November 13, 1997 Dear Friends Member, THIS IS A SPECIAL LETTER AND WE NEED YOUR RESPONSE. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY THEN TELL US YOUR OPINION! We've enclosed information recently made public by the Gettysburg National Military Park during the announcement of its selection of a proposal and partners for the new Museum/Visitors Center complex at Gettysburg. Your Board of Directors voted to send it to you by 1st Class mail because of its importance, both to the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg and the Gettysburg National Military Park. Please give it your most careful and thoughtful consideration and take the time to provide us with your input as we're requesting. Contrary to some press reports, the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg has made no decision relative to our ultimate support or non-support of the NPS's recently selected proposal. We are an organization of members from across the country working together on behalf of the national parks at Gettysburg. Your Board of Directors would not consider making such an important decision without our members' input. The organization is yours, thus the decision on what FNPG does or does not support is yours. We must hear from you in order to formulate the official position of the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg on this issue. Friends members' input is very important to the Gettysburg National Military Park as well. FNPG is the only preservation/park support group with an official Memorandum of Agreement governing the various facets of our relationship with the park. As such, our opinion carries a lot of weight. But, even if we set aside the fact of the MOA, our mission, ". .. . to support, protect and enhance . . . the resources associated with the national parks at Gettysburg," remains the same and our work on and in behalf of the park will continue. FNPG has raised and spent many thousands of dollars on a myriad of park projects. We've done more than any other preservation group has ever done for the Gettysburg National Military Park. We've had a friendly, and highly successful relationship so it's extremely important that the park have our input on this critical issue. Please read, and re-read, the materials we've provided here. Then use the enclosed response form and reply envelope to give us your opinion. Send your response to us postmarked no later than January 15, 1998 in order for it to be included in our final tally of member input. We intend to provide the results, and any comments you care to add, to the Gettysburg National Military Park, and to use them to formulate our official position on the new Museum/Visitors Center complex. Urge your friends to access Friends' web site, http://www.concordia.net/friends/, to see the contents of this mailing and other pertinent information we're posting about the Museum/Visitors Center complex and give their written input to the Gettysburg National Military Park. We do want your input and postmarked no later than January 15, 1998. Please take the time to carefully study these materials and return the response form telling us what you think. Thank you. Sincerely, Earl J. Coates President P.S. If you have questions about the proposed Museum/Visitors Center complex which we haven't answered in these materials, please call us at 717-334-0772, Monday- Friday, 8:30 AM--5:00 PM, or e-mail us at FNPG@mail.cvn.net. Please use Visitors Center as the subject. We'll try to answer as promptly as we can.