Class Reunion Planning 101 (High School or College Reunions)

A friend of this blog asked me today if planning a class reunion was similar to planning a family reunion. "Well," I answered, "planning a class reunion is no picnic." I believe school reunions are more challenging than family reunions. And I believe family reunions, for the most part, are just that - "picnics." 1. Class reunions are much larger. My class, for example, was 620 people, and it's a huge management effort to coordinate communication, databases, bank accounts, ticket sales, teams of people, etc. Planning the class reunion is a big management gig. 2. Classmates are not connected by family ties and therefore are not easily found, especially when women marry and change their names. That, in itself, makes a huge difference. Thankfully we have social networking tools - huge resources for finding classmates - like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Classmates.com, and Google to find people. 3. Once we found the right location, (in our case a hotel with...

Why agonize about party favors for a class reunion? There are many ideas to kick around if you want to give everyone a little memento of the occasion . Make your decision based on the fact that a good percentage of them get left behind on the table. Why is that? It's mostly because people are milling around, saying a thousand good-byes at the end of the night. They are not at their tables, sitting like good little guests. They have long forgotten their goody bags or engraved mugs, and are probably too buzzed to care. That said, let's talk about some sweet ideas that don't cost too much. Our class had a lot of talented musicians who rocked out at the Battle of the Bands and the school dances. Some did covers. Others wrote their own songs. We are asking classmates to send music from their bands in any format to our engineering genius Larry. He's going to compress the music and put it out on a CD, and that will be our party favor, complete with a nice label. Again this req...

For the most part, people put themselves out there. They paste their pictures all over Facebook .com, share their family photos on Shutterfly .com, and put their entire resumes on LinkedIn .com. Twitter.com will tweet every last breath you take if you let it: "What are you doing now?" "I'm breathing." It's all voluntary. It's all good fun, and it's a great way to let people know you're still alive and well. With the special interest groups, you can direct people's attention to favorite charities, important public events, (like the reunion) and track your favorite celebrity's page. But there are some people who have no interest in social networking and prefer to remain private. They have not succumbed to the idea of Twittering their private thoughts in 50 characters or less. And some don't want to have anything to do with the reunion. So be cautious about posting private information on the class website when you have control of it. Re...

Lou posted a comment after the article Should I Be the One to Organize the Reunion? about all the fun activities he planned for the entire reunion weekend I agree. Why limit the reunion to four hours on a Saturday night? Make an entire weekend of it, making it especially worthwhile for those who have traveled a great distance and may be staying in the hotel. Here are some ideas to extend the festivities: 1. A Friday night pre-party bash. It could be simply drinks at the hotel lounge or a pot-luck picnic at a local picnic grove. Perhaps you'll want to get together at a local hangout of 'yore. Create a simple "pay as you go" experience for those who wish to attend. No reservations. No money collected in advance. Keep it simple and have fun. 2. Saturday morning. Be creative. Plan a golf outing, a hike, a basketball pickup game at the courts, a brunch, a trip to the zoo or a botanical garden. Small groups can assemble for inexpensive get-togethers. Find creative, inexpen...

A contract is a legally binding agreement between you and the venue, be it a hotel, a restaurant, a resort, a caterer or other organization that's providing services . You will be committing to pay for "x" number of people at "y" price. If your contract specifies a minimum number of people that you guarantee, then you will be responsible to pay for that number. So if our minimum is 125 people and only 100 show up, the signer(s) of the contract is/are responsible for paying for those 25 people. At say, $50.00 a head, that would be $1250.00 you would still owe the venue. You don't have to pay tax for those 25 people, nor the tip (as much as 21%) on those 25 people. But you do have to come up with $1250.00 This is why negotiating to lower the minimum number of people to hold the room is very important. Now suppose you have a reunion planned and a contract signed and for some unforeseeable reason you have to cancel it. Well guess what? You are still responsibl...

Your contract with your venue represents an agreement between the you (or your team) and the facility/venue. It outlines the specific conditions and services to be provided. Most contracts are negotiatiable so think of it as a "work in progress" that can be changed and adapted based on several conversations with your Event Sales Manager. And keep in mind that during these times of economic uncertainty, venues are tending to be very flexible. The idea is to create terms with which both sides are happy. So don't feel like you have to sign the very first document they put in front of you. I remember our last contract went through about 5 revisions back and forth before we signed. The following are points that can be negotiated: 1. The rate and the number of hotels rooms that will be held as a block for the classmates. Go for the lowest price you can and compare the price to other hotels in the area. The more rooms you can hold the better, depending on how large your class si...

The place for the reunion is much more than a box to house "x" number of people for a party. Think about the following when you choose your location. 1. Keep your location relatively close to your school location, say within 20 miles. 2. Consider the advantage of having the reunion in a hotel that can accommodate people before, during and after the party. This is particularly helpful for classmates coming from a distance. 3. While the room isn't going to make or break the party, be aware of dingy lighting, run down appearances and by all means, check out the rest rooms to make sure they meet your expectations . 4. If you expect to serve liquor and food, make sure the menu suits your needs and don't forget that tax and gratuities must be added to the price per person. 5. Does that hotel offer other venues for getting together? Bars/pubs/lounges for Friday night. Restaurant services for brunches in the morning. You may want to schedule a whole weekend of activities ce...