Salamanca-Alumni.com

Prepare yourself Salamanca…I’m coming into town to visit.  I know, you want to stand up and cheer and start making me “Welcome home Shawn!!” signs to put on all the main streets…but to this I say NO!  Go about your daily lives, those of you living in Salamanca, and pretend that it’s like any other week.  If you can.

I’ll be in town 7/29 to 8/2.  Perhaps I’ll see you around…

I’ve seen some information before in the past about there being an “All Alumni Association” but I never had a direct contact with anyone in the group.  Finally, I got in touch with the secretary and she sent me a post card, shown below:

If you can’t read the post card it says (see the updates below):

Please reserve Saturday, July 11, 2009 for the annual Alumni reunion.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!

The Corporate Building, Little Valley Fairgrounds, Little Vally, NY will be the location for the reunion in 2009.  The Old Library Restaurant will cater the dinner.

2009 is the 50th for the class of 1959.  The committee is making plans for Friday night.  Details will be included in the letter concerning reservations, etc. to be mailed in May 2009.

2009 is the 60th for the class of 1949.

If you do not wish to receive future notices, please check here ____ and return this card to the secretary – Mary Ann Reed, P.O. Box 372, Salamanca, NY 14779 – Phone (716)945-2552, E-mail: jereed@localnet.com

The dinner will be limited seating to 250 people.  If you have any interest in this, please email, phone or write to Mary Ann Reed and get yourself on their contact list.  She will need to know your full name (maiden) and year you graduated.  Should anyone attend this, please take a few pictures and send them to me for my site.

We are making progress with putting the Alumni Database back online!!!  What I need to to have everyone review their profiles.  Make sure as much is filled out as you want.  As of now your email address would not show without your permission, if at all.  As for your About Me/Bio information, anything put into this section will be shown visible to all members of the site.  So, again, only put information in there at YOU are comfortable allowing anyone to see.  I’ve also included a “Maiden Name” field in the profile.  For those of you that filled out your name as First (Maiden) Last I’ve already changed your profile.  For anyone else, please make that update so your classmates can find you once the database is up and running.  The database will have a search feature allowing all users to search for Class Year, First Name, Last Name, Maiden Name and Location.  Say for example you want to see all the alumni living in Buffalo, NY, it’s should list them (according to how people typed in their location).

Pictures! The site will allow you to upload 1 picture.  Once you do it, the request is sent to me for approval.  I will approve appropriate pictures as quickly as possible.

I would like to introduce a new feature on the site, the Visitor Map on the Media page.  On this world map you can see the location where the last 100 people to view the website.  How is this done? Well, each computer has an address and I am able to read it and put a push pin (blue dot) on my map to represent them.  Note, YOU HAVE TO BE LOGGED INTO THE SITE TO VIEW IT.  Sorry visitors, but you won’t be able to see this and some other upcoming features without creating a profile (membership).

Here is a quick glimpse of what it looks like (not a live view):

Martha Lauser sent along this picture below saying that “This was taken approximately 1959-60. The tall drummer is my brother, David Millholen. I can’t identify anyone else in the photo.”

If you have a few photos you would like to share, just send them to me at shawn@wyattsplace.com.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (then you wouldn’t be reading this post), you have heard of Facebook.  The great thing about Facebook is it’s ability to connect people, yes, even Salamanca High School alumni.  The obvious thing to do is to start a group page for you and your classmates.  Currently several classses have done just that, see my Links page for direct links to the classes that I know of at this point.  If your class has a group page on Facebook (or MySpace), please let me know and I’ll put a link on there for you.

I am in the process of making it possible for Alumni to contribute to the Salamanca-Alumni.com website in their own way. I am starting the Alumni Blog section of the website for Alumni to blog about “whatever” they want, as it relates to the website, SHS, Salamanca, etc., that sorta thing. If you are experienced in the ways of the Blog and want to get involved, please send me an email to let me know that you’d like to contribute. You have to have an account on the site and I will need to change your role from subscriber (reader) to contributor (writer). All blog entries will need to be reviewed by myself before posting to the site.

In case those of you haven’t see this on the tube:

Yes, it’s Salamanca’s own Kristen Nedopak (Class of 1995)! The Salamanca Press also had an article on her, click here.  Great job!

Did you know that Salamanca-Alumni.com is now the social network butterfly?  I have set up groups on both Facebook and MySpace to help alumni and other “Salamancaians” (or Salamancaites?) connect with each other.  Check the links page for direct links to the groups! However, I will admit, I’m still very new to both websites and would invite a couple alumni to help me get the most out of each of these sites.  Just email me!  Although, I won’t take all the credit for this idea as John Murphy (Class of 1963) mentioned that my site should be on the social networks.  Thanks John!

Well, the site has been up for almost exactly 24 hours and 67 people have signed up for an account.  Mind you, you don’t have to sign up for an account, but you won’t see the forums unless you do.  I would also like to remind those with an account that once you sign in, on the left side under your name there is a “Profile” link.  Click on this link to make changes to YOUR profile including how you want your name to be publicly displayed.  For example, if a user chooses “lucky44″ as their username, in the forums they will post as “lucky44″.  However, in your profile you can change your public name to your first name, last name, both, etc.  Still, you would have to log into the site with the original username, but at least this way people know who you are!

For those of you that have not signed up, please do!  I can use this list to email people news, site updates or other events. Plus, it gives me an idea of the site interest.