1) Because school reunions require a lot of organization, as well as work to track down missing classmates, you should get started a least a year ahead.
2) You must have a lot of patience because it is usually just a small core of people who are really interested enough to get involved in the work of planning a reunion.
3) Get the most organized of these people to lead and the others to follow. The more people you can recruit the cheaper it will be and the more successful it will be.
4) Taking all this into consideration you might be very wise to contact a company that specializes in organizing school reunions. Run the phrase "school reunions" in several on-line search engines to come up with some of these companies.
5) When the day comes for the reunion recruit professionals to handle the registration process. That's so that none of your classmates have to miss precious hours of socializing because they are volunteers stuck at the registration tables.
6) Don't schedule the reunion during holidays or summer vacation time.
7) Guard that expanding contact list with your life. Make several copies and get it transferred to a good computer database program such as Act or Goldmine. Now you can do mass contacting through fax and email and generate "Where Are They Now?" directories with relative ease.
8) Select a site with more than ample parking and make sure that you can occupy it into the later evening hours.
9) Keep your classmates updated with emails, letters, and faxes of your progress and keep urging them to schedule to attend. Once the date and site are set immediately send invitations with instructions
10) Send a video invitation! Total cost of a couple of bucks per invitation. Let the committee members talk on camera about the reunion and get people motivated to come. The additional perk of this is showing everybody some of their old classmates on the tape. You will get higher participation than with just a paper invitation.
11) Other than "warm ups" or "ice breaker" games and introductions, don't plan a bunch of games. People mostly want to talk. Give people time to get re-acquainted and move about trading stories and remembrances. This is really what they came here to do.
11) The ladies want to dress to kill so don't restrict them by choosing a theme that demands a certain costume. In fact, this is one event you really do not need a theme for and we advise against it.
12) Definitely have a dance floor and a bar. Of course, have the DJ play all the "class songs" from back in the day!
