado festivities.
Hope to see you there,
Class of 2000 Reunion Committee
Hello class of 2000,
Can you believe it is time for our 10 year reunion?? Wow, how the time has passed! This is just a friendly reminder that the planning is currently underway. Our reunion weekend is scheduled for Friday, October 22nd – Sunday, October 24th 2010. The itinerary for the weekend is as follows:
a)Friday, Oct. 22nd: High school tour/tailgate/football game. We will have a section to sit in at the football game so we all can sit together.
b)Saturday, October 23rd: Formal dinner/dance at the Marriott Hotel at the Convention Center in Downtown Bakersfield.
c)Sunday, October 24th: Family Day/Picnic at either the Police Park or A Street Park. This event is for the whole family--games for kids and adults.
For your convenience, we have designed a class webpage. You will be able to make posts and purchase your tickets to the reunion here. The address to our class page is:www.classcreator.com/Taft-CA-Taft-Union-2000. All the information you need regarding the reunion will be on the website. Please refer to the class page if you have any questions or you can e-mail me at jennangelo@yahoo.com. If you prefer to communicate through Facebook, we also have a page for that called “Taft High”. These are the places where we will post when our next reunion meeting will be. We understand that many of you won’t be able to attend the meetings. We do discuss people’s concerns and complaints. If you have a suggestion we ask that you provide us with all the information we need to make a decision. Useful information is always better.
We have received both praises and complaints about having the main event in Bakersfield. We chose to have the formal dinner at the Marriott Hotel for several reasons. We need a venue that is big enough to seat 188- 200+ people with room for a DJ, photographer, a kitchen for the catering services, room for a dance floor, and projection screen for a slideshow. The Marriott has all of these things included for one price plus they will take care of all the set-up and clean-up.
Before we decided on The Marriott we first considered venues in Taft. We considered the Fort, The Fox, The Veteran’s Hall, The Petroleum Club, the airport, the H2O Club, vacant buildings in Taft, and several churches in Taft. All of these places were either booked up for Oildarado, weddings, or other class reunions or they did not have the amenities we needed to do the things previously mentioned. If we had the reunion in a vacant building in Taft it would make the reunion planning a lot more complicated because we will have to do everything ourselves such as get table, chair, linen rentals, worry about delivery and pick, do all the decorations, set up, clean up, have parking issues, no slide show, no kitchen, etc... By having the reunion at the Marriott the staff takes care of everything. In addition, we will have a block of rooms with discounted rates for those who are traveling out of town or who don’t want to drive home. The rate on the rooms should be somewhere between $89-$99/night. In order to take advantage of the discount you need to inform the front desk you will be staying for the Taft High 10 year Class Reunion and ask to book one of the blocked rooms. After a couple of weeks before the reunion the discount will no longer be available so book in advance to ensure you get the discount. There is no limit on the rooms either. We are welcome to book as many as we need.
The biggest complaint we’ve had is the driving issue. Some people are planning on taking a limo or taxi to the reunion because they don’t want to drive. If you don’t want to stay the night get a group together and share transportation costs--just a suggestion. We just ask that you be responsible and plan ahead; no drinking and driving. Please remember that it is impossible to make everyone happy. The main reason why the reunion is in Bakersfield is because we searched for places in Taft and nothing seemed to work for us and October is a very popular month for weddings and reunions. We were even having a hard time finding venues in Bakersfield that had all the amenities we needed for our date. Remember that no matter where we have the reunion there is always going to be people that have to drive to the event, so please keep an open mind.
The Marriott has just recently finished its renovations last year and is very nice. The main reunion event on Saturday will have a formal catered dinner, DJ, dancing, slide show, and door prizes/raffle tickets. All of our reunion events are welcoming classmates in classes above and below us as well as all Taft High faculty and staff members. The more people we have the cheaper the tickets will be so R.S.V.P. as soon as possible. The reunion is going to be a blast! I hope to see all of you there. Please come, enjoy, and reminisce with us.
