The Saginaires Alumni Association held its first general meeting on Sunday, October 25th, at Paul and Sonya Keiser's home in Hazel Park, MI. There were seven people in attendance, which was the expected turnout. Several important points were covered, new ideas brought to light, and more alumni were motivated to help the Saginaires Youth Organization rebuild its membership and support. The minutes of this meeting are available on the web at https://northernaurora.tripod.com/alumni/minutes2.txt. The idea of paid membership in the SAA has been postponed until membership interest increases and more perks can be offered to paying members. As it stands now, all members will receive a newsletter via U.S. Mail, members with e-mail will continue to receive e-mail installments, and alumni will be given the opportunity to voluntarily donate money to the Saginaires Alumni Association. This money will be used to perpetuate the mailings, to donate items of need to the corps, to help offset the cost of SAA functions, etc. The SAA database only holds about a dozen mailing addresses out of the 141 alumni listed. Please send your full mailing address to naurora@MailAndNews.com if you would like to receive a printed copy of the SAA Newsletter and other information.

The Alumni Association needs your pictures and stories! We are looking into creating a yearbook of 30 years of the Saginaires Youth Organization, and we need photos and anecdotes to include in this publication. The plan is to tell the history of the corps from the members' point of view, including corps photos (and composites, if available), to create a memento of each alumni's years in the corps and a history for younger alumni. Any stories you wold like to tell, be they one or many, send them to naurora@MailAndNews.com. If you have any photos scanned, you may also send them to this address. If you choose to send actual photos or color photocopies of photos, you may also e-mail for an address to which to send. Your photos will be returned in the same condition they were received. The next social gathering of the Alumni Association is in the preplanning stages. A banquet is in the works, tentatively scheduled for late winter in Southeast Michigan -- most likely, the Ypsi/Ann Arbor area. All alumni from all years will be cordially invited and encouraged to attend this kickoff of the Saginaires Alumni Association. More information will be provided as it becomes available; as mentioned, this gathering is still in the preplanning stages.

This concludes the second edition of the SAA Newsletter. We welcome all of you to attend the next general meeting on Sunday, December 6th, location TBA. Check the website for more information. Good luck to all, and keep in touch!