Top Ten Things to Consider When Planning & Executing a Sigma Pi Reunion Weekend
- Recap of 2016 reunion: the #s
- 3 amazing days of fun
- 6 kickass members of the planning and execution committee
- 30–35 alumni, current brothers, family, and friends on Thursday night.
- 65–70 on Friday and Saturday
- 10 kegs of beer
- $7,000 in revenue collected and $7,000 in expenses
- Planning Team and Project Management
- Start early: we formed our planning committee in January.
- Put someone in charge: a project manager/GM, someone who has run events, preferably from an older class. Also someone who has some time to spend on this.
- Get the right representatives from at least three of the reunion classes to be on the committee. We had representation from ’81, ’91, and ’06.
- Include Elevate and a current brother on the committee early on. Elevate was helpful in assisting with the set up the project-management structures, as well as getting the website up and running.
- We used Google Docs to document and update the status of action items.
- Each member of the planning committee was responsible for at least one specific area.
- We had a weekly call: 30 minutes every Wednesday to update status/ask for help.
- Marketing/Recruiting
- Get the word out early and often. I believe our first email to the classes was in early January/late February.
- Establish a reunion website on the Sigma Pi portal.
- Have Raz market the anchor events on the NTPM weekly email.
- List events with the university.
- Book any bands, DJs, restaurants early. Publish a calendar of events and send it out ASAP to generate interest.
- Get word out to book rooms ASAP. Potential lodging includes hotels, university housing, and Sigma Pi.
- Have a point person/people to recruit each respective class and adjacent classes. Emails and personal phone calls are a must. Ideally divide the class list so that each coordinator only has to recruit 4–5 brothers.
- Utilize Elevate as much as possible for building the website, collecting and tracking money, purchasing memorabilia for gifts, signage, etc.
- Elevate also marketed events via “Save the Date” postcards, calls from brothers, Muse articles, etc.
- On enrollment website, list all alumni from all classes that have signed up. Knowing who else is attending helped marketing and recruiting.
- Events: Anchor and Class Specific
- We had an anchor event (all classes) each day: happy hour on Thursday, DJ on Friday, and band on Saturday: Howie Gordon’s (’81) band, food on Thursday and Saturday.
- Thursday Happy Hour: make sure you have tunes on porch. Might also want to rent a tent in case it rains.
- Friday: we started the DJ at 8:00 p.m. and he played downstairs. If we did it again, I would start entertainment at 6:00 p.m. and end by 9:00 a.m. That way, reunion attendees can attend beer tents.
- We had the DJ and band downstairs. if possible, I would put them in the west lounge. People gravitate upstairs.
- In addition to the anchor events, each class did class specific events (e.g., ’81ish class had a Nines function, Creeker function, Pines function ,and two days of Golf). Reserve rooms at these places early.
- Utilize Pi Beach in a more structured way than we did. It’s amazing.
- Anticipate that you will have non-Sigma Pi visitors on Friday and (especially) Saturday evening functions. As folks hear the music and realize the Pi function is more fun than the class tent parties.
- Financials (John Altmeyer ’81; 717-245-7030)
- Have a strong business/financial mind lead this effort. We had CEO John Altmeyer, who also was the ’81 treasurer.
- Include Elevate and John Haggerty early on to assure proper process for collecting and paying bills.
- Do all enrollment and money collection electronically via enrollment website.
- John Altmeyer paid for everything, then had John Haggerty reimburse him from what was collected from the enrollment website.
- Food (Nick Vojnovic ’81; 813-245-3934)
- Put a hotelie and/or current food industry person in charge of food. Nick Vojnovic was our leader.
- Try to get the hot truck for Thursday night.
- Don’t count on Pat the cook to do what he commits to.
- On Saturday, Roger Levine and his business partner cooked and served an incredible meal.
- Get some brothers to help serve meals on Saturday night.
- We had announcements and songs following introductions after dinner, etc. It was amazing.
- Beverages (Miguel Ferrar ’91; 917-331–0818)
Notes from Miguel:- 10 half-kegs needed for all 3 nights, with 3 taps because at least one ends up on the Beach. We only had 2 taps.
- We ended up buying 2.5 cases of wine.
- Should get 3 cases of water (30 bottles ea.), plus at least 2 cases of sodas.
- Tons of cups needed due to beer pong. We ended up buying 1,000.
- Coordinate for a 21-yr old brother to be responsible for kegs/wine/ice pick-up on Thursday noon and then returns of kegs, taps, and tubs.
- House Operations (Craig Dewey ’06; 717-471-4266)
Craig led a team of current brothers for all house operations.- Rooms at house.
- Cleanups: daily house cleaning.
- Tunes and speakers outside.
- Coordinating alumni board speakers.
- Arranging current brothers to help prepare and serve Saturday dinner and to provide other support where needed.
- We gave the group of brothers that helped some cash at the end of the weekend.
- Alumni Giving/T-shirts/AV, and Photo Share: (Gary Derck’81; 970-759-1524)
- Alumni Giving: Derkage led this effort prior, during, and after the reunion event. We tried to tie it to a theme. This year was the kitchen project. Also had an option for electronic giving via the enrollment website.
- AV & Photo Sharing: Mike Vernick ’83 showed old photos in Technology Room throughout event. Mike also established a drop-box account where weekend photos were stored and shared.
- T-shirts: Derckage designed and produced, with Elevates help, kick-ass T-shirts that we sold. Double the # ordered, day of sales/giveaway were big.
- Other
- The University functions were very lame for the most part. However, each class should decide which ones they wanted to participate in. Beer tents were the most attended Cornell functions.
- There was a suggestion made that we should hold an “all class” Sigma Pi Reunion event on a date apart from the Cornell Reunion weekend every five years or so. We thought that was a strong idea that has a lot of merit.
