High School Reunion Planning Tips and Ideas
So you've been crowned organizer of your high school class reunion. Sure is different from homecoming queen or king, isn't it? It's time to celebrate life's successes and renew old acquaintances. It's also time to start losing the pounds, covering the gray and planning a high school class reunion to remember.
High School Reunion Planning Tips:
Form a high school reunion committee. First try contacting the class officers from your year. Then find local classmates. Assign one person to keep track of the master list and update it as responses come in. Delegate other tasks such as securing the site, maintaining the budget, invitations, food, music and decorations to other committee members.
Develop a detailed budget. You'll need to figure out how much each attendee to your high school class reunion will pay in order to cover the venue deposit, printing and mailing of invitations, and long-distance phone calls.
Start sleuthing. Call your high school to ask if it has contact information. Use Web sites like Classmates.com, Reunion.com and Switchboard.com. Send out an SOS e-mail message asking for the whereabouts of missing classmates. Check phone books on the Web or in libraries. Call local alumni from other classes. Check your high school yearbook for people's full and maiden names.
Shop for a venue for your high school class reunion. Find out if a favorite hangout from back then is still operating. Contact clubs or banquet halls. Ask what's included and shop around. Inquire about discounted rates at hotels for families of alumni attending the reunion.
Select a date for your high school class reunion. Start publicizing the reunion as early as possible so attendees can make travel plans. Thanksgiving and summer reunions allow alumni to plan their vacations accordingly.
Decide how your high school class reunion event will be structured. It can be anything from a one-night banquet to a weekend-long event. Some classes host an informal cocktail party on Friday night, a sit-down dinner on Saturday night, and a Sunday family barbecue.
Set up an account at a bank or credit union with two people required to sign for transactions. If you have a large number of attendees or an expensive high school class reunion paid for in installments - a grand cruise or limousine services, for instance - this is a must.
Decide to go with a band or a DJ, then shop around and book one for your high school class reunion. If you recall a good high-school band, ask those alumni if they'll play a couple of tunes.
Ask classmates for information about their lives (including contact information). Compile it all into a booklet and mail this out to alumni before your high school class reunion date so they can be ready to pounce on old friends as soon as they walk through the door.
Overall High School Reunion Planning Ideas:
Invite a mystery guest - maybe a student who became a celebrity, or a stand-out teacher.
Hire a professional high school reunion planning consultant who can take your event every step of the way, from locating classmates to contacting local media to hiring the band. Contact the National Association of Reunion Managers at Reunions.com.
Make your high school reunion invitations fun, incorporating your school mascot or prom song. (Still know all the lyrics to Hotel California, don't you?)
Create collages from your high school yearbook photos and newspaper articles (on microfiche at your library) to transport classmates back in time.
Overall High School Reunion Planning Warnings:
Be prepared to recognize your friends' parents. That's right - your friends may now look exactly like their parents did when you were in high school. Don't laugh, pal - you're in the same boat.
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn, which is also called Kings County as a county of the state of New York, and known as the "Borough of Homes and Churches," is one of the five Boroughs of New York. It used to be and still feels much like a city in its own right, with approximately 2.5 million inhabitants. If separate from the rest of New York City, Brooklyn would be the 4th largest American city.
Brooklyn is situated on the westernmost point of Long Island and shares a land boundary with Queens which partially encircles Brooklyn to the north, east and south; Manhattan lies across the East River to the west and north of Brooklyn and Staten Island is across the Verrazano Narrows to the southwest.
Brooklyn is currently enjoying a period of growth and affluence not seen since before World War II. There's world-class theater at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the center of a proposed new arts district that will include a new art museum and a highly controversial Frank Gehry-designed sports area home for the NBA's Nets. Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Brooklyn's Prospect Park as well as Manhattan's Central Park, thought his Brooklyn creation the finer of the two. Elsewhere in the borough, Williamsburg is a hipster neighborhood and burgeoning art colony, and Brighton Beach is home to New York's largest concentration of Russian immigrants.
How To Travel In And Around Brooklyn
A tourist or a native has many choices. One can travel from Manhattan or from Queens by taking the subway, ride the Long Island train, take the bus, or ride a car, limousine service or bike, or be on foot.
To understand more the subway connections, it is better to download a subway map from the Metropolitan Transit Authority's website or pick one up for free at what New Yorkers still anachronistically call a token booth, even though tokens are no longer on sale or used in the New York subways.
For those taking the train, there are stops in Brooklyn at Nostrand Avenue which is served by the A and C subway lines, and East New York, which is served by the A, C, L, J, and Z subway lines. Eastbound trains continue to Jamaica Station in Queens, from where passengers can change trains for points further east or take the AirTrain to John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK).
Brooklyn is covered by an extensive network of MTA buses. Of particular note is the B51 bus, which runs between City Hall in Manhattan and Smith St./Fulton St. in Downtown Brooklyn, via the Manhattan Bridge. The trip is particularly beautiful on the way to Manhattan. Note that the bus operates only on weekdays, with the last bus leaving Smith St./Fulton St. at 7:10 P.M. and from Park Row at 7:40 P.M., according to the current schedule and depending on traffic. See the MTA website for bus maps and schedules of individual bus lines.
For those driving a car or using a limousine service in Manhattan or a Bronx limousine service, the connections between Queens and Brooklyn are too numerous to mention. The Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn Bridges link Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge links Staten Island and Brooklyn. Of those, only the Verrazano is a toll bridge.
Riding a bike or going on foot is good for slowly savoring Brooklyn’s great spots. One can see more of the area that’s not easily accessible by car, train or bus. All the bridges between Brooklyn and Manhattan are now accessible to both pedestrians and cyclists.
Source: Wikitravel.org - Brooklyn, New York
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Why use a limousine service in New York?
A limousine service can easily be substituted for a car service. The comfort and safety of having a chauffeur-driven limousine service is more valuable when traveling in and around New York. There are practically hundreds of limousine services in New York.
Look up other areas covered by New York NY Limo limousine services:
Limousine Service (Bronx) – Limousine Service (Brooklyn) – Limousine Service (Long Island) - Limousine Service (Manhattan) – Limousine Service (Queens) – Limousine Service (Staten Island) – Limousine Service (New York)
