HOMECOMING 101 PART 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I wrote the first part of the article and published it a year ago. Now I am publishing the second part (I wrote it the same year but too bad I forgot the password of my wordpress so I wasn’t able to publish it before the first part celebrates its first year anniversary in my blog. hahahaha)

Now you have the funds, the concept and how the reunion should be done. What is the next thing to do? Now, WHO SHOULD YOU COORDINATE WITH, WHO SHOULD YOU CONTACT?

1. YOUR ALUMNI OFFICERS- Why should you contact them? Yes they probably are old and old fashioned and no millennial sense, BUT HEY, they were elected to be in those positions. They represent your whole alumni community. They can tell you the guidelines, the what should be and what should not be done. If they are older, they must have had experienced hosting a reunion and they can tell you the booboos and the secret/s of a successful reunion. My class was branded as the “INCORRIGIBLE BATCH” of Holy Spirit even in High School. When we graduated, the sisters must have sighed with relief. Well, we were a bunch of achievers but we were also a bunch of rebels. And we were the only class who wanted to bring the reunion OUTSIDE the school campus. Good thing, cool minds prevailed. We went to the Alumni President (Because during that time when we were going to host, she was the only officer working, the others were incognito *haha excuse the word) and told her this is how we wanted the reunion to be. And true enough she told us the things we needed to do and suggested some cheaper suppliers, because you see whether you want to admit it or not, you are working on a budget….unless you are willing to spend “Sky-is-the-limit”.
2. SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR/PRINCIPAL – Why? Well true the Alumni Association is a SEPARATE organization from the school BUT if you will be needing the campus for the reunion site and you needed to contact some alumni (I’m sure some of them enrolled their children in your former school), then you needed to coordinate with them.
3. CLASS PRESIDENTS/ REPRESENTATIVES OF DIFFERENT CLASSES- For obvious reasons…you needed attendees on the day of your“hosting job”. Remember, it might be your turn to be the host class, but you must also remember that you are just hosting the event, it’s NOT your night. IT’S THE ALUMNI ‘S NIGHT! The class presidents/representatives will help you achieve that goal.
4. SUPPLIERS- In your class there is one or two caterers/ band members/ owners of lights and sounds/ and everything you needed on that night. I mean, come on you probably do not know they existed. During our time, our theme was the 80’s, from outfits to stage decorations to food. We served American dishes, those that were not normally served on our dining table…well except for the 3 roasted pig and calf and our classmate catered for the event.

Well those are probably the ABC’s of Hosting a homecoming. But the following are the extra tip.

For the most homecomings that my class and I have attended I noticed one MISTAKE that hosts should NOT do during the event- Sit and Eat. When we host a party at home, do we wait to be served too? NO! You go around, you thank your visitors for coming and serve them. You do not sit and eat UNLESS everyone has been served with their food and beverages. It does not matter if you have eaten or not as long as the guests have eaten theirs. Well, we have attended homecomings before us so when it was our turn to host in 2011, we have learned our lessons from these batches. We did not run out of food, there was no hang time, no dead air, everyone went home with gifts and tokens, and yes my classmates were able to bring home the bones for their dogs too…and some of us including me was not able to eat during our hosting job, not because there was no more food because I tell you there were too much, but because there were too many guests that night that you should say hello to and thank. And work around your budget, do not exceed beyond it, you would not like to stress yourself more after the reunion right? Our class paid our suppliers 50% of their service/s when we signed the contracts with them and when they delivered the goods and services (caterers, souvenirs, videographers, photographers, lights & sounds etc), they were paid in full. Utilize your classmates. The housewives and those who have more free time than some of the classmates, I’m sure you have them in your class, give them assignments. Make them decorate the stage or help in logistics. The more classmates you involve in the preparation, the happier you make them, (imagine they get to help in the preparations, that means a lot) and the less people you will be paying because classmates’ services are free of charge (just pay for their snack and tricycle fare if you want them to do errands for your class). BEWARE of the suppliers who robs you off of the contract. She/He/ They will agree with everything you wanted and they will NOT deliver the goods on agreed date/time. THAT will stress you, freaks the hell out of you and you will suddenly think you are Cersei Lannister and wanted the swindler’s head chopped off or his/ her/ their body/bodies burned.

