The reunion is less than two weeks away, and the last day to purchase raffle tickets at the discounted rate is on May 20th (midnight CST).  Why wait until you are in Tucson?  Put your order in now, and they will be ready and waiting for you when you check-in!

Pre-Reunion Purchase Price	Reunion Purchase Price
3 Tickets/$5.00	2 Tickets/$5.00
8 Tickets/$10.00	5 Tickets/$10.00
25 Tickets/$25.00	20 Tickets/$25.00

Because Friday is the night that most people arrive at the hotel – looking forward to seeing everyone and not exactly sure what they are going to do for the evening, we have our Friday Night Opening Reception (FOR). 

FOR has evolved over the years since ABI incorporated.  Previous contracts provided free drinks for an hour or two with perhaps some pretzels – or we received drink tickets to distribute.  Hotel contracts have changed.  This year we negotiated $4,000 back to the master account with a minimum charge to the master account of $30,000.  We were pretty sure this was something we could accomplish.

We are pleased to announce that in addition to the $4,000 back from the hotel, we have several generous donations that we decided to put toward FOR.  Aramco Services donated $10,000, ABI authorized up to $20,000, the La Paloma Two Night Raffle brought in $740, an anonymous Brat donated $2,000, and another anonymous Brat donated $500.

We are applying $25,000 from these donations to food at FOR.  This equals $35.71 per person. 

Keep in mind that food might not be offered at FOR the next reunion, since we rely solely on donations to fund food for this event.

We hope you agree that this is the best start to a reunion yet!

Don't wait a minute longer.  The Tucson Reunion Committee can't wait to host us and they want you to know that the hotel requires an accounting for the number of banquet attendees prior to the reunion, and you may not get to participate if you wait to register on-site.

Are you having issues registering?  If so, please contact Dawn at dawn@aramco-brats.com and she will get you straigtened out.  Please also note that we will shut down on-line registration at midnight (CST) May 20th so that we can get everything ready for you in Tucson.

Speaking of registration....

Did you sit at your computer getting ready to register, shaking your head wondering why your registration fee is $77.00?  What exactly does it pay for? 

The Reunion Committee develops a budget that has to be finalized so the registration fee can be set before we go live with registration in January.  This fee covers many things that you will receive and experience at the reunion.  This year, $55.00 goes toward your meal at the Sunday Night Banquet.  This negotiated price is considerably less than prices offered on their website.

The other $22.00 is your share of goodies distributed to you when you arrive (we could tell you about all of these, but it would spoil the surprise), lanyards and name tags, karaoke for Saturday night, a band for Sunday night, garage band equipment rental, canteen equipment and games, computer rental, hired personnel to handle registration and the raffle/auction, photo booth, table decorations (somebody at your table gets to take it home), volunteer gifts, door prizes, signage, the reunion newsletter, and miscellaneous supplies. 

This year we based our budget on 700 attendees.  An anonymous Brat donated $5,000 which was applied to the reunion budget. This equaled $7.14 less per person.  Without this donation you would have paid $84.14 registration fee.  Thank you Anonymous for subsidizing the cost for all of us!

We used an online randomizer to pick 15 winners for the Comp Night Drawing. All winners were notified via email Tuesday morning. Our favorite response was from Damian: "Yippee! Thank you so much for the great news! I believe this is the first time I've won anything like this so again "yippee" & look forward to seeing you all! "

There might be a few more to distribute, but we won't know that until reunion weekend when the hotel provides us with our final room block count. Congratulations to:

Christine Faye Crawford-Oppenheimer
Anna Prusinski Gertz
Tina Marie Clausen
Karen Morrow
Damian Drum Collins
Victoria Fate-Gorrell
Whitney Hart-Baglin
Rise B. Johansen-Ryan
E. Ralph Robertson
Monica de Barcza
Amber Perkins
Michelle Fink
William J. Mathe III
Tor Hermannsson
Sandra Kerr Louchard

Imagine planning a birthday party where you expect 100 people to attend.  On the night of the event, 250 people show up.  Please do not wait until you arrive at the reunion to register.  It is important that we have close to accurate counts for various activities and surprises planned that cost money.  Some might not even be available to you if you aren't registered before the reunion as we have to give guarantees to the hotel in advance.  We have received some reports that people are having difficulty registering for the reunion.  We are sorry about that. Please contact our Webmaster Dawn Kolb at dawn@aramco-brats.com.  She will be glad to help you get registered.

We have also noticed that many brats have reservations at the hotel, but have not registered.  Please remember to cancel your reservation if you are unable to attend the reunion.  Please note that the hotel has a 7 day cancellation policy.  If you need to cancel you must do so at least 7 days prior to your arrival date to avoid penalty.  If you cancel inside of 7 days, the hotel will charge a (1) night room & tax deposit to your credit card.

If you have not yet registered for the reunion, please do so this weekend so you can get your choice of reunion shirts/sizes.  After this weekend we will run out of some of  the style and size options.  So do it NOW or you could end up with a small women's v-neck instead of the XXL polo you were wanting.  Picture yourself in that predicament!  Please go to The 14th Biennial Reunion Event Page, register and get yourself covered…  We don't want to see you in that way too small shirt!

"This smells just like _____!"