need help planning our family reunion

[Stitchfans]

I've been trying to plan a family reunion for quite some time now. I am getting hardly any feedback from my family. Only the fact that they are all interested in the reunion. All I have for definite is the date which will be this summer, weekend of July 22-23. I also know who will be staying with family in Illinois and who needs a hotel.

Question #1 do you think it is nescessary to pre-plan the meals? No one will give me an idea on what to check into for prices. I want to make sure no one has to cook so we can all be free to visit.

Question #2 I suggested one day be at a park so the children can play on the swings, so on and adults can visit and talk. What about the 2nd day?
Should I plan some kind of an outing? Again everyone is leaving all the planning up to me.

Question #3 is there anything else I should be looking into? I am asking all sorts of questions to my family and again no advice. They just keep telling me how excitied they are to see each other. It has been 30 years + since we have been together and seen each other.

Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill? I would think there is a lot more planning to do then just making sure everyone has a place to sleep and stay at. Advice?

 

[Rafiki Rafiki Rafiki]

have you ever visited www.familyreunion.com?

I've never been to a family reunion. My family is too small for such a thing...but I love to plan events.

 

[Stitchfans]

have you ever visited www.familyreunion.com?

I've never been to a family reunion. My family is too small for such a thing...but I love to plan events.

No, thank you. Wow they have a web site for everything. Don't they?

 

[can'twait]

I did this a few years ago. It was fun! We rented out a picnic area at a public park that had a playground, pool, and covered barbecue facilities and picnic tables. The fee for the park was nominal provided a town resident reserved it. Each family brought their own food - whether it was burgers & dogs, sandwiches or potatoe salad, drinks or whatever. Immediate families tended to work cooperatively - one family would bring the meat, somebody else the drinks, etc. enough for their extended family but not the entire clan of over 100! One person brought charcoal. There was no way I was going to handle cooking or the catering details for that many people. I would have had to pay out of pocket and collect $ from everyone there - no way! Some people gave me flack but I refused to cave, and it worked out fine that day. The emphasis should be on the getting together, not worrying about food. Go to the deli and get a sandwich and a bag of chips and have a picnic, for Pete's sake!

I obtained everyone's e-mail address by e-mailing requests to everyone for whom I had an address already and asking them if they knew so-and-so's e-mail until I had an e-mail for everyone. Then I sent bulk messages to everyone to keep them updated. I never made a single long distance phone call! Everyone handled their own hotel accomodations, although I did make recommendations given to me by locals. It was no-frills and not that much of a hassle. Some came from the next town, and some came from Illinois and California.

I don't think you need to plan an outing - you'll never please everyone. They just need a place to hang out and talk for one day. You can tell them about local attractions and maybe a group would be interested in going somewhere, but I would make it optional.

 

[ahutton]

DH's family had a cool idea for meals. They had arranged a central facility that had cooking equipment. They did 3 days of dinners, all other meals were on their own. Each of the dinners was done by a generation (the grandparents/their kids/the grandkids). We chipped in for what we as a group agreed to have, and then divided up duties (who cooked meat, who made sides, who made dessert) by individual family. We got an email with our assignments - DH was a grandkid griller, I had to make a dessert. That group also handled the clean up for that night.

For activities - we did things common in that area. They set up a rafting trip one afternoon (each paid their own, sign up was for the first 15 people who wanted to go - the raft company allowed the reservation with a minimal deposit), they arranged a golf outing that had to be paid in advance (and worked with one of the courses for tee times), eveyone else did their own thing.

I was 7 week pregnant, I stayed out of the heat and tried not to be nauseous!!!

 

[Stitchfans]

Thanks for all the great ideas. I already promised my relatives from Florida that I would set up motels/hotels reservations for them. But as far as everything else I guess I will just plan one day at a local park and see what everyone wants to eat. then the next day I leave free for everyone to do as they wish. Too difficult to plan when no one else will tell me what they want. It is true there is no way I can make everyone happy.

 

[grlpwrd]

I remember seeing an article in Family Fun magazine a while back so I checked for you on their website:

Reunions from Family Fun magazine

For me personally I've had family reunions, but we paid a fee for food like at a hotel and a relative made all the arrangements. Some days we had family get-togethers at a park or some days were for adult golfing. It depends, though, because those types of gatherings were for 100s of people versus simpler get - togethers like at someone's house which is much more manageable.

GL!

 

[golfgal]

When Dh's family has family reunions we have gone to having it catered. We use a local meat market that does catering and they usually do a hog roast, nummy! Everyone pitches in how ever much money, last time it was like $5/person. It was so much easier then doing a pot luck.

We meet at the park right next door to my in-laws house. The kids have room to run and we have the convenience of their house for the bathroom, napping babies, etc.

My MIL would like to move the reunion to a different park with more things to do. I have to agree with that since most of the grandkids are getting older. It would be great to have it somewhere that had a lake or pool as well as other activities, big playground especially.

 

[we3disneygo]

check out your local library for books on this subject our library has some really cool books, but I can't remember the name, it has menu's, idea's for activites, how to set things up, etc. have fun.....I would love to have a family big enough to plan something like this!

 

[froglady]

My DH's family (sibs and children) has a yearly family reunion. Since there are only 22 of us, IF everyone were to come, it's not a problem. We used to have it at SIL's Dallas home (pool, tennis court, 2 room guest house) but as the family grew, it became too much work for her.

We started going to timeshare resorts about 14 years ago, and it's worked out well. BIL & I use our time to get 4 condos, and other relatives pay our expenses for the one they use. This way the golfers go off, the sightseers/shoppers/poolside loungers/boaters do their own thing, and wer take turns hosting dinners at each other's condo, plus go out a couple of times. When the day is over, we all have a private place to stay, and we aren't concerned about intruding on someone else's space. (SIL said it always took a while to "find" all of her things, especially in the kitchen, after everyone left. And everyone seemed to have a different tolerance for clutter, cleaning up, noise, kids behavior, etc.)

 

[malibuconlee]

I have a friend that goes camping with her family every 4th of July weekend. She has a large family with gosh maybe 7 brothers and sisters? I can't remember now how many, but what they do is each family provides all the food for one meal for the whole group that way you only have to worry about food for one meal the whole weekend. Along with drinks and maybe some snacks. Works well for them. Maybe something similiar would work for your group.

Maybe some that travel could get a party sub from Subway or some buckets of chicken? While those local could use their kitchen to cook some meals.

It could be very hot. How about reserving a community room and having a board game day? I know the local community rooms around here have nice restrom and kitchen facilities along with lots of tables, and are air conditioned. Most are also near or in a park where the kids can take turns playing.

 

[Kirby]

It has been awhile, back in '97 but my cousin put together a family reunion for my mother's side of the family. We went to Snow Mountain Ranch in Colorado. I believe it is also called the YMCA of the West. We stayed in a hotel type of building, each family had their own room. There were other places to stay too, from tent camp sites to lodges. One of my cousins decided that she and her family would stay in a tent instead of where we were staying. We payed in advance for meal cards for breakfast and dinner, lunch was on our own. There were plenty of activities for the kids and adults to do, some free and some you had to pay for. In our building we reserved one of the sitting areas for just our family while we were there so we always had a place to congregate. We sort of played it by ear on how we got together. There were a lot of teenagers to keep busy that year. It's a really cool place for a reunion.