On the weekend of August 2nd thru August 4th - approximately 70 members of the Spendley-Hayden family descended on Ocean City, Maryland for a Family Reunion celebration. The weather was absolutely perfect and it seemed like everyone enjoyed seeing everyone as well as participating in the various weekend activities. For a more detailed recap of the weekend including pictures as well as the picture slideshows shown on Saturday evening, please navigate to the Reunion Tab and select Ocean City Reunion. We plan on adding more pictures as well as additional video footage of the Saturday evening festivities at a later date.

My initial thoughts on this wonderful weekend are just filled with great memories and plenty of laughs. It seemed like everyone was so thrilled to see each other and it was obvious that 9 years between reunions is much too long. It would be interesting to hear everyone’s thoughts (by adding comments below) on what is the correct period of time between reunions.

In my opinion, the 3-5 year timeframe makes the most sense. As families spread their wings it seems like it would be way too difficult to have a reunion every year or even every 2 years. My thoughts are we should to set a goal of every 3 years with the goal being absolutely to have one every 5 years. I think it should deb up to the next committee to actually decide the timeframe but I think as a family we can provide some feedback on what makes sense to all of us.

I also think that the dates should actually be set even sooner than we did for this past reunion (set in February - approximately 6 months). I think the sooner the date is picked the easier it is for people to plan their calendars. Potentially, we lost some participants this year because of some conflicts in the dates which might be avoided if we selected the date earlier.

The location is always going to be an issue, The Spendley-Hayden family is somewhat spread out and it will always cause some amount of travel for some or most of the family. I also think that the Reunion Committee should have the final say in picking a location - the location is an important part of the event so again this needs to be decided as early as possible (perhaps not as early as the date but certainly as early as possible). It would be interesting to hear from others as to the location and suggestions as to what could be considered for future reunions, again use the comments section below to share your thoughts. As a final note on location - the Committee should not underestimate the value of having some committee members relatively nearby to make sure logistics can easily be arranged. In this past venue - having Walt and Robyn, Marilyn and I nearby made it easier to plan the various details required to pull off a weekend event.

The final piece of the equation is the venue - I think this is an absolute critical part of the equation. It would be interesting to hear everyone’s thoughts on this past reunion from a venue and logistical perspective. Francis Scott Key is an older facility but they have recently updated their look and it appears that people were satisfied with the accommodations at FSK. The OC Firehall seemed like a perfect location for the Saturday dinner - it was perhaps a bit cramped but the facility itself was great, especially from an audio-visual perspective. In addition - having the golf and the fishing as close as they were also seemed to be a positive. The one thing I might suggest as a change is to have the outside activities (golf, fishing or whatever others) on Friday. That will enable the family to spend Saturday together doing more things together as an entire family. We could have made Saturday afternoon more family oriented with more family activities (just my opinion).

The weekend was filled with some great memories - after all, not many times you can see a Spendley - Hayden family member praying to the Porcelain God!!! Or, a trio of AUnt Rosemary, Uncle Bob and Uncle Bill singing “Down by the Old Mill Stream”!!! The younger generation seemed to bond well and we have a reunion committee picked for the next family reunion.

As a final note - there were many objectives achieved with this reunion, but the most rewarding was seeing, Uncle Bob, Aunt Kathy, Aunt Rosemary, Uncle Bill and Aunt Janet having a great time as they enjoyed seeing the Spendley-Hayden family gather and have fun together as a family. We are disappointed that Aunt Janet had a medical emergency on Friday and couldn’t make it but the Senior Generation truly enjoyed the gathering and for all us committee members, we were thrilled that all of them had a chance to be a part of a special gathering of Spendley’s and Hayden’s.

Thanks to everyone who participated - if you have any thoughts or comments that you want to share with the next reunion committee - please do so by commenting on this blog below.