Reunion Planning for Small Graduating Classes

Do you have a small graduating class? Do you want to manage your reunion yourself? Check out these helpful tips.

If your class is a small class, and you feel as if you and your committee can handle it yourselves, we have a few tips for you that might help. As you know with smaller classes, money is a major issue.

1. Organize an effective committee. Many people would like to help, but due to many different reasons, some people are more available and effective than others. Be ready as a committee to negotiate and make deposits.
2. Find a venue that is available, one that fits your need and is affordable for smaller groups. Some venues have lower pricing for evenings other than Saturday evening, so consider these. These venues, however, still need signed contracts and deposits.
3. Consider the entertainment needs and wants of your alumni. Many classes enjoy dancing, some don’t. Does your class want simply recorded music, or would it prefer a live DJ. The DJ will, of course, need to have costs negotiated, a signed contract and deposit.
4. Consider the cost of printing and mailing announcements in your up-front expenses. Unless someone donates these, these will be unavoidable expenses.
5. Be ready to make phone calls, emails, etc. as "cheerleaders" in order to generate excitement for the reunion.
6. Be sure to contact the school, newspapers, local media announcing your upcoming reunion.

So, how can we help you at 1^st Class Reunions?

One of the most difficult things in organizing a reunion after 10, 15, 20 years, etc. is locating former classmates. Even the best kept records have to be updated. This is also another upfront cost for the committee, however, without accurate current contact information, there may be little chance of a successful reunion.

This is where 1^st Class Reunions can help. We specialize in locating alumni. In fact, our current success rate is finding between 90-95% of your former classmates if we have first name, middle name, last name and a last known address. Just send us a list of missing alumni, whole name preferably, approximate age and location of the high school. For the cost of $3.00 per name, we will make a concerted effort to locate an address and/or phone # of the missing alumni. We will also include additional research for those mailings returned due to "no forwarding address" or wrong individual, example; wrong John A. Smith. Once we have researched the name more than once, we add the name to the missing list if they cannot be located. These names are then provided to the reunion chairperson in the hope that other alumni may know how to contact them.