Let's Call Them "Teachable Moments"

When I first realized the ten year mark was approaching and I would have to begin planning this shindig, I started Google searching all things class reunion. Pinterest was my best friend and worst enemy -- so many good ideas, so many beautiful decorations, so many tasty recipes; so DIY or so expensive or so impractical. The few blogs I found were extremely useful, though. Information about forming a committee, drawing a budget, guidelines for how much food and beverage to prepare, suggestions for invitations, and my personal favorite: all the reasons NOT to skip your reunion. I took that useful information... and I did nothing with it. Okay, that's hyperbole. But there were a lot of things I could have done differently. Throughout the setup, my husband and I kept repeating the matra "Never. Again." Obviously, I will still be planning the next reunion. I'm not going to leave everyone hanging and I know it's my responsibility to at least coordinate the reunions. But, again, there were a LOT of things I will do differently next time.

Don't get me wrong: The reunion was a total success! Great turnout, delicious food, gorgeous lighting, fun music, and most importantly, happy classmates. When I started this blog, I started it to get the information out there to my classmates. This blog is not for my class. This blog is for the other people out there, desperately searching Google for help planning their first class reunion. Or maybe not their first. Or maybe just an outdoor party. This blog is about the stuff that didn't go quite as planned. The disappointments, the design flaws. The "opportunities". Let's call them "Teachable Moments". The good stuff will come later, in the next blog.

So, in no particular order, the teachable moments.

Lesson #1: Accounting

Turns out, I don't know the first thing about accounting. I tried really hard to take all the right steps. I opened a business account for the class and that was a great idea. Keep the reunion money separate from my money. But then, how do I pay for things ahead of time? Plus, I had to put in $100 of my own money just to open the account. I spent that money on invitations, stamps, and a few DIY decorations right out the gate. The money from classmates purchasing tickets came so much later that it would have been impossible to rely on that income to have a successful party. If you're in a class that has a little "nest egg", funds left over at graduation, consider yourself blessed. Because my class was told we couldn't keep the money in an account after graduation; we were forced to donate it to the school somehow. Most classes choose a sentimental gesture of donation -- the class before ours donated a bench to the school. My class is lazy and apathetic and jaded. We were pissed that they would force us to do that. So we donated it to the class under us; at least they would put it to good use. Anyway, for the reunion, I kept all my receipts as I purchased the things I needed and I just hoped and prayed that I wouldn't lose too much money. I was willing to donate a fair amount to make this thing happen, but the goal was to break even on tickets and then raise funds from the Silent Auction for the next reunion. When all was said and done, the event cost about $800 and we brought in about $600 from the class. Which means I donated, in addition to my husband's and my own precious time and effort, about $200 of our hard earned money. Divide that by two because my husband was also in my class, and keep in mind about $100 of that $600 was from my Vice President who was the only person to bid in the Silent Auction.

Lesson #2: Location

"You can plan a pretty picnic, but you can't predict the weather." -- Outkast, "Ms. Jackson"

Having a successful outdoor party depends heavily on the weather. I had to keep a Plan B in the back of my head. What were we going to do if it rained? I looked into alternative venues to book, but with the budget we were on, it wasn't worth it to put any money into somewhere that we hopefully wouldn't have to use. So I decided we wouldn't have a Plan B and that Plan A HAD to work. Which meant a lot of positive thoughts sent to the weather gods. Luckily, it was a beautiful day -- a little hot, but partly cloudy, and not a rain cloud to be seen. Planning the event for the end of May, the weather odds were in our favor. At the end of the night, the clouds cleared out revealing an amazing starry night sky and the temperature dropped to perfectly comfortable camping weather. We rented two campsites in case anyone wanted to stay the night under the stars, but my husband and I were the only ones who brought a tent and stayed. I'm glad we did though. We sat by the firepit and relaxed for a couple more hours after all our hard work before retiring to our campsite.

Lesson #3: Know Your Crowd

Everyone has their own personal tastes and party preferences. My class is low key; a bunch of really laid back people. In high school, a lot of us liked activities and sports, but really mostly we just liked hanging out in a chill atmosphere where we can relax and talk. The outdoor pavilion supplied a sandy volleyball court and net and we brought a volleyball. There was a horseshoe pit with horseshoes. We brought washers and my parents put a lot of time into making a school-spirited cornhole set. Funny thing: cornhole is very popular where I live now in Indiana, but in my hometown in Illinois they call it "bags" and it's not quite as trendy. Literally, the only people who came close to the sports activities were the two kids and whichever adult was supervising playtime at the time. I also set up a beautiful photo booth with tons of fun props like mustaches on sticks, lips on sticks, bow ties on sticks, a hat, a boa, and a large photo frame that hung from a tree branch. Me and my two best friends were the only ones to use the darn thing. My theory for the activities and the photo booth is that they were too far away from the pavilion. Everyone kind of congregated together and didn't spread out a whole lot. They mostly just wanted to drink beer and chit-chat with one another. Which makes a lot of sense. The whole point of a reunion is to reconnect. That's kind of hard to do while you're playing activities. I thought a 5 hour event would be long enough that people would maybe get bored of talking and need some entertainment, but as it turned out a.) most people only stayed about 3 hours and b.) there was plenty to catch up on. The lesson here is that, at least in my case, the reunion didn't need to be a big elaborate event with all kinds of things to do. It just needed beer and good food in a comfortable setting. Keep it simple.

