Fleet Plan of the Day
- Details
- Brad Williamson
- REGROUPEX 17 - 680
The reunion wheels are starting to turn! REGROUPEX 17 is really happening!
Interest is starting to build among your shipmates. Seventeen of us have already indicated that we are planning to attend, and one of us (me!) has already made hotel reservations for September 1-4th, 2017 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Florida.
The beautiful Shingle Creek Resort, twelve minutes from the Orlando International Airport and only a few more from Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and many other area attractions, has been chosen as the location for both REGROUPEX 17, and the USSVI annual convention, so there will be other boat reunions, conference activities and speakers, and sub-related merchandise vendors, as well as many planned activities for boat sailors, spouses and families.
The room rate for the convention is a reasonable $105.00 per night plus taxes, if you make your reservation through the USSVI.org website , or use the group code GRPUSSVI.
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- Details
- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
Some of the more astute of you may have already discovered the list of plank owners on the SSN-680.org website under Quarters >> Plank Owners. It’s been there for a while, but has been incomplete for far too long.
The good news is, through the efforts of Terry Fessner and myself, we have finally taken the information from the Plank Owners plaque, correlated it with the Commissioning booklet (Logroom >> Ship’s Archive’s >> Ship’s Brochures - Commissioning Brochure [thanks to Phil Saul and others]) and updated the profiles of all 121 shipmates assigned to the Bates on May 5, 1973.
That means the the Plank Owner’s list is relatively complete, more or less, minus a couple of profiles that still need to be created, and plus a handful of shipmates assigned to the Bates before commissioning but transferred off before May 5, 1973.
- Details
- Brad Williamson
- REGROUPEX 17 - 680
Time to take this reunion planning to the next level, and that means getting each one of you to go to the ssn-680.org website and indicate if you would attend REGROUPEX 17!
So here’s the deal.
REGROUPEX 17 - an all-hands reunion 01 SEP - 04 SEP 2017 in Orlando, FL at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel concurrent with the USSVI convention and other boat reunions.
PRICE - yet to be determined, and it will be influenced by the response. More commitments, lower cost. Expect something in the neighborhood of $75 to maintain the reunion suite and keep it stocked with refreshing beverages and succulent treats while we lounge around spinning sea stories. Additionally, you’ll pay for your room, cost of which is unknown at this point.
- Details
- Brad Williamson
- REGROUPEX 17 - 680
There is a hint of reunion in the air. A good idea, long overdue, is coming together. Enough of you have expressed interest to motivate me to push this forward.
We really haven't established anything more than the possibility at this point, but it's looking like Labor Day weekend of 2017 in Orlando, FL, with the USSVI Annual Convention might be a real possibility.
Check the Scuttlebutt in the Reunion Planning forum for conversation as this evolves. Look for updates through the P.O.D., Facebook groups, and the occasional Familygram.
I'll keep you posted!
- Details
- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
Some of you are on the dink list, and you know what that means. No libs tonight!
If you fall dink in maintaining your email address current, I find out when I run a periodic newsletter, and guess what, it's that time again.
I'm reminding you, in the sweetest tone of voice possible, to keep your user profile up-to-date, you jack-wagons!. It is especially important to update your email when you change service providers or jobs. Your email address lets us keep you informed with the Familygram newsletter, and without a current email, you can't access the site if you forget your password, so it has to be accurate. But you are the only one that can keep it current.
- Details
- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
“My heroes have always been cowboys, and they still are, it seems...”, the old country song laments.
Which is true for me, to a degree, because I have always had great respect for the ‘cowboy code’, and growing up in the high desert of West Texas with saddles and six-guns (really!) certainly helped. There have been athletes, intellectuals, and a few others as well whose characteristics and attributes I admired and even emulated, but I never thought of them as ‘heroes’, if you know what I mean.
The real heroes in my life are those people whose investment in my life, intentional or otherwise, changed who I was and molded me into who I am today. These are the people that I consider myself obligated to simply because I like who I have become as a result of their attention and tutelage.
- Details
- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
I was in my office earlier today, uploading Frank Allen’s photos from the 2007 Amoeba Races down at Terry Stanley’s farm in Amsterdam, Missouri. I didn’t make that one, or the one back in ’98, but two years later a gaggle of shipmates (it is a gaggle, right?) from the early eighties got together in San Diego for REGROUPEX09. Maybe it’s a goat-rope of shipmates. It could be a section of shipmates, or better yet, a bar-crawl of shipmates. To tell the truth, I’m not really sure, but I digress.
My point was, that looking through the photos, I remembered what a great time we had when we got together. From the photos from the Amoeba Races, that seems to be true whenever Bates sailors cross paths, and that got me thinking of a reunion again.
It’s been eight years now, and I guess it’s up to me to get the ball rolling. So I jumped on the USSVI website, and guess what? The 2017 USSVI National Convention will be held at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel in Orlando, Florida next year from August 31st to September 5th. That, my friends, is a sign!
