How hard is it to plan a High School reunion? (vent inside as well)

[Aimeedyan]

This year is my 10 year and I was so looking forward to our reunion so I can meet up with old friends. I hadn't heard anything yet though other area schools are already selling tickets for theirs so I did some digging. Turns out, my class officers have decided they don't care to have one so we just aren't.

I think there is enough interest to go around them and plan it. Most schools hire a party planner in town that does all the work but I assume the officers still have to do some work in tracking people down and advertising. ?

Is it terrible to go around them and try to plan one anyways? They are usually held in the fall so we have time I think and I am still in touch with some HS friends that would help.

Or should I hang it up and realize our class will be the only class too lame to have a reunion?

Major bummed this morning.

 

[Cindy's Mom]

Its ALOT of work. You think it may be easy, but just the tracking down the addresses is enough to drive you batty. Also, if you decide to head up this project, you will be the one who will have to put the deposits down on a hall and DJ.

Now, if you have an email list of the alumni, just contact your local pub and send out a no-host invitation. This way who ever shows up pays for their own drinks and appetizers. Alot of times, if you tell the owner of the restaurant that 50-100 people will be coming here tonight, they will throw in the cost of the appetizers.

 

[Breezy_Carol]

I am sure that if you approached one of the officers and volunteered to plan the reunion, they would jump at the chance. Give it a try.

 

[ScorpioJeni]

My class was the same way, so I went online to classmates.com and posted a bulletin about interest in a reunion. I had about 25 responses the first day so I forwarded the information to the class officers. They were still resistant but I pushed and agreed to do all the local leg work all they had to do was get the bills paid. In the end it all worked out and we had a wonderful 10 year reunion and had attendance of 75 people. The hardest part was tracking down classmates that lived locally. But with Myspace and other websites it should be so much trouble.

Good Luck.

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

I can imagine it would be a lot of work. My dbf's 10 year was last year and they ended up not having a reunion. I'm just realizing why, since my 10 year is this year and the girl trying to organize it is about to pull her hair out.

 

[wdw4us2]

It is a lot of work. I was on the committee for our 10, 15 and 20 year reunion. The group of us that planned them were not class officers, just people who still lived in the area who got together and planned them out.

After working on those three reunions, I decided I'd had enough. A lot of people complain about what was planned, how much it cost, etc. They had no idea what goes into planning a cocktail party, dinner and family picnic. These were the three things we planned so that all budgets could afford to attend at least some portion of the weekend. It is a thankless job.

I'm not going to the 30th reunion this year. I find it easier to keep up with my friends on my own with a lot less headaches.

 

[Chicago526]

This year is my 10 year and I was so looking forward to our reunion so I can meet up with old friends. I hadn't heard anything yet though other area schools are already selling tickets for theirs so I did some digging. Turns out, my class officers have decided they don't care to have one so we just aren't.

I think there is enough interest to go around them and plan it. Most schools hire a party planner in town that does all the work but I assume the officers still have to do some work in tracking people down and advertising. ?

Is it terrible to go around them and try to plan one anyways? They are usually held in the fall so we have time I think and I am still in touch with some HS friends that would help.

Or should I hang it up and realize our class will be the only class too lame to have a reunion?

Major bummed this morning.

No, my class was lame and didn't have a 10 year either, for pretty much the same reason, no interest from the class officers. Not that I would have gone, but a good friend of mine was pretty bummed about it. Maybe we'll do something for 15 years (in '09, boy does time fly!), but I doubt it.

 

[manchurianbrownbear]

I feel your pain! I looks like my 25-year reunion (“class of ‘82 rules!”) is not going to happen.

It’s a lot of work to put together an “official” class reunion. If you have to track everyone down, reserve someplace to have the event, collect money, etc…

But, I wouldn’t think it would be too tough to coordinate an “unofficial” reunion.

If you’d really enjoy having a reunion, reserve a park, try to get an e-mail list from whoever planned your five-year reunion and invites anyone who is interested. Just have an informal pot luck. In the e-mail ask for help in spreading the word. Inevitably, many e-mail addresses will have changed.

You probably wouldn’t get a lot of people from out of town for an informal event, but I bet you’d get enough people to make it fun.

 

[barkley]

even if you use one of those companies it's still allot of work trying to locate people and such.

i pretty much did our 20th on my own (a handful of people said they would help but that pretty much ends when they realize how much work it is)-even using a company it was very time consuming. i passed on doing the 25th, and no one else stepped forward, i doubt anyone will plan a 30th (it's 2 years away and it realy takes almost a year to set up a good one and line up a location).

i like the idea of a no-host, then you don't end up having to hassle with tickets, deposits and the like. tons of people will fill out interest cards or email saying they're coming-but when it's time to buy tickets you end up with a huge amount that don't bother (esp. if they live out of the area and start crunching what travel and lodging are going to cost). only concern i'de have as a potential attendee at a no-host is going to all the expense of travel and then finding that it's a bust and no-one's shown.

i know it's getting kind of popular to multiple year reunions where i grew up, you find another class that's doing one maybe a year off from your own-and you go in together for the planning and expense (one school does one that's for all the classes that end in the same year digit-class of '75,'85, '95).

