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Publicizing Your Class Reunion
My 35th high school class reunion was supposed to have occurred this summer, but unfortunately, it was cancelled due to “lack of interest.” I couldn’t believe it, and to say the least, I was a bit disappointed, as I always look forward to our class reunions and reconnecting with all my old friends—most of whom I haven’t seen since our last reunion.
Distance and time constraints prohibited me from being a part of the reunion committee, and I certainly don’t fault them for trying to put this thing together. It’s not an easy task, and demands plenty of time and effort to plan a successful event. However, I looked back at the way it was planned and determined that it failed not because of lack of proper planning, interest, poor location or high cost. Rather, cancellation was necessary due to inadequate notification and follow up to members of the graduating class. Many in the class simply did not know about it.
The only notification of the reunion was by a series of approximately 5 or 6 emails which announced and described the event, invited graduates to attend, and followed up. Though email is cost effective and can be useful, it should be just one element of the notification and promotional process.
To make your class reunion (family reunion or military reunion for that matter) a successful event, it requires usage of a variety of different promotional tools to get the word out so that you have the highest possible turnout. The rest of this article will hopefully give you some tips and ideas so that your reunion is well attended.
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Locating your fellow graduates is obviously the first thing that you need to do, and is a subject for an entirely different article by itself, and will not be covered here. For now, you can do a web search on “finding classmates” or some similar search phrase to find the various tools available to accomplish this daunting task. Or you can utilize Classmates.com, GradFinder.com or MyLife.com, or some other source for searches. Once you have your list of graduates together, the fun really begins!
Publicizing your Class Reunions
Email. It’s a great way to stay top-of-mind with your old school friends and to inform them of upcoming deadlines and reminders for events. Create various guest lists and send specific emails to each group. Email is also a great tool to solicit friends for help in locating missing class members. Popular uses of email include newsletters, special announcements, thank yous, “In Memory” notices, and help finding missing class members.
Telephone. Get together one night with the rest of your committee, along with some pizza and drinks, and start dialing. You will not only have fun with this, but can often enlist others to help spread the word.
Mail. Send a letter to the entire class. In most cases, those who are not personally contacted are unlikely to attend. The letter should include the following: a form requesting biographical data, a survey of desired reunion activities, a list of “lost” class members and a request for any information available on these people, and a postage-paid return envelope. Having the input of every class member will make the task of accommodating each individual’s different interests less challenging.
Local newspapers. Most will run an announcement in the community notice section for free or for minimal cost.
Your high school website. Most have pages devoted to upcoming reunion announcements.
Your high school alumni website. You might discuss promotional ideas with your school’s alumni director.
Class websites from other years at your high school.
Alumni service web sites. (ie. classmates.com, alumni.net, MyLife.com, etc.)
Your own class web site. A reunion website for your high school reunion is a great way to ensure that you have great attendance at your class reunion and to create buzz among your class members. When your fellow alumni read stories and see the pictures of teachers and old friends, it will create a nostalgic mood that will build momentum right up to your high school reunion. A great resource to get a class website is MyEvent.com.
Create a blog. Blogging is a terrific way for you to post a lot of timely and interesting content pertaining to your reunion, and can create an interactive experience among class members who comment on your posts, and keeps them coming back frequently for updates. Free blogs can be set up with Wordpress.com or Blogger.com.
Message boards. A web site will often come with a message board application built-in. Class members can communicate to you and each other on your website via the message boards. Use it as a forum to share ideas and suggestions. Message boards are designed to keep class members returning to your website since it is often used as a question and answer forum.
Social sites. Don’t forget about sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
Public reunion announcement web sites. (ie. reunionannouncements.com, etc.)
Public radio and public access station announcements and their websites.
Word of mouth can work great too.
Don’t forget to document what worked and what didn’t work, in case you’re lucky enough to be on the committee for your next reunion. If you can effectively use several of the ideas in this article, you’ll substantially increase your chances of having a great turnout and a very successful event!
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