Originally Posted By LVBelle Anyone know anything about planning or organizing high school reunions? This year is supposed to be our tenth and no one's done anything about it. I was on student council my senior year so everyone's been bugging me about it but it's hard being out of town and trying to pull things together I'm organizing a get together/planning weekend for when I'm back home for Easter. A few of us are spreading the word to get a team together but I have no idea what to do with these people once I have them gathered! Any input is appreciated! Thanks!
Originally Posted By Pixie Glitter I can't help you much with actual reunion activities, but Classmates.com seems to have a pretty good class reunion message board.
Originally Posted By ReadingMom A few years ago I was on the planning committee for my 25th high school reunion. We relied heavily on classmates.com as well as word of mouth. We also place ads in the local paper. Our class had 10 year, 20 year and 25 year reunions. 2oony and I went to all three of them and had a blast. (I graduated with people I was in kindergarten with.) If you have the reunion at a hotel or restaurant they usually have a banquet coordinator that is of great help. The one thing that is really important is to keep an up-to-date spreadsheet with names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail. Also....send "lost classmates" lists to everyone you have an address or e-mail for. So many people that I graduated left the SF Bay Area and moved to the Central Valley. This was a big challenge for us. If you need any help, please don't hesitate to let me know. Good luck!
Originally Posted By SuzieQ I'll 3rd Classmates.com. I'm out of touch with my graduating class, but we use it to keep in touch with my husbands. Typically, a holiday weekend near the high school gives a good turn out. People visit family and have time to travel
Originally Posted By melekalikimaka <<we use it to keep in touch with my husbands.>> Just how many husbands do you *have*? ;-)
Originally Posted By vbdad55 Worked with a team of 7 others o put on our 30th high school reunion 5 years ago. LOTS OF WORK ! We met every week for a year and the last 2 months 2x per week. Seprate tasks for separate people, but assign 1 person as coordinator: Do not let 'planning group' grow to large and unwieldy Ensure those on it really want to work for this -everyone has to be in synch We set up a dinner / banquet room at local hotel - NOTE: you have to sign contracts etc. - so you have to get money. Use classmates.com ( they can set up 1 - 2 people as coordinators on there also) - but refer people to there to help you get new addresses / phones etc - for small fee 1 or 2 have to upgrade to gold status Start collecting monies 1 year in advance ( so you can put deposits on rooms / entertainment etc) - also have money for supplies to make name badges - get school colored decortations, secure photographers / videographers. set up a separate bank account ( with 2 officers only having access - so you can account for the money ) - we had a member who was a bank vp and set this up for us for no fee you will need a still photographer and a videographer - and they are not cheap - even though they will make lots of money the 8 of us handled - emcee duties / we put together 4 skits ( and reheared a lot) - everything from a cheerleader skit - where we had former cheerleaders participate and guys dress up like cheerleaders to join them in a musical finale) - a karnac the magnificent skit we wrote - lampooning members of the class etc One of our 8 is a professional singer - she sang two songs as well as arranged for a DJ toplay ' our music for 4 hours after dinner -- 60's / motown - and some modern stuff you have to decide on how much money you collect / charge on open vs cash bar - my recommendation if you have the money - 1 hour open bar before dinner - cash bar afterwards -- remember if you sign the contracts you are liable -- we put together a 10 page handout that included pcitures of the school / excel lists of classmates names / addresses / phonenumbers -- ( remember to get their permission when taking their reservations) - top songs from each of the 4 years lists ( got from Billboard.com) - and when we sent out invite with request for pre pay - we did a 20 question survey - on things like where to you live no -- married/no / how many kids / job / college ? etc -- then complied results - and prizes for furthest away living - most kids etc -- was fun I can tell you know the money handling was the toughest and collecting enough to keepup with the bills - we eneded up kicking in monies at various points ( we being the 8 who ran it) we got our spouses to help night of reunion with check in ( we used yea book pictures - copied and made into buttons for ID's - gave away at sign in ) I am sure I am forgetting many things as it has been 5 years --- As i said, before you take on the task. Pick a small enough group ( no more than 10) - and people who want to work together and trust each other -- you will be spending a LOT of time together --- but when all is done and said -- it can truly be wonderful if you have any specific questions - put them here I will try and help also.
Originally Posted By Ursula I would not use Great Reunions. They are a company that assists, organizes, and publishes a photo-book for thos creating reunions It was used at both of my reunions (10 and 20) and by the end of the second one, our class president was at her wit's end. They had charged way too much and she got way too little in return. She went around apologizing to everyone (needlessly, it wasn't her fault). They even mis-scheduled the photographer, who was only there for 1.5 hours when the contract stated it would be the whole night. And the photo-book? It was a plastic-bound computer print-out of badly organized photos...and even though it cost everyone $35 each, it was delivered three months after the event was over.
