For a number of years, one CBS retiree, Les Burkhardt, who lives in Florida, has maintained and distributed periodically a list of E-mail addresses of all retirees he could locate. This has been a great aid to communication among many of us. Then, on July 16, 2000, Tony Cucurullo broadcast a message to Les's entire list under the subject heading "Tell us about your favorite character". Whether Tony expected the response he got or not, it was overwhelming, and Tony was soon distributing three or four messages every day to the entire list. A few recipients began to find the flood of messages annoying, and asked to be removed from the list, but a great many have been enjoying it immensely.

On July 26 (approximately) Bob Zagoren, one of those who had asked to be removed from the list, had an idea. Why not put all these stories on a website so everyone can look at them at their leisure? Bob called me (Adrian Ettlinger) because he knew I'd had some experience at website design, and we brought Les into the discussion. After some discussion among the three of us, Les called Tony (who after all had started this whole thing), and Tony liked the idea, so the four of us are proceeding to fund the site for one year, and I'm getting it started. Once it's established, it will be maintained by Les as webmaster.

Les also discussed the plans with Freddie Schutz, who we are all indebted to for having administered the group for many years, and who is the arranger of all the lunches. Freddie has agreed that the Association will fund the site after the first year. Freddie intends to cut back on the size of his mailing list because the website will reach all those who are Internet-connected.

Plans for the site are flexible. The original purpose is to serve as one location for the accumulation of the reminiscences and other comments submitted by retirees. The list of sections has since expanded to serve the general needs of the Association.
Adrian Ettlinger -------Aug. 15, 2000

Suggestions will be welcome from anyone, and should be directed to the Webmaster@www.cbsretirees.com