Organizing Alumni in other states for game parties, more?

[JesseMartin]

Hey guys,

So you may be aware that a couple of years ago, right before she resigned, Dr. Bataille had scheduled some alumni gatherings in various states (which were of course cancelled, at least out here in AZ). Unless I missed something, these were never rescheduled, and were probably intended to help jump-start active alumni groups in states other than TX where we have a fairly decent population of alums.

More recently, having bumped into a few more of us out here, I realize that our presence is spreading nationwide, so the timing is right to try to set up at least some informal groups for game watching parties, dinners, whatever.

Thus far, I've contacted the Alumni office and they sent me a reply saying they will get back to me about it. Also, I talked to Johnny Quinn, who said with a bunch of "if's" that he would be interested in speaking if there was a formal event like the one they had originally scheduled and subsequently cancelled (if he can fit it into his schedule, if it's a solid date, if they want him to be a speaker, etc), so that's also a nice little bonus if it would happen, especially if we set up groups in a few different states and he could give a little speech and then also have a US Bobsled table set up to raise funds at the same time.

So here's what we would need to do from here:

1) If you're in AZ, contact me and if we get enough people and a central location, we can set up a little group to watch games and have little outings and such.

2) If you're in a state other than TX or AZ and want to give this a try, add a reply below to try to get others in your state to say hello, and also email alumni@unt.edu and let them know you are interested in being a part of something like this, even if you don't want to be in charge of setting it up or whatever. Since I already tried to get the ball rolling a bit, you can just tell them it's similar to Jesse's crazy idea or something and I'm sure they'll know what you mean.

3) If you know other alums in your area, even if they aren't paid members (heck, that's probably why the whole thing started in the first place anyway, since there probably aren't many of us out of state that are still active and paying the per annum), get a basic tally of who/how many might be interested as a start-up for these get-togethers, as well as who might want to head up a possible official chapter in your area.

I think that's about all that would be necessary just to get a feel for the amount of interest involved, at least without the main office sending out invitations to something "formal and official". I'll post this on the other boards too, but I put it here first because I don't have anybody out here to watch games with and of course no bars/restaurants here really push for UNT parties so we'll have to do it on our own.

Any other thoughts/ideas?