Locations Booked

We have booked the Sandbar for our cocktail reception and Polo Grill for our dinner. Both venues were very generous in holding the spaces for no deposits while we got our $$ together. I think both locations are going to be beautiful, and give us very different events. Here is a slideshow of the area, you can find the event pavillion, second row from the bottom, second picture from the right. Also you can see the beach at that point and what our views will be. Sandbar We are planning a island themed cocktail party at the sandbar with tiki torches, flower leis, etc. Let me know if anyone has any cool ideas. We will look into a steel drum band as we get closer and get more info on people expected, budget, etc.
The Polo Grill dinner will be buffet most likely, but menu will be decided later. They have a dance floor option, so we will decide if we want to do a DJ or band at a later date as well.
I crashed c/o '88 cocktail party last Friday. They had theirs at the Distillery. It was fun to see some old faces, but it was really loud, and Matt & I did feel that no one really cared about the food, so we will likely focus on drinks and some light appetizers. Someone can always go next door and get a sandwich if they need to.
Chris Mallouix was staying that the Holiday Inn Riverfront and said they were in the middle of a major renovation and it was actually pretty nice. He also mentioned they do a discounted rate, so maybe we can look into that more as we get closer.
I was also able to track down about 6 more people, Omar Green, Shedrick Pollock, Billy Hall, Chad Gustafson, Tamra Raasio, and Andy Gaston through contacts at '88 event and elsewhere. Some of these people may be able to help us even further finding some of our classmates.

Event Fee or Weekend Fee??

Okay, we need some input from the committee on this, but I am not sure that more than 3 of us are actually regularly reading this blog... We are working on budgeting and locations and have found that classes usually have either an event fee, where people pay per event they want to go to, or a weekend fee, which is what we had been highly considering, where you pay a flat rate and get into all functions. This appeals because it is easier for accounting, and also for checking in people at the door. If someone can't make a certain function, it just goes into the pot for the greater good of the weekend. So, let's hear it, what do you all think? And what do you think we should budget for per person. It seems that most reunions are in the range of $75-$100 pp with discounts if paid in advance. Do we all think this is a reasonable and fair charge? Maybe $75 if it is paid by Dec 31, $85 by March 31, and $100 after that? Perhaps this number can be lowered based on sponsorships, or would we prefer the sponshorships cover the extras and allow us to have a super nice event? Let's get some input because until we have a budget, we can't really make any venue decisions. Will post on those in a second.

Sponsorship Outline

Hello, everyone! I gave some thought to our idea for sponsorships... we primarily want to "sell" sponsorships to allow us some $$$ on the front end for deposits for the catered event and other extraneous expenses that are going to come along before we are ready to collect $$$ from our alums. I don't believe that we are going to make a huge amount of money, but I think whatever we get will be helpful. Here are my thoughts... your comments, suggestions are much appreciated.

This is a nice way for business owners to promote their business, but I also thought that families that want to support the event could also provide sponsorships as their family name, i.e. "The Bennett Family."

ORANGE LEVEL SPONSOR $500
- full pg. ad in Commemorative SEHS c/o 89 Memory Booklet
- logo and hyperlink on "home" page and sponsorship page of our website
- inclusion as an Orange Level Sponsor on all printed/e-mail invitations to Reunion
- recognition by emcee as Orange Level Sponsor at Saturday Night Gala Dinner Event
- logo on '1989 Memories PowerPoint photo presentation' to be shown during Friday or Saturday evening event

BLUE LEVEL SPONSORSHIP $300
- 1/2 pg. ad in Commemorative SEHS c/o 89 Memory Booklet
- business/family name (NO logo) and hyperlink on "home" page and sponsorship page of our website
- business/family name (NO logo) on '1989 Memories PowerPoint photo presentation' to be shown during Friday or Saturday evening event

GRAY LEVEL SPONSORSHIP $150
- 1/4 pg. ad in Commemorative SEHS c/o 89 Memory Booklet
- business/family name (NO logo) on sponsorship page of website

WHITE LEVEL SPONSORSHIP $100
- Listing as a White Level Sponsor in Commemorative SEHS c/o 89 Memory Booklet
- Listing as a White Level Sponsor on sponsorship page of website

Gena, what does it take to get a bank account started? That might be our first step soon if we are willing to go with this! Thanks, guys! ASB

Buttons

So, all of you are getting to see just how crazy anal I really am. The good news is I am going on vacation next week and will be offline for about 2 weeks... Anyway, take a look at this site for buttons. I think for the 10 year we just had write on name tags? I can't quite remember now. Anyway, I think these are kind of cool, and not totally cost ineffective. We might not all like our senior photos (Alisa!), but I think that is going to be the easiest way to get it done. Might help us to recall some people when names alone fail us. What do you all think?

