Planning
a Successful Family Reunion
by Kerrianne L. Burch, special to Mormonchic.com
As the
breezes of spring turn into summer, are plans for a family
reunion also in the wind? If so, look no further. Planning
and carrying out an unforgettable reunion is not as difficult
as it may seem. With careful planning and by following some
simple guidelines, your reunion will WOW your family, leaving
you the Family Reunion Diva!
The first step to putting it all together is
to create a Reunion committee. If your reunion is going to
be smaller, then it can be just one person - probably YOU!
If you're planning a larger reunion, initiate other members
of the family to the committee for added help. Use the committee
to make assignments, organize ideas and for planning. You
may choose to hold meetings or telephone conferences with
your committee, depending on how involved you want them to
be.
Once you have your personnel organized and you
know who's going to be running the show, you need to decide
what type of reunion you'd like to have. The first question
is "What part of the family do we invite?" Decide
if it will include the whole extended family, making for a
BIG reunion, or if you will keep it simpler and limit the
list to a smaller branch of family. Regardless of how you
decide which branches to invite, make sure you don't invite
only some people in the branch and not others (even if there
are hard feelings involved... this will only make them worse).
When you have chosen your "guest list"
you are now ready to determine just what TYPE of reunion you'd
like. This will be greatly affected by your family's interests,
as well as the ages and physical limitations of your family
members. Be sure to be sensitive to the needs of families
with young children, as well as the fact that you may have
elderly guests as well. The following are some suggestions
based upon some of these differing needs:
1. Sweet n' Simple (Not to mention - CHEAP!)
The simplest reunion to host, and one you've probably been
to already, would be a picnic or barbeque at someone's home
or a nearby park. If you've never hosted a reunion and you're
looking for an easy way to create a sure-fire success, this
is the way to go.
2. The Rugged Family Reunion
If your family is the outdoorsy type, try a family camping
trip. Be sure to reserve
a campsite that is both big enough for the entire group and
provides space to move around when it comes time for activities.
Be sure everyone knows to bring their own accommodations (i.e.,
tent, RV, sleeping bags, etc..), and if you divvy up the food
assignments, this is an easy reunion to carry out.
3. Big Ol' Reunions
These are fun, of course, but they need to be announced far
in advance to give everyone enough time to plan around it,
not to mention save up for it! These kinds of reunions include
trips to theme parks, hotels, or cruises. Keep in mind the
expense of these various reunions are vast, and would take
careful consideration in planning.
Once you determine what kind of reunion you
will be holding and where, you will need to decide what you
will do with the time you will have; besides eat, of course!!
Depending on what kind of reunion you decided on will greatly
affect the types of activities you will have, but here are
a few ideas to get your mind going.
"Getting Acquainted" type and
other games
Storytelling - sit in a circle and exchange stories (embarrassing
is good) about each other.
Crafts - a table with projects "ready to go"
Photos - take advantage of the opportunity and snap a photograph
of everyone!
Family Reunion Video - put someone in charge of capturing
the raw footage!
Family Talent Show - dust off those tap shoes!
Service - find a good Humanitarian project and work on it
together.
Whatever you choose, you will want to be sure
that you have all the supplies and details arranged before-hand
so that the activities will run smoothly, either one after
the other, or simultaneously.
Mary Glauser, of the
BYU 110th ward in Provo, Utah, said this about her family
talent show recently.
"It was fun
to enter as our little family and show off what we could
do together. No one knew my husband and I were capable
of a piano duet!"
Of course the activities provide great entertainment,
but they also provide a unique glimpse into the lives of your
family members that you don't always get to associate with!
Providing food and refreshments for your family
reunion crowd can be handled in a number of different ways,
none any better than the rest. It all depends somewhat on
the type of reunion you are planning and quite a bit on how
many pennies you plan on pinching. The big question to answer
will be just who exactly is going to be providing the food.
Will you do it yourself or have someone else do the cooking?
If you plan on doing it yourself, organize a
big committee and enlist the help of those who are the best
at it. Divvy out the meals, and/or make assignments and you
should survive. If you don't feel up to such a responsibility,
here are a few other options:
- Fend for Yourselves
- Each family provides their own meals, throughout the entire
event. Obviously this makes it very easy on you, but you
may lose some of the closeness when groups of people go
off and eat by themselves.
- Potluck -
Every family provides one or more items and they are shared
between families. To ensure that you have adequate amounts
of different types of food, it maybe wise to assign categories
to the families. This way the Jones' aren't always bringing
the casseroles. Especially if it's a funky one!
- Restaurant - If
you can afford it and you have children with patience enough,
this is also an easy route. Be sure to make reservations
plenty in advance with notice on how many will be attending.
Banquet rooms provide a cozy feel that makes for a lovely
meal.
- Catering -
Also, if the finances allow, this is an exceptional sparer
of time! The food's usually really good too, so you couldn't
ask for more than that! Make sure you know if you need to
provide your own utensils, etc.
- Be prepared and expect the unexpected
- If you're planning to be outside, have a
"Plan B" in place in case of inclement weather.
Also bring extra of EVERYTHING (including utensils, napkins,
trash bags, game supplies, and so on.) No doubt someone
will forget to bring something!
- Have plenty of help
- You can't do it all, and you have just as much right to
enjoy yourself as everyone else!
- Organize a clean up crew - Before the reunion,
get a commitment from those who will be in charge of clean
up. If not, you may end up doing it all yourself, thus causing
you to never plan a reunion again. This would be tragic.
Get them to help before they decide to leave early, or they
will!
- Be flexible -
it's not going to go exactly as you planned, but if you
can adjust and be flexible with the progression of the reunion,
everyone will be more at ease, and you will all enjoy yourselves.
Which is, by the way, the point, right?
Most importantly, be sure you enjoy yourself.
You and possibly many others worked way too hard to make it
wonderful. When it's through, feel free to evaluate what went
wrong and make notes to adjust those aspects in years to come.
And hopefully, after your smashing success, you will be in
the mood to plan another one next year! Happy Reuniting!
Resources:
Telephone Conference with "HEARTY REUNIONERS" in
Provo, UT and Redlands, CA.
Mary Beth Glauser and Kathleen Glauser
www.familyreunion.com - Mr. Spiffy
and his Spiffy Ideas (This site is the MOTHER of all reunion
sites….They didn't skip a beat!) and deserve adequate
credit for most of the ideas in this article.
