Social media has allowed us to connect with friends old and new, but how many times have you accepted that friend request with one of your school friends, had a cursory chat about what you have been up to since high school, promised to meet up, and failed to do so? It is not so much the lack of willingness, but rather life is busy and can derail your intentions. Perhaps 2018 is your year to arrange a school reunion, to meet up with your old classmates and enjoy an evening of nostalgia.
Tips for Planning a Reunion
To ensure that you have enough attendees, this event must be planned down to the finest detail. Here are 4 tips to help you organize a successful school reunion.
Help!
Organizing a school reunion is a big deal, and you will need to enlist some friends to help. The success of your reunion relies on you being organized and diligent. Your friends will have strengths and weaknesses, so it is important that the roles that you give them complement their skills. As a minimum, you will need a Chair, a Treasurer and a Promoter. The reunion would also benefit from the input of a creative, to really give it some flair.
Where are they?
Your first step to finding your classmates is to set up a social media group specifically for your High School year group. Your school may have a generic site already, in which case you will be able to connect with that and advertise the new group. Once you have all your classmates in one virtual space, you will be able to promote the event with minimum effort. You will find it easier to locate male school friends than female friends because of the simple fact that many women change their name when they get married, but if you are able to remember the names of their brothers, you will have greater success of finding them. LinkedIn and Facebook are a valuable source of information for finding people!
Where do we go?
The number of people who are interested in attending an event will influence the venue that you choose to host the reunion. Try and find an event venue that is flexible and can accommodate different sized parties, rather than ones that have strict limits. You need to think about what kind of reunion you want it to be; do you want live music, a sit-down meal, or perhaps just a bar and dance area. The choices you make will impact the price of the ticket, so do keep finances within a strict budget.
When do we do it?
You want as many of your classmates to attend your reunion; many people relocate from their hometown, so you need to pick a time of year when as many as possible are back in the area. September and October (homecoming and football games), Thanksgiving or Christmas are popular times of year as people tend to travel back home for these periods. Remember though, that event venues can be booked up months in advance for the holiday season, so you need to plan well in advance. To help you achieve a high attendance rate, you can use Google forms or Doodle polls to identify when most people can attend.
Having a High School Reunion is a wonderful way to reconnect with your past. You may be surprised at the paths people have taken in life, but hopefully it will be an opportunity for you to reignite old friendships. Have fun.
Have you been to a high school reunion?
P.S. My friend Elisa did a rocking job planning our 10 year high school reunion!
