Thank you for coming to the Reunion

[Chi Pham]

Thank you everybody for coming to our Wellpark 30 year reunion last Sunday 8/31/2008 specially those from out of town like LA, Northern California, Seattle, Texas, Montreal, London, Scotland and New Zealand. Also thanks to those couldn’t make it but contributed their time to our web site like Mike Newton (for writing the wonderful rescue story which inspired me to write my recollection of my journey to freedom) and those who contributed money toward the reunion fund. I will post the attendant list and the donor list to the web site soon.

Congratulation to Elaine Lam for winning the auction bid of the Rescue Painting with Captain Connell’s signature for $1,000. Stephen Tu Ngo for the handmade Lacquer Painting with Abalone Inlay of the Wellpark ship for $1,050; He later gave to Craig Holmes who was the Deck Cadet at the time of the rescue. Marcie Nguyen aka Vu Thanh Ha for the Glass Plaque etched of the South China Sea map where we got rescued by Wellpark for $400. The money will go to toward our book fund to help reduce the cost of the book when come out in the next few months.

I had a lot of fun that day and beautiful memories of the reunion to keep for life but most important making new and renew my friendship with many of you. Six hours was too short to catch up 30 years went by. I don’t know about you but for me I regret I didn’t have enough time to go around and spent more time with many people but I hope we will keep in touch through the reunion website.

Since none of us the committee took any of the pictures at the reunion but I have seen at least 15 cameras blinking that day, please share your pictures or video on the site for everyone to view. We hired a camera man and photographer to take picture of the event. They are out of town on their next project until next Thursday so as soon as the pictures are ready we will post them on the web.

Our next project is to get the book “Journey to Freedom” completed to send to the printer in the next month or so. We still need your story for our book as we don't just want to have a nice picture book, but would like to turn it into a written document that tells the story of how we all left and survived the trip out of Vietnam on a 20 meter wooden boat in South China Sea. Hopefully by reading the story of how 346 people survived on a tiny boat stacked up like sardines will help our children appreciate freedom and the many benefits they now take for granted.

Please write down your thoughts, your memories of the events that occurred 30 years ago and also tell us how you are doing now. Please email them to me at [e-mail] by Oct 15, 2008.