DECEMBER 31, 2016

Homecoming is one of the best tests of how close and strong a class is. It tests the patience of each classmate, it tests the  understanding for one another, sometimes if you let it,  it could even break your class/ group apart. Every class who has hosted a homecoming have suffered a ‘slip’ no matter how closely knit a group is,  take our class for example, days before the event, it took the toll on us, every one was tired, voices were raised,  blaming the president is the easiest way out. Siding with the most famous classmate might scare the president and shakes the leadership. But if you’re transparent, fair and respects every opinion of your classmates, regardless of how unreasonable it is, everything will turn out right. On the night of our hosting job, I was screaming at my classmates, I bullied them, you see I am a control freak who is OC on details, yes a perfectionist. I thank God for giving me classmates who stood BY,  FOR, WITH, and AGAINST me during those times I needed someone to take control of me. I thank them for their angry words because if not for those, it would have been a one man show. I needed them as they needed me (Hell! I don’t even know if they needed me) but all I know when we had the homecoming, we delivered. SORRY TO THE OTHER CLASSES (in my school), but up to this date OUR HOSTING JOB is still the grandest ever.

HOMECOMING 101 PART 1

I guess most of us have attended some Alumni Homecoming of our own schools already. Maybe your class has become Host Class, Junior Hosts, Jubilarians, etc. I myself have attended Alumni Homecomings at my high school (Holy Spirit Academy of Laoag) and for some reasons; I was also able to attend the Philippine Military Academy Alumni Homecomings some years back. I guess I got lucky.

For the past homecomings that I have attended, there were close to perfect ones, ho-hum ones, and What-the-hell-am-I-doing-here ones. The best Alumni Homecoming that I was able to attend was that of PMA. There are the parades of graduates grouped by classes from the oldest to the youngest graduates. The oldest graduate and the youngest graduate are sat side by side at the stage and watch the presentations/parade. What makes it exciting is the unity that they all have. There were banners welcoming the graduates as far as Tarlac especially in Baguio.

So let me go back to  how homecomings are prepared.

HOST CLASS

This is the class who will host the homecoming that year. Most often than not, they are the SILVER Jubilarians, the ones who celebrates their 25th year as graduates of their school. They are the ones who  will take charge of everything, from the mass (for Catholic Schools), motorcades, dinners, programs and whatchamallits.

WHAT SHOULD HOST CLASS DO TO PREPARE?

* DO NOT HOST A HOMECOMING UNPREPARED!!!!

1. ATTEND REUNIONS– Host Class should at least attend 2 homecomings for them to know what to expect and prepare. To give them ideas of what they should do when their time to host will come. My class attended 5 reunions before us.
2. OFFICERS– A class should at least have a set of officers.
   1. President
   2. Vice President
   3. Secretary
   4. Treasurer
   5. Committee Chairmen

• Food
• Lights and sounds
• Giveaways
• Motorcade
• Invitations
• Guests
• Logistics
• Shirts
• Program

3. CLASS FUND– This is the most important if not one of the most important part of hosting a homecoming. Do not expect the school to provide you funds for the homecoming UNLESS your school is so rich that it will fund the homecoming. But first how should you raise funds. Homecoming is the most difficult reason for donations especially if you attended a private school, unless you are so famous that any company/ group of people would donate to you without resservations, then you can skip this part of this article. You can not just ask someone to donate for your school especially those who did not  attend it. But for those who are worried then read on
   1. CLASSMATES– you need to contact every classmate of yours especially those who are better off than most of you. These classmates are kinda “mapagbigay” basta for the class. Gather all the classmates that you know who are still in the area where you graduated. A half of my class is already residing abroad. We were 90 plus (3 sections). And one very important tip DO NOT BE CHOOSY! Classmates are classmates. You spent 11 years together. Some you spent 4 years with. Your last names are all your class year, eg. Rosary-Anne O. Pagatpatan HSAL 1986, Melanie B. Sy HSAL 1986 etc. ,etc., etc. In my class, we all came from all walks of life but no one is above anyone. We have Doctors, Teachers, Lawyers, Nurses, Architects, Engineers, and even the City Mayor is our classmate but they do not throw their weights around. Hell, our President is not even famous in high school. She just happens to be the most passionate about her class being together with her motto: One Class, One Family.
   2. CLASS DUES– Every classmate MUST pay her monthly class due. In our class, we collected P100/classmate in 2000. Then raised our monthly dues to P150 them P200. The classmates abroad paid their dues in $$$$ and the richer classmates were made to pay their past, present dues.
   3. FUND RAISING PROJECTS- We had Ukay-Ukay, we had carrolings every year. All proceeds went to the class fund.
   4. DO NOT TOUCH THE CLASS FUND KAHIT MAGUTOM NA LAHAT ANG CLASSDMATES KAKA PRACTICE NG SAYAW.
   5. POT LUCK– All parties/gatherings/inuman etc will all be pot luck. Each classmate who will attend the event will bring food and beverage. Have the affair in one of your classmates’house, that way you do not touch the class fund. KAHIT ikulong pa nila classmate mo, do not touch the class fund.