With the Crossmen moving to Texas, this year marked the most interesting and challenging season the Crossmen Alumni Association has ever faced. There were some amazing examples of generosity from many of our fellow alums, but the challenge in growing our organization continues as we head into the future. More than ever before, the CAA is calling on all Crossmen alumni to contribute and get involved to help make the corps' return to independent status successful on and off the field, and more importantly, permanent.

Here is a summary of the year's CAA events and activities for 2007. Special thanks to CAA Treasurer Dawn Ball for compiling this report:

San Antonio Travel Fund
Now that the corps is home from tour, I thought this would be a good time to thank everyone for getting them to Texas to begin with. We received several letters of thanks from returning members to our alumni for contributing to the Travel Fund, including one from veteran Vinny Cataudella, 2005-2007...

“Allie & the CAA, Thanks a ton for your sponsorship to me to TX. Your support & guidance define what the Crossmen are all about and we are going to make you very proud this summer. See you on History Night!”

Vinny received a sponsorship from the CAA in the amount of $320. Allie Reedy spearheaded the effort to sponsor vets who needed financial assistance. Allie’s commitment to the corps helped 19 vets come back and participate in this new and exciting transformation of the Crossmen corps. The sponsorship for the horn line and drum line vets was $320. The color guard vets were offered $175 since they were not required to attend every camp. The CAA used a lollipop fundraiser to help provide an opportunity to raise money themselves by reselling 576 lollipops which cost the CAA $144. The pops came in a variety of flavors and if the vets chose this as part of their sponsorship, the CAA would order and ship the pops to the vets homes. For those choosing the lollipop fundraiser, the CAA would submit a check in addition to the cost of the lollipop fundraiser in the amount of $176 to complete the sponsorship. Our thanks to Allie Reedy for her dedication and leadership in making this a successful and organized sponsorship.

The Vets receiving sponsorship via the CAA were:

Nate Van Pelt – Eldersburg, MD
Vinny Cataudella – Shelton, CT
Justine Carroll – West Chester, PA
Garrett Dillon – Virgina Beach, VA
Jamie Tucker – Lincoln, NE
Leighann Fields – Folsom, PA
Mark Figueroa – Jackson, NJ
Jesse Pitzer – York, PA
Steven Fassnacht – Indiana, PA
Kimball Seebeck – Laurinburg, NC
Rob Nay – Woodbridge, VA
James Hyatt – Pocono Summit, PA
Matt Penlan – Laurinburg, NC
Dale Olney – Ephrata, PA
Katie Waldron – Upper Darby, PA
Kyle Bourdon – North Wales, PA
Nicole Nazelrod – Westinster, MD
Allison Lewis

Dedication and commitment came not only within the CAA organization, but many others poured out their pockets to help get these vets to San Antonio. Our thanks to everyone who joined in the effort to raise funds in support of our Vets:

James Boruch
Wendy & Chris Corkran
Scott Cummings
Carl Denslow
Jeanmarie Deserable
Margaret Duperreault
Glen & Diane Ebert
Marc Jacoby
Kevin Kasper, MD
Lorraine Kempf
Harry Malles
Kathy Martin
Marie O’Rourke
Jonathon Roberts
Robby and Charlotte Robinson
Claudia Schmitz
Peter and Melanie Simon
Scott Wheeler

We raised a total of $4743 falling short of only $1126 after $1584 in lollipop fundraisers in addition to vet sponsorships. We are glad to be part of such a great organization.


2007 Scholarship Awards
This year's Scholarship Event held in West Chester, PA back in March was a big hit. There was an overwhelming response of raffle items thanks to the efforts of this years chairperson, Michele Williams.

Over $1000 was donated in the form of gifts, restaurant gift cards, jewelry, and many other prizes for our raffle. The most organized event by far, thanks to coordinating of donation letters for area restaurants and generous donations including the food which was catered by Wild Blue Catering of King of Prussia, PA. This event from here on out will be much easier to organize thanks to Michele’s efforts this year.

We raised a total of $3936 with expenses of only $900. Scholarships were awarded at History Night on June 9th in San Antonio to six worthy and dedicated individuals. These individuals are:

Kristen Richard
Tyler Sammons
Dale Olney
Jamie Tucker
Nichole Nazelrod
Kaitlin Vetere

Thank you to all who attended and contributed to this very important annual Scholarship Event.

Memberships and Newsletters
Memberships are at a low. We have not had the resources to push alumni memberships. This is an area in which we are deeply in need. We are currently handling payments, recording of member information, preparing and mailing of acknowledgement letters and membership cards, updating the website membership page, as well as coordinating membership expiration and renewal reminders and organizing of the membership database which is in addition to the member database. We are currently looking at adding perks such as a member tee shirt. We have also lost our newsletter capabilities due to lack of volunteers to gather and organize information, print, email, and mail in a timely manner. In short, growing our membership in the alumni association and involvement in what we do for the corps is a major priority for 2008 and beyond.

Current membership list is 42, which includes 13 lifetime members.

Alumni Jackets
Alumni jackets yield a minimal profit. We may be able to get better pricing when ordering in large quantities. Average order is five jackets every six months. We are trying to accommodate alumni who want jackets, but the amount of time needed to coordinate and place the actual orders as well as shipping of the jackets is very time consuming and we need to explore other alternatives to be more profitable.

Jackets sold since September 2003 = 88. Total profit = $150

New Website Design Software
Some say that it was our website that made people start talking about the Crossmen Alumni Association. Wow! Five years ago, there was nothing out there to compare it to. And we owe a big thanks to Gary Cuzzocrea for making it happen. He customized our new look all on his own pocket. Gary financed that site for us up until only one year ago. His creativity brought us to a new era. Now, we are looking for help in expanding our site to be more functional for all -- users and well as administrators.

In April, 2007, we purchased a new site to begin our new journey. Under the direction of Steve White, alumnus 2002-2003, we purchased software named ArticleLive, which allows one person to act as administrator while others can be granted acess to login, write stories in a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor and post them for review by the administrator. The Administrator can then post articles to the website and edit the individual pages of the website without having to worry about using a program such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage. Steve has been very active in converting the old site to the new site and we are grateful for his time and expertise.
 
With regards to e-newsletter functionality, we are confident this software will allow us to fill the void of our quarterly newsletter, which is currently a perk with membership. You can set up multiple mailing lists so each decade rep can easily contact their segment while monthly updates can be sent to everyone. Our database is still growing, and given the right management, we could really benefit from this program. One great feature is the ability to set up forms for data collection. This will allow us to manage the alumni database while keeping in touch with all of them.

We are currently looking for assistance in this endeavor. Please email Gary or Rick if you are interested.

Other CAA Highlights for 2007
Here are some of the items purchased, donated, and/or events held, all in the name of the Crossmen and the Crossmen Alumni Association during the 2007 season so far.

  • July 2007 - Reached goal of raising $6000 to pay for guard silks
  • June 8, 2007 - A Lectronics Long Ranger 4-Portable Wireless PA system with carrying case was purchased for the staff use on the field. Purchase price $1500.
  • May 2007 - New website design software was purchased to help ease the burden of updating articles in a timely manner. Purchase price $400.