Originally Posted By officerminnie My class did pretty much what vbdad did. Lots of meetings and delegating jobs. It is very, very hard work. We were fortunate enough to have some very wealthy people in our class who offered to donate money up front for the 30 year reunion, plus were were able to keep costs low because we did all the work ourselves on the 10 and 20 year reunions adn had money left from those. We also did a golf tournament and everybody who played in that got a vest with an embroidered school logo on it, very tastefully designed by one of our classmates. So be sure to use the talents of you fellow graduates. We also had an auction the night of the reunion to earn money that we could use for the next reunion. We made about $4,000. I can't stress enough that you make an effort to keep the cost low without compromising on the quality - I think that is the key to a big turnout.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb Make sure you only have reliable people on your commity. The lady in charge of getting a facility for our 20th, dropped out of site for months and never did anything. One of the gals ended up having a small cocktail party at her house, which I skipped. Yep our 20th reunion went WELL.
Originally Posted By alexbook Some reunions fail because they get overly ambitious. I think our 25th reunion was supposed to be a 3-day cruise. As far as I can tell, not enough people signed up, the cruise was cancelled, and we were left with no reunion at all. For a ten-year reunion, lots of your classmates may have small children. How about a picnic on the football field or at a park near the high school? Maybe followed by a more formal event for the just the adults in the evening? Also, re: web sites. Can you use the high school's web site, as well? Maybe link to classmates.com or whatever?
Originally Posted By JazzCat Interesting Alex! My 25th turned out the exact same way with a cruise planned. vbdad has it covered! I was on both the 20th and 25th reunion committee so I've had experience too.
Originally Posted By JazzCat BTW LVBelle, just because you were on the student council doesn't mean that you have to be in charge. (Unless it was stipulated that it was a requirement.) No one on our committee was on the student council.
Originally Posted By LVBelle Wow, thanks for all of the great information! I'm thinking we're going to do something low key, like a picnic and a night out dancing or something that won't require a ton of planning. I think I'm also going to invest in classmates.com. It seems like that will be the best option for hunting people down! Thanks everyone, you gave me a lot to think about!
Originally Posted By Beast77 I just received notification last month about my 10 year reunion. The only way that I heard about it was on myspace.com. Someone passes around the message. What I didn't care for (besides some of the committee members) is that if you didn't know the "right" people then you didn't get the message. But when I last checked there were about 115 people on my classes myspace page, only about a 1/4 of our class. I don't think that I'll be attending my reunion. It's ebing held n the evening ata winery which means my kids can't attend.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 ^^^^^^^^^^^ myspace it probably another good option - 5 years ago when we ran our 30th it was not a factor - today it might be. Getting word out is key - I still like classmates.com because it is so available - and once you contact someone - make sure they forward to people they know. After all of our hard work we were initially disappointed with a turnout of 'only ' 270 of the 420 graduates - but when I hear others talk - especially for a 30th reunion - it appears we did pretty well. Also what officerminnie mentioned about keeping the costs down, I was amazed at how much of a factor the cost of attending was to people - likely because the core group of 8 of us who did all the work all have done pretty well - but we came from a very poor area when we went to HS and it was a wakeup call to us that that is not the case for everyone...being sensitive to cost is important - while still delivering quality. also to respond to another issue mentioned with someone dropping out of site-- we had a rule - 2 unexcused absences from planning meetings ( of which there were many) - and you were gone -- we started with 10 and finished with 8. excused were for reasons we all agreed to -
Originally Posted By officerminnie At our very first committee meeting (about a year before the event), we went through the list of classmates one at a time and if someone knew their whereabouts, we put that committee member's name by it. Then we divided up the remaining names equally and we were each responsible for trying to locate "our list of people". We used classmates.com. but also websites like anywho.com, peoplefinder.com, etc. We used the local phone book to contact siblings and parents of classmates too. It really wasn't that hard and we actually did some of the phone calling during our planning meetings. We went with a live band because the choir director at the school was in a great oldies band and gave us a deal. Did our own simple decorations too. We all contributed old photos from way back and from the previous reunions and someone put together a dvd slideshow, which we were able to play that night and then give a copy to everyone.
Originally Posted By FiveBearRugs Wow... LVBelle and I are about the same age. I, too, was going to second MySpace since I've found a LOT of people I went to high school with. In fact, I don't even know if we are going to have a reunion or not, since I've heard nothing from alumni or committees.
