Two-thousand nine was a quiet but effective year for the Burgenland Bunch. Sixteen months have passed since the death of our founder, Gerry Berghold, yet this organization remains strong, useful and growing. The reasons for that strength are twofold: the dedication of the BB team of staff members and editors; and the interest of Burgenland descendants in learning about their ancestors and their homeland. I send my personal thanks to the BB staff; your voluntary efforts remain essential to the continuing development of the BB and its knowledge base.

Over the year, we added 88 new members, 193 entries to our Surname lists and 265 Query Board entries. In August 2009, we started a Facebook group called, not surprisingly, „The Burgenland Bunch Genealogy Group“ (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36029799990 ) and administered by staff member Steve Geosits; it already has 195 members, 56 pictures and frequent online discussions. Two Burgenland Bunch affiliates also started up in 2009: The Burgenland Bunch of Missouri, led by Ron Markland; and The Burgenland Bunch Midwest
( http://sites.google.com/site/bbmidwest  ), based in St. Paul, MN, and led by Charlie Deutsch.
In addition, we added two staff members to the BB team: Ron Markland joined as a Contributing Editor and the St. Louis, Missouri Regional Coordinator; and Emmerich Koller joined as the Hungarian Contributing Editor. Emmerich contributed greatly to the BB Newsletters during the year.

Speaking of the Newsletter, Editor Hannes Graf had a great year, producing interesting „themed“ newsletters in his very own style while maintaining many of the traditions established by Gerry Berghold. Hannes produced both email-based and HTML-based newsletters in 2009. If you looked at one of the online HTML web-based newsletters, you know that pictures are included and formatting of text is much better. In 2010, we will depart from the tradition of email-based Newsletters. Starting with this Newsletter, only an online, HTML-based newsletter will be produced. The email mailing list will be used only to remind you that the current Newsletter is available online at http://www.the-burgenland-bunch.org/Newsletter/Newsletter.htm  and that past newsletter can be found at http://www.the-burgenland-bunch.org/Newsletter/NewsletterIndex.htm .
Tom Steichen, BB President