 

[Rock'n Robin]

I helped plan the 10th. I was surprised to hear that some of them had met for a 5th reunion picnic--same old "socials". The 10th one was a lot of fun. The 20th was different--amazingly enough all of the old cliques reformed the minute people walked in the door. 25 would have been last year, but I'm guessing there wasn't one or it was another "private" party. I'm done with that bunch. One girl who saw me at the reunion and said "you look exactly the same" saw me 2 days later at a local festival and walked right by me with her nose in the air.
Robin M.

 

[5Slays]

My 10 year is this year also. I didn't even know anything about the reunion until I set up a MySpace account. When I did, I got a ton of e-mails about it.

 

[aynt79]

They can be a pain to plan, esp. when most of the burden always falls on only one or two people.

I was class president and my 10 year reunion is this year. Luckily we only had a small class (32 people), but it can be hard to track people down. I sent a mass email to the classmates I had kept in touch with for help in planning/tracking down people. Only one person has helped me look for people.

Our reunion is July 3rd, the invites stated that that I needed RSVP's and payment by June 15th. As of today I have 3 people that said yes (including myself) and 3 people that said no out of 32. Local reunions are always held the week of July 4th and usually at the same restaurant, so it's not like people should be surprised about when it is. At this point I will probably end up canceling if I don't hear from anyone else. It's become a big waste of time and effort for no appreciation of it. I am not planning the next one, someone else will have to pick it up.

 

[SDFgirl]

I was on the committee that helped to plan our 10 year reunion two summers ago. Even with 5 or 6 people working on it, it still required a lot of time and effort. It's hard to track all the people down, negotiate deals, visit venues, decide on menu/music/costs, field RSVP's, etc. With all the work that went into it, I'd say only 50 people showed up. We did have fun, but I'm not excited about planning our 10th AT ALL!

We did not use a party planner (were already on a tight budget), so I'm not sure how much easier that would have made things. Our tickets were $25 apiece and people complained about that, so there's no way we could have afforded a party planner too.

 

[stinkerbelle's mom]

I had no interest in any of my reunions, but somehow ended up helping with the 15 and 20th.

The 5th was organized by a class officer and I understand a lot of work and planning went into it, but they just made ends meet. The same person started with the 10th and got few responses and lost the deposit and never had a reunion.

We started fresh with the 15th, lots of people wanted to help, but turns out they really didn't. Ended up reserving a big place cuz people wanted to do it up big then lost the deposit on that. The co-host luckily knew someone who let us have a whole floor in her bar (3 levels). It did cost us more and only 40 people attended but it was fun. We had to start over again with the 20th, but it ended up being nice. The person who bartended our reunion owns a restaurant so we're all planning on having an informal 40th birthday party for the whole class. Whoever shows up shows up, cost is on that person.

We've been kind of luckily finding people. Most people keep in touch with 1 or 2 people they went to school with. Also classmates.com is a great source. My high school has an alumni organization --that helps. Also we have a local 3 day fair that the alumni has a booth at, they have a book for people to sign up in & lets us look at it. Finally a friend of mine started a website for our class to keep in touch. It's at egroups.com which might be yahoo.com now. It's free, just has a lot of advertising. Good luck & have fun.

 

[RUDisney]

Ah, the benefits of going to a private hs that still solicits money from us every year! lol

I, with one of my friends, have planned our 5, 10, 15, and 20th reunions. We're looking forward to planning our 25th. It's a piece of cake to plan and we get about 1/2 the class plus SOs and spouses every time. We always have our on the Friday after Thanksgiving and the furthest traveler has come from Thailand, although we've had several people show up from European countries.

We do a cocktail part with beer, wine and a signature cocktail (last time it was an apple martini.) All other drinks are a cash bar.

We're hoping to do the 25th reunion at one of the local country clubs, but that is also a big wedding weekend so we may be bumped from them since weddings take precedence, at least at our club. As it gets closer, I'll check with ours and the others.

The hs posts the initial deposits and our committee pays them back. We have a little over $500 in our coffers from the last reunion and we give a favor with "Class of 1984" on it. Last time it was an acrylic ornament.

Neither my friend nor I were officers in our class. We're just the ones who picked up the ball when the 5 year came around.

 

[malibuconlee]

I didn't go to our 10 year. We lived about 11 hours away with no easy way to fly from one small town to another small town. Plus they changed the date twice. Tthere was just a lot of dram with the people who were planning it. It seems some of the girls hadn't changed much since high school.

We went to DH's 10 year in 2001. We had a good time I knew a few of the people he went to school with and I hung around with one of the other wives who didn't know anyone. We actually had more fun on the informal bar hopping night we had the night before the formal party.

I guess they didn't plan a 15 year reunion for DH last year. We never did hear anything about it, and there is a good friend who still lives in the area that would have let us know about it.

 

[Aimeedyan]

Thanks for all your stories! HS reunions in my hometown are pretty big and the other HS in town (that my best friend went to) has gotten a great response from alumni so I really think it's something people will come to.

I love the idea of a pub like deal so there are no deposits to come up with or high cost involved. There is already a HS "ring" on MySpace and most of our class is on classmates.come and reunion.com so tracking down people shouldn't be too hard. Also, the ISD has a reunion page with current info.

I emailed a friend who is still in the area and is 'in the know' and asked her about getting a group together to throw something. If worse came to worse, I could break down and create a MySpace so I can PM a bunch of people and see about interest.

Thanks for the ideas!

 

[katerkat]

You just reminded me to go check out classmates and see what's up with mine.