Buttons

Polo Grill Ballroom

I ran by the ballroom today while in Lakewood Ranch. I was late for an appointment, and they were just about to start an AFLAC luncheon, so I was trying to be quick and discreet, which resulted in some crappy photos that don't do the place justice.

Let me just say that it was niiice. The Ballroom has it's own entrance, it is done in very good taste. The room was very grand, with beautiful chandeliers, wood paneling, and wood on the ceiling. They can do a dance floor, and there is plenty of parking, and they do have our new revised date available.

I would easily say, hey, let's do it here, it was that nice, but I am going to contact Mattison's tomorrow and inquire about their banquet room upstairs. As Alisa mentioned, perhaps we can negotiate a better deal. From the preliminary quote sent over, we are at $63 pp, however I think that we can adjust some of the food offerings and get that down a little bit so we have more wiggle room with some of the other events. One good thing is that this location would really need no decorations at all. Maybe some small centerpieces for the tables, but that is going to be it.

They require a 20% deposit, which is about $1800 at their current quote, and based on 150ppl. So, we need to sell some serious advertising! Seriously though, this was a spectacular location, and I think that it woudl be a beautiful place. Will let you know what Mattison's says tomorrow.

Re-Cap of Meeting # 1 July 1, 2008

What a blast... I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time. Just wanted to provide a run down of what was decided at tonight's meeting... amid a lot of looking at pictures and the yearbook.

1. Date change to June 12 - 14, 2009 - Gena pointed out that the weekend of June 19 - 21 next year is Father's Day weekend, so we felt that we should make the change to reduce the possibility of family committments/conflicts. I will e-mail all alums by the end of the week with the date change!

2. We agreed on the following basic event schedule. Of course, details to follow:
Friday Night Welcome Reception (June 12th)
Tour of School (June 13th)
Possible Golf Tournament (June 13th)
Saturday Night Gala Reunion Gathering (June 13th)
Family Beach Party (June 14th)

3. Christa is checking out the Polo Grill in Lakewood Ranch tomorrow to look at their space for the Gala Reunion party on Saturday night. She will snap a few pictures of the space and post them on this blog.

4. Gary is contacting Brenda at SEHS to see if we can get a class list from 1989. Matt is going to look up all teachers/administrators in the Manatee County school district to get e-mail addresses.

5. It was discussed that we want to keep the costs down so that the reunion is affordable to as many alum as possible. It was also pointed out that we need to have some extra $$ figured in for printed materials, buttons, etc.

6. It was decided that we will offer sponsorships (which I will develop in more detail) at the following levels: Orange $500, Blue $300, Gray $150, White $100. Sponsors to receive ad space in book, possibly mentions on web site, etc.

7. Things to be developed: web site, powerpoint slide presentation with photos for Gala party, etc.

8. Gena agreed to work on the budgeting part of the reunion, as long as it fits with her schedule. Alisa and Christa will co-chair the reunion. Apryl is handling a lot of the contacting others on www.classmates.com.

9. We will skip next month's meeting and get back together in September. We will use this blog to make some decisions in the meantime, so please add this to your favorites and check back frequently. Next meeting will be September 2nd at 6 p.m. at Matt's House! Just kidding, Matt! We did find out, by strange coincidence, that Matt lives RIGHT NEXT DOOR to Carol Nicholas. Crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And so it begins...

Tonight we will have the first of many monthly meetings to culminate in a terrific event next summer. I just want to say thank you to all of you for what you have done so far. We've got an interesting job on our hands... to plan a fun, affordable and unique event for a group of extremely diverse people. I am delighted that we have 65 out of 314 alums on our contact list so far -- that doesn't seem like much, but it does represent more than 20% of our class. As a committee member we encourage you to post and comment on this blog. I will do a bullet point summary of each meeting on here to keep everyone on the same page. A special shout out to Apryl for all of her work on classmates.com and to Christa for getting this blog up and running!!!