In 2016, former congressman Barney Frank with husband Jim Ready was our guest speaker. Barney told us about his ‘coming out while still in congress and answered all questions.

A: NO. While we all believe our family is important and you may have a really great family, not everyone at the celebration will feel comfortable with your family around. The A Celebration of Friends weekend is designed as a social outlet for the mature man and his admirers. It is a social adult weekend for males over the age of twenty-one. Sorry, women and children are not allowed.

A: Whether you realize it or not, wearing the name badge and wrist band is for your own protection.

Wearing a name badge is just common courtesy so people who don't know you well will be able to identify you and re-identify you. It also makes it easy for hotel staff to identify you as being part of this group, so they can police outsiders and protect their guests.

A: Whether you realize it or not, wearing the wrist band is for your own protection.

Wearing the ACOF wrist bands are important for several reasons:

• It allows the ACOF and Hotel staff to know that you are part of the Celebration and have a right to be on the hotel grounds. Contrary to the thoughts of many, the hotel is not a public place where anyone may enter and participate. It is a private business open to the public, leaving access and control to the proprietor. Without the wristband, anyone there who isn’t a patron is considered a trespasser and/or vagrant and the hotel has the right to have them removed.
• Our insurance company asks us to make sure our people are wearing the wristbands. Before we made wearing wrist bands mandatory, one hotel tried to force us into paying for 900 daily breakfasts they served, even though we only had 600 attendees.
• Some people try to come to the Celebration without paying and they are usually the ones who disobey the rules and get the rest of us in trouble. They have nothing vested and consequently nothing to lose if they get kicked off property. We've been to a couple of hotels where people who were not part of our group tried to upset the apple cart and embarrass the hotel staff and other guests. The only reason our reputation was protected was because the folks causing the commotion were not wearing ACOF wrist bands.
• It entitles you to be at the hotel and receive all of the benefits of the ACOF such as morning breakfast, nightly happy hour, use of the pool and lobby area, reduced drink prices, free bus rides into town, entry into nightly ball room entertainment, among other benefits.

A: This is a step by step guide on how to register on the website and then subscribe to the Celebration.

1. On the home page, click on the box with the title "On-line Registration." You will be directed to a site with a blank form. This is the website registration. Fill out this form to register for the A Celebration of Friends. (All information is strictly confidential.)
2. Once the form is completely filled out hit the "Submit" button to pay your registration fee though PayPal.
3. Upon successful registration, the person should be taken to a page where the first line of text should be "Success" followed by "Hey there, YOUR NAME!" (Where "your name" is the first Name and Last Name provided in the registration form.) Seeing this page is indicative that you are registered on the website.
4. Once payment is complete, you are both registered on the website and registered for the Celebration.