eclectic_boy

This afternoon I was at the Alumni Office on some Swarthmore Connection business and finally remembered to look through the binders they keep of all the announcements for past events held in the twenty-some cities where we have Connections -- I wanted to mine them for ideas for Philly-area events to run this Spring. After a little searching (the admin assistant was out today) we were only able to come up with two: the binder for 2005 and the one for 1997. Trish let me borrow them both, and I've just been reading them now. And wow, are they eye-opening.
Where now no city does more than eight events a year (not counting book clubs and happy hours), and attendance of 20-30 is considered good, 50 spectacular, in 1997 NYC held 14 events, Philadelphia 13, and a Washington DC trip to an Orioles game had 133 people at it! I'm still only halfway through this 1997 binder so who knows whether I'll find anything else amazing, but it's clear that I've got a big job ahead of me to make the current Connections approach those of the Age Of Legends...

Oh, and unrelatedly I'm posting this from outside the (closed, but the wifi still works) East Cheltenham Library, where I walked from my parents' house. It's Friday the Thirteenth, there's a full moon, and the streets are filled with fog. Glad I have some appropriate music playing in my head :^)