Has anyone here ever planned/helped to plan a class reunion?

[honeywolf7]

The guy that I told you guys about a few weeks ago has suggested having a reunion of our grade school class and since I'm the one person from the class that he's in touch with, we're going to work together to do this. I was just wondering if anyone had ever done this in the past (doing so for high school or any other level would work as well) and if you had any helpful hints. TIA

 

[RUDisney]

I've planned all 3 of our class reunions and am preparing to start planning our 20-year reunion next year. I always co-chair the committee with one of my classmates and it seems that we always get different people to serve as committee members.

The beauty of my HS is that it has an alumni department, so addresses are maintained by it. That makes it much easier for us.

What we've found is that cocktail parties with food stations work best for us. Everyone gets to mingle more when it is not a sit-down meal. Don't bother with the expense of a DJ. Everyone wants to talk, not dance. Make sure you get a photographer to come about 1 to 1-1/2 hours into the reunion to take a group photo. Most photographers will take payments and orders that night and mail the completed photos when they are ready.

We also, unfortunately, lost two of our classmates, so we setup a rememberance table for them and we have contacted their parents to let them know that we haven't forgotten about them.

 

[honeywolf7]

RUDisney, we have not truly lost any of our classmates to death. However, we do have on classmate who overdosed and ended up basically brain dead, but who is still kept on life support (this happened approximately seven years ago.) Would you treat a situation like this the same way as a classmate lost to death?
Edited to say: I don't mean referreing to him as being deceased, etc. but rather remembering him in some way and letting his parents know that we haven't forgotten about him.

 

[RUDisney]

Wow, that's a hard call. I think it would depend on the person's closeness to the class and how his parents would feel about it. I would certainly let the parents know that we are thinking about him, but I don't know that we'd setup a table with his picture on it. Our OD made it simpler for us... she died and wasn't left in a vegetative state. Remember one thing, even though this person can't be with you at the reunion and might have wanted to be, he is still technically alive and there will be others who can't make it, too. You won't be remembering them in any special way, so maybe that will factor into your decision.

 

[SeaShelley]

A class reunion for grade school??? I've never heard of it. High school and college yes; grade school no. I would think it would prove to be a great challenge and I also wonder if there would be any interest outside of the couple of people you've talked to.

Whatever you decide I wish you luck, but I'd lean toward perhaps getting together with this guy and maybe a couple of other people from the class and go out for a nice dinner.

 

[honeywolf7]

Seashelley, it was a small class that was very close (we were in school together from K-8th Grade) and a lot of us stayed friends after Grade School since it was a parochial school.

 

[browneyes]

Nope, I've never been to one of my reunions. I was invited to go to my hs 15 year tomorrow, but shhhh, I'm not going.

It would be harder to track down the people from grade school than hs. Have fun with the planning, Becki.

 

[TwoOldPoohs]

Two years ago, I was part of a small group of 6 who got together to plan a reunion of our 6th grade class. The driving force behind this was the desire to reunite with our teacher, who had been such a profound influence in all our lives. There were 35 of us in this class. We were able to locate all but 4. It was not an easy task, considering that we were going back to 1964. Most of us had not seen each other since then, or at least since high school. And we were living in many different areas of the country.

We started by trying to determine if there was enough interest in a reunion. When we realized how enthusiastic people were about this, we started looking at the logistics of it. Since some people were flying in to New York from as far as Seattle, we knew we had to make it a weekend-long event.

Without going into too many details, this is what we did: our teacher hosted a cocktail hour at her home Saturday evening. Afterward we walked to a nearby restaurant for a cozy let's-get-reacquainted dinner. The following day was family day -- classmates and their families met again for brunch and a more formal program of reminiscing and honoring our teacher.

It sounds corny but it's true ... some of us felt as if it had been 3 days, not 37 years, since we last saw each other. I've personally renewed some friendships, and I know others have as well.

We had t-shirts printed up with our class picture on the front. We gave out "goody bags" filled with stuff we loved then, such as "pennsy pinky" balls and Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys books. I made up name tags for everyone with each person's 6th grade pictures on their tag. Spouses got a name tag saying "I'm with ..." with the same picture of his/her spouse. And some people brought in their memorabilia which we put on display. I was amazed someone saved the handwritten thank-you note she received from Jacqueline Kennedy in response to the condolence letter she had written after JFK's assassination. (She recalled our teacher had us all write letters, but I don't remember that.) I created a website for the event here. I just realized some of the links aren't working unless you click on them in order from left to right.

I think we needed about 5 months to put everything together, so be sure to allow yourself enough time.

You will have a great time! Keep us posted on your progress!

 

[honeywolf7]

Thanks, TwoOldPoohs....It's nice to see that it can be done and in this case we're only talking about a class that graduated 13 years ago, so it might be easier as far as tracking people down.

 

[DocRafiki]

You can talk to my high school class secretary about what NOT to do. She did a BAD job. Definitely use name tags. She didn't think they'd be necessary. Most people pointed out that she was wrong-- lots of awkward moments. I would go for music, but don't let it be overpowering. We couldn't even talk to each other at ours. I love the idea of a photographer. Wish we would have had one. There wasn't even a group photograph taken by an amateur. How sad. One of the best things about our reunion was that another classmate created a message board for people to pre-reunite on. I think we had a MUCH larger turn-out because of it. We've updated it from a yahoo board to an ezboard, and are still keeping in touch on it 3 yrs later. It's also a good way to share photographs of the event afterwards.

Good luck!