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The Bagpiper
A Reminder—For
those who may not know—or remember—our family
newsletter evolved from the announcement letters
leading up to our family gathering in Wichita in
June 2001. To stimulate interest in the upcoming
reunion later mailings included bits of Scottish
history that pertained to Erwins, as well as
insights of the Erwin family in the 1700s and 1800s.
Several
mailings were made, starting in June 2000, and by
March 2001 the simple single-page letter had grown
into a seven-page newsletter titled simply
Reunion 2001.
One of the questions asked on the post-reunion
questionnaire was whether the newsletter should
continue, and if so, would family members contribute
news items, trivia, etc. The answer was an
enthusiastic yes to continuing the newsletter, and a
number of family members volunteered to act as
reporters. The response was reported in the
post-reunion follow-up newsletter in August, and a
general format of the proposed organ was outlined as
well.
The first issue of
The Bagpiper
was mailed in November 2001, and succeeding issues
have been sent out at the end of each calendar
quarter. The stated aim of our family newsletter is
to generate interest in our family heritage, as well
as to report family news to our extended family
members. An editorial in the first issue emphasized
that our extended family included—at that time—over
500 surnames dating back to the time of Sir William
de Irwyn, and that there were undoubtedly hundreds
of interesting stories and anecdotes about our
collateral families and their individual members. It
was felt that we, as a group, had a tremendous
reserve of potential material for future issues of
our newsletter. Thus your editor committed to eight
issues, which meant through 2002 and 2003.
At first there was a good response
from family members. Several individuals wrote
articles for
The Bagpiper,
while others notified the editor when births,
deaths, marriages, graduations, etc., occurred. As
time passed, however, it became increasingly
necessary to solicit this information. I have
enjoyed putting the newsletter together, but it
became increasingly difficult to come up with
suitable and interesting content to fill the
seventeen pages of our newsletter (the number of
pages in the two-ounce postage rate). By the
beginning of 2004 it was becoming difficult to think
of continuing, but by then we were preparing for
Reunion 2004...not
a good time to stop.
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