I posted the following on the web site I made for my high school reunion. For anyone who has ever been to one of these reunions, they are a lot of work for whoever does the planning. Don’t even think about trying to go it alone.

Check here after the reunion for ways to improve for the future. With the internet is is easier than before to keep in touch. Anyone is free to orchestrate and plan the next reunion. Until someone volunteers for the job I will keep this website available for planning the next one.
I’m not exactly sure how I ended up as the main person doing this, I really tried to get out of it at first. I didn’t even realize that my name was listed as the contact at the Hoover Alumni Association. People started calling me and wanted to know when the reunion was. I said there wasn’t one yet, would you like to plan one? It seems I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be the one to plan it. So I asked Laura Lou at the Hoover Alumni Association for advice and she said a lot of classes were hiring professionals to do the planning and gave me a recommendation. This was all 5 years ago. In case your were wondering why we had a 36th instead of a 35th that is why. No one who had been on the committee previously wanted to be in charge. Finally I just called Sallie and said, I’m getting calls, should we just hire a company? We decided why not. So we hired the recommended company, Golden State Reunions and they did it all. If it is one I have learned it is ” you can’t please everybody”. There are always complaints. Usually the vocal people are the ones with a complaint and not a compliment. We got some complaints, not too many, things like the music is too loud, the music isn’t loud enough and it is too expensive.

Well this time we decided to use the exact same company for the 40th reunion. They changed their name to Elite Reunions. The jury is still out on how well they will do. .At the time this is being written I have only had a few complaints, mainly too expensive, and what about Sunday. We’ll see what comes up after the weekend of the reunion.

The reunion company is expected to do the following:
Search for addresses for all 800 plus alumni, send out announcements/invitations, keep an updated database of all responses, they are not allowed to share any information unless given explicit permission from the alumni. Contract with the venue and pay for the deposit, provide all decorations, nametags etc, man the doors, collect on site payments, deal with any issues between the restaurant/hotel/caterers, hire and deal with the DJ, and that is just for the main event.

The Friday night cocktail party was planned by us. It is a keep it simple, just show up event. We didn’t plan anything else, we just didn’t have the time or energy for more. We asked for volunteers to plan something for Sunday, we did get a couple of people who expressed the desire for something, but no takers on the planning.

A couple of people volunteered to help with decorations but I expect the Company to do that.
So the question is, for the next reunion do we want to hire a company again or do it ourselves? If we hire a company it will be more expensive. If we do it ourselves we need more “ourselves”. I would think that with the size of our class there must be some pretty talented individuals who can do a lot of things. Such as, the most important thing in my opinion,
1. Deciding on the venue, should it be a dinner, a BarBQue, a picnic, a cruise, a brunch, a cocktail party, some or all of the above.
2. Searching for all the addresses and maintaining a database. Is there anyone willing to take on that responsibility for five years from now, starting now and keeping it current?
3. Printing out and mailing announcements and invitations.
3. Signing the contract with the chosen venue/caterer and giving them a deposit if needed.
4. Collecting all prepayments and payments at the “door”.
5. Arranging for any entertainment, music, etc.
6. Arranging for any decorations
7. Bookkeeping
8. Answering all questions, putting up notices, general “customer service”
9. Be in charge of planning a cocktail party

10. Be in charge of planning a Sunday event

If anyone has any interest in any of the above categories and wants to plan the next reunion Please Step Up!
Any and all feedback is welcome, the number 1 question being, should the next reunion be handled by a company or by ourselves? If by ourselves we need to fill all of the above positions and maybe some more.
Waiting to hear from you,
Nancy

I wonder if I ever hear from anyone…

Planning A High School Reunion

After 40 years why do we even want to go to a reunion of high school friends. How many people did we really know that well, well enough to want to reconnect? My husband says “Who cares, that was too long ago!” Evidently he is in the majority because most in my class will not be coming. I graduated in a class of nearly 900 kids. That’s a lot. So far about 100 are coming. Are people in their late 50’s so jaded and been there done that that they just don’t want to leave their comfort zone or what is it?

How many people really knew each other? Everyone had their circle of friends, and some have even kept up the friendships. I actually have some friends I met in 5th grade. So my point is, the friends I want to keep I have kept.

Going to a high school class reunion for me is an opportunity for a small adventure. It is unpredictable, you never know who you will see and maybe meet for the first time. It is a chance to be in a room full of people all roughly the same age, with similar backgrounds. We all grew up in the same town, same neighborhood, same era. That alone is enough of a draw for me. I like adventure no matter how small.

Somehow I became the only one of my class willing to take on the planning of our reunion. I didn’t want to do it, I dragged my feet for a year. In fact I waited so long that it was a year late. I kept asking everyone who inquired, ” Do you want to take over?” No takers. I ended up hiring a company do do the hard part, find everybody. Supposedly they had the resources to do this.

That was 5 years ago and all went pretty well.

So for the 40th the big one, I hired them again. Uh oh, big mistake.

Our reunion is 2 weeks away and I am on pins and needles. The company has been doing some strange things that make me really wonder. I’ll have to wait and see how it all turns out.

The Times of Our Lives

This is a place for me to write about some of the issues of this time of life.