wellesley magazine
WCAA
WINTER 2014
41
UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN This magazine is published quarterly by the Wellesley College Alumnae Association, an autonomous corporate body, independent of the College. The Association is dedicated to connecting alumnae to the College and to each other.
Tips for a Traveling Mini-Reunion
WCAA Board of Directors President Karen Williamson ’69
MEE-SEEN LOONG
Treasurer/Secretary Martha Goldberg Aronson ’89
The red class of ’72 poses on a Tuscan hillside.
spent 10 glorious days under the Tuscan (and Ligurian) sun, on a mini-reunion to top all mini-reunions. Billed as “The Insider’s Tour of Italy,” the trip was organized by Sally Phelps Smith ’72 and Sandy Ferrari Disner ’72, who both had local family and other ties. Forty classmates, sans husbands or partners, were responsible for getting to Florence on their own, but from there, every detail was covered by Smith and Disner—all meals, accommodations, transportation, and siteseeing. The group spent five days in Tuscany, with trips to Florence, a Franciscan monastery, Medici castles, and a
LAST SUMMER, THE CLASS OF ’72
leather-crafts workshop. Piling into four nine-person vans, they then drove to Liguria, where they visited a marble quarry, an archaeology museum, and the ancestral village of Disner’s parents. How did 40 women who hadn’t all known each other beforehand get along for 10 days? “Beautifully,” says participant Mary Lane Stevens. Classmate Sue Sarvay concurs. “Forty years on,” she says, “it was so much fun to share new experiences—the art, the food, the history, the scenery, the motor-vehicle mishaps (!)—with those who knew us ‘when.’ We'll have much to laugh about at the next reunion."
Co-organizer Sandra Disner offers some tips for those wanting to duplicate the experience:
! Keep the price low enough to fit into everyone’s budget, but high enough to permit some wonderful treats, such as our farewell banquet in Malaspina Castle, a tasting of the local wines, and a ferry ride. When all was said and done, we came in under our $60,000 budget ($1,500 x 40 participants) by exactly $7.90! ! Plan every meal. One cannot simply show up with a group of 40 and expect to be seated in short order. I wondered whether my group would balk at my taking over the menu selection, but they didn’t. In fact, some expressed delight at having “unfamiliar, and simply delicious, local dishes show up, magically, at every restaurant stop.” ! Use your local contacts. ! Make a (laminated) list of people’s food allergies. I wish I had done this, but instead I recited a litany of “one no garlic;
two no crustaceans; one crustaceans but no mussels…” at every dinner. ! Provide a reading list. These are Wellesley women, after all, and they love to read! ! Plan an ice-breaker early in the trip. Sally Smith wrote a riotously funny Medici Murder Mysteryy (with some help from our bestselling mystery author, Sheila Connolly) and even brought a suitcase full of costumes. The murder mystery got everyone familiar with one another—as we debated the question of “whodunit”—in the course of a single evening. ! Tap into local feasts and celebrations. We were fortunate enough to be in Liguria during the feast of Corpus Christi. We all marched in the procession and felt very much a part of the community. ! Have group members post photos on a website.
Katherine Collins ’90 Yolette Garcia ’77 Ginger Horne Kent ’76 Suzanne Lebold ’85 Beth McKinnon ’72 Mari Myer ’83 Elizabeth Preis ’91, chair of the Wellesley Fund Yang Qiu ’08 Patience Singleton Roach ’92, chair of Alumnae Admissions Representatives Jamie Scarborough ’87 Cheryl Seraile ’81 Shelley Sweet ’67 Susan Richards Windham-Bannister ’72 Ex officiis Susan Challenger ’76 Alice M. Hummer Alumnae Trustees Ruth Chang ’81 Sandra Polk Guthman ’65 Kristine Holland de Juniac ’72 JudyAnn Rollins Bigby ’73 Diamond Sharp ’11 Alumnae Association Senior Staff Executive Director Susan Challenger ’76 Director of Alumnae Events Heather MacLean Director of Alumnae Groups Susan Lohin Director of Alumnae Marketing and Communications Liz Carey Financial Administrator Audrey Wood