I wanted you all to know how much of a success the Thanksgiving Dinner was. We had about 31 people brave the pouring rain (can't have a DECplus event without bad weather) to bring all sorts of great food. Between the shrimp, turkey, ham, salad, squash, fresh baked bread, pie, cake, steamed beans, potatoes, stuffed olives, and let us not forget.....Sunny D, we all went away with a full stomach and smiles on our faces.

Once people started to arrive we had plenty of time to relax and talk. So many people showed up with new lovers and then there were those who have been in long term relationships. My my my.... what a time for chatting. New people also arrived, along with representatives from EMC Corporation and Bose! All in all it was a great time to talk before dinner.

But there were some who spent a LOT of time in the kitchen getting everything prepared. A special thanks goes to Penny, Pat and E for the help they gave in getting everything set up for everyone else. E even went out in the pouring rain to save the gravy! And thanks to Nancy Harvey who was able to pull this whole thing together and get a wide variety of food at the event!

Then came dinner time. It was great. Lots of food, lots of great people to spend the time with. Life doesn't get any better.

Once we were done with the meal and E's tour of the meeting house, we had some business to attend to.

We started off with mentioning....ok, begging for people to take over the eboard of DECplus as none of the members currently on it will be returning. This is something we are really hoping will happen as there is still much to do.

Then Tom Morgan, from the EMC group GLEE made an announcement. EMC will announce on Tuesday that they are offering Domestic Partner Benefits! At that point the crowd broke out in clapping and cheering! Tom also mentioned that DECplus played a role in them obtaining the benefits.

Allan Copeland, President of the Bose group MELODY then spoke about what was happening at Bose. He mentioned that the company is getting ready to offer their group money to help keep it going once they reach 20 people. He made mention that while right now their group is working for their own goals for the b/g/l/t community, their #1 goal is to get all groups to fall under 1 category. No one being any better than anyone else. What a concept, eh?

Then an announcement was made about a new business alliance. The group is being formed between Bose, Digital, EMC and Intel for the purpose of having a central location where New England companies can go to when they want to build b/g/l/t groups within their own company. What steps they need to go through when working with HR on issues such as adding sexual orientation into the bylaws, or obtaining Domestic Partner Benefits. With big name corporations joining the list of names, it will help show where mainstream America should be. Other companies which may be joining are: Hewlett Packard, Teradyne and possibly Bank of Boston. From there who knows how big we will grow. We know our goal is to get all companies in New England to be fair to all of the b/g/l/t employees they have. The name of the group was chosen by Allan Copeland of Bose. It is:

The Gay Alliance of Corporate New England..... or Gay Acne. :-) There were several other names that were tossed about, and then some which never made it to the meeting. Had Tom Barry brought them, who knows what would have happened. These names are:

• Business Alliance of Boston - Superstars! = BABS!
• Gay Alliance in New England Diversity = GAINED
• Business of New England Diversity = BONED
• Business Alliance Group of Gay Etc. Diversity = BAGGED
• Diversity B Us

All in all it was quite the fun night. For those who did not make it, you really missed an incredible time. There is always next year!!!!!!!

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