Dear Members of NEEM, I would like to briefly report on our first event, held on Tuesday of last week.

NEBO was a welcoming venue for our pizza party. We had the entire front of the restaurant, including bar space, tables & chairs and lots of room to mingle. After our cocktail hour, 8 pizzas arrived. (6 different kinds) It appeared to be just about right, as only one slice was left over. And I quickly devoured it. For our after-party, 7 of our 15 guests walked down Hanover Street and stopped in at Caffe Vittoria. There, we had fancy coffees and Italian pastries. It was a good place to get better acquainted.

I'd like to thank all 48 people for ultimately replying 'yes' or 'no' to this event. It shows a great deal of interest. A few days before the event, 25 people were recorded as 'yes' and there was a waiting list of 5. So the last 3 days produced a lot of switches to 'no'. The main reasons I could ascertain were "had to work late" and "didn't feel well." I think our main lesson here is to not get discouraged if an event is full-up and there's a waiting list. At least for these large 'meet 'n' greet' events, the odds are that if you get on the waiting list, you will be called in.

The membership has now risen to 131 in just over 6 weeks since we started. I'm working on scheduling our 2nd event, which will also be a meet 'n' greet for approximately 20 people. As promised to a number of members, it will be on a weekend. With most not working then and the weather warming up, we'll hope for less people switching their responses from 'yes' to 'no'. I enjoyed making some new, interesting friends last week and thanks much to those who took the time to comment about the event on the website. Hope to meet more of you soon.

Jim