Lesson #4: Kids

Having a kid friendly reunion was an excellent decision, even though only two kids attended. Leaving the option open for parents to bring their children opened up the door for many people who otherwise may not have been able to make it out. The pavilion had a playground right next to it. We supplied ring toss made from recycled glass water bottles and glow bracelets. They played at the bubble station and tossed bags at the tic-tac-toe toss-across game. We all enjoyed watching the two darlings run and play. And the two of them found a lifelong friend in one another.

Lesson #5: Ask for Help

The biggest lesson was that I couldn't do this all by myself, no matter how hard I tried. Initially, I put out a call for assistance early on to generate some interest. People were willing to toss around some ideas with me. But when I started needing things, like help with accounting and visiting potential venues (since I'm five hours away), monetary donations, help making DIY decorations -- it was like crickets chirping. I learned about the bystander effect early on into my management career: if you speak generally to a crowd, they will all stand around and assume that another person will do it. You can see this at the scene of an accident. You announce, "Call 9-1-1!" and everyone stands around slack-jawed and doesn't move a muscle. But if you point to the dude in the baseball cap and say, "You, call 9-1-1!" he will whip out his phone and do it. I'm sure if I had pointed someone out and said, "You, please help me by doing this," they would have willingly stepped up. But I tried that with people I trusted to help and they declined, and it hurt my feelings and discouraged me greatly. So I stopped asking for help. A few people volunteered to do specific tasks, and I appreciated the gesture. But I was handling it all. And it was all well and good. With a class of 68 people, I knew I'd be lucky to get 30 people to show up. I could plan and execute a party of 30 people all by myself (with the help of my husband, who didn't have a choice in the matter, bless his heart). But when it came down to it, it was t-minus 30 minutes till the guests starting arriving and half the decorations weren't set up and the food wasn't fully prepared. The pavilion was a wreck and nothing was in it's proper place. I very nearly panicked when the first car pulled up. But when my best friend (the class Vice President) and her husband stepped out and said, "What can we help with?", it was like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. He fired up the charcoal grill and she helped spoon out the Lobster Ceviche into the adorable little cups, while my husband and his best friend finished skewering the meat and veggies for the kebabs. Meanwhile, I had time to put everything in it's place, set the decorations, and tidy up a bit just in time for the guests to arrive. And then when my other friend showed up, her grillmaster husband stepped right up to cook like he owned the grill. The kebabs turned out great! In the workplace, it's my job to delegate tasks and manage people, but this wasn't the workplace and I froze up. I was drowning and if they hadn't stepped up and offered their help, the whole event would have been a colossal failure. You can be the best boss in the world, but when you get into event management it's a whole different ballgame.

Lesson #6: Food & Beverage

It appears that some of us aren't the drinkers we were in high school. The gallon of Blue Cocktail we supplied was popular, but only half of it was gone at the end of the night. Most people stuck to the beer they brought and no one drank in excess. The food was so delicious and the menu was really something to be proud of. We started with Lobster Ceviche, doled out into these adorable 2 oz cups with a sprig of cilantro and tiny little forks. The menu was admittedly pretentious. But I wanted to do something more than the traditional picnic fare of burgers and brats and potato salad. My mother-in-law made the most delicious Sweet & Crunchy Broccoli Salad that anyone has every had in their life. It was a huge hit; everyone was asking for the recipe! The Veggie Skewers and the Pineapple Glazed Pork & Chicken Kebabs were perfectly grilled by my friends and served with quinoa. The meat skewers were supposed to be Pork OR Chicken, but due to the unnaturally long skewers we bought, my prep team (my husband and friend) decided to put it all on one skewer. It literally made zero difference. Not a single person said anything but positive things about the food. The kiddos had hot dogs they cooked on the firepit (with the help of a responsible adult). We had delicious Orange Jello Cupcakes with cool whip and blue sugar sprinkles on top. But my favorite part was the S'mores Bar. My husband and I worried a lot about whether we would have enough food, but we worried for no reason. We had so much leftover that we had to throw out. We could have prepped half the amount of food and had plenty. Except the Broccoli Salad; that went fast!

Lesson #7: Have Fun!

Planning my class' ten year reunion was extremely similar to planning my wedding. Right down to that line about taking a deep breath and taking it all in because when the Big Day finally arrives, it goes by so quickly. I was so caught up in making it a perfect event, that I barely had time to socialize. (We're just gonna ignore that severe case of social anxiety I have and pretend like that's not the real reason.) A classmate politely asked if I had stopped to eat when she saw me buzzing around. Have no fear, this fat kid will always take a few moments to stuff her face. But I really wish I had just spent more time catching up. I had heard that there is a tendency at class reunions for the cliques to remain separated just like in school. That was somewhat true of our reunion. I wish I hadn't let that stop me from catching up with the people that I hadn't seen in ten years. Facebook allows everyone to keep in touch, but it's no substitute for face-to-face interaction. I tried to say hello to everyone when they arrived and say thank you on their way out at the least. But I wish I had taken a deep breath, set my anxiety aside for the day, and just walked over to talk to everyone individually. We've all changed so much since high school and it really showed in the few conversations I had.

There was quite a bit to take away from planning this thing and I hope my experience can help another class president in planning their event. I don't like to focus on the negatives, but rather develop from them. I learned a lot and I'll know what better to do for the next reunion. I'll know better where to invest my time and money. It's not Never Again, but Next Time, We'll Know. I'm done criticizing myself and the event. When you pick apart the little things, you're going to find flaws. But overall, it was a smashing success! Now on to the highlights of the event...