Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

As I meet with various women’s groups across the Unites States, I find so many commonalities.  The struggle to grow membership, transition leadership and the documentation/retention of important procedures seem to be repeated themes resulting in a colossal waste of time and energy as we recreate the wheel – yet again!

Volunteer groups and Boards often miss the memo about the importance, and necessity, of constantly cultivating new blood. Memberships age themselves (and their ideas) out, Boards have difficulty segwaying in effective ways and volunteers may do a fabulous job but forget that best practices will die on the vine if not documented and effectively transitioned.

The most important long-term gift anyone can offer an organization is to not only do an outstanding job, but to replace yourself along the way. Just like in any business, cross training personnel and volunteers is critically important to your sustainability. Your long-term goal for your organization involvement should be replacing yourself on a yearly basis. This isn’t to suggest that you move yourself OUT of the organization but to move yourself ON while assuring the place you left is filled. This is the only way to offset the natural attrition that takes place with any organization and it goes a long way toward percolating fresh ideas and preventing burnout, not to mention an opportunity for you to hone a few new skills.  This practice applies to ALL members of your organization from the Board to the members at large!

(Least I should digress but isn’t it fun when new words like sustainable and vetting come onto the horizon? Did we ever use these 5 years ago???)

Boards and leadership need to constantly be grooming their replacements as well, but NEVER change out a board by 100%. Keep newcomers in the pipeline at the top as well as at the committee level and you’ll see fresh ideas and energy carry you forward! Keep the wisdom of the elders available, but step back and make space for the new girls on the block. And for heavens sake, remember that just because an idea failed in the past doesn’t mean it can’t work in the future!

Whether you’re doing hands-on service work or producing a fundraiser, as soon as the project is finished you need to glean the good and the bad and document your procedures while it’s fresh in your mind. Not doing so only results in that wheel reinvention mentioned earlier and who wants to do that? If you have no appetite for spreadsheets then find the right person that loves to assign numbers or put order to your systems. Thankfully everyone has different gifts to share and isn’t it awesome when we give someone else space to shine? Remember how ecstatic you were taking over the Widget Committee to have the previous Chair hand you her 3 ring binder! Help subsequent committee members hit the ground running, paving the way to success with new ideas and contacts.

Professional Women’s groups are generally demographically the same: women in their 20’s and 30’s focus on career, the 40’s focus may be on children and then the 50’s and 60’s hit and women are finally ready, willing and able to give back.  But you need a mix of all these groups and their talents to continue to grow in numbers and in community recognition. Say your group is knitting caps for kids in the winter, a good cause for sure but are there bigger needs you can be addressing, like a coat or blanket drive for the homeless shelter? Is knitting caps enough to attract the professional young women or wise retired women whose expertise and circle of contacts can take you that extra mile? Groups can certainly focus on whatever resonates with their membership but if you want to create a legacy or a tradition and assure your organizations longevity, you best come up with an idea either with service or fundraising that attracts and retains younger women.  I always tell groups they should try to recruit 20 years down. A 30 year old will hang with a 50 year old but not so much with a 70 year old!  Attracting a broad range demographic is the best way for women to truly mentor each other.

Visual – 3 glasses of water. The first glass of muddy water represents your past. The other two glasses of fresh clean water represent your present and future. Would you ever carry the dirty water forward to contaminate your glasses? NEVER!  Not in life, not in business and not in your volunteer world! It’s a new day – START NOW!

No matter what type of event you’re planning – it’s success or failure all boils down to creating a realistic, workable budget. This dynamic document is the blueprint for your event but doesn’t occur without a lot of thought and the coordination of a lot of details. It’s dynamic because you can start off with a pretty basic, barebones budget, but as those details become apparent, and you start putting in actual numbers, it will continue to evolve until you finally have a document that can be relied upon as a useful guide.

A good chairperson or treasurer can (and should!) keep committees updated monthly or bi-weekly with where you stand financially against the budget. This not only keeps everyone on track, but can motivate them to pick up the pace in areas that need focus i.e.   program ads, sponsorships etc.

So where to start? Let’s take a class reunion as an example since we all get sucked into those at some point! (actually, no one should ever miss a class reunion – I think they are FABULOUS) You have no idea how many classmates or spouses are going to respond, you have no idea what things will cost and so, you have no idea how to set up a ticket price for attendees.  This is where you should find an event planner in your class and pay them for their expertise! But, let’s assume you don’t have that luxury and simply have a group of 5 people that have jumped in to make this happen.

History – See if you have any records from the previous event no matter how long ago. How many people attended? How many spouses? At what price? Any seed money left over for the next reunion?

Vision – Decide what you’d like to make happen. Maybe there is already a community function in your hometown that might be fun to tie into! Recently I helped my father attend his 65th High School reunion. His school has the longest running Alumnae association in the United States. (Stevens High School Alumnae, Claremont NH – 1871)
They have a banquet for all alumnae, a parade, floats, bands, horses – it was fabulous!
Maybe your hometown has a special community day that would add to your weekend! Check that out before you pick a date.

Gathering the Facts – Now that you have a vision and a date, the work begins to put together a budget. Many hands make light work as you gather information from bands, venues, caterers, etc. to find out what things cost. Recruit as many volunteers as you can!

Creating the Budget – At this point you should be able to plug in a few actual numbers and make an educated guess on others. Along with the usual suspects, i.e. venue, food, band, etc. Don’t forget the costs of designing a brochure or program, and/or invitations and the cost for printing and mailing. A lot can be done via e-mail these days so you might not need printed materials.

Ticket Pricing – So now you know what it’s going to cost, but you still have no idea about attendance. I’d take the most conservative attendance number you can muster and spread the cost out to find out how much you need per head. If you have money left over you can bequeath that to the next lucky committee for the next reunion!  And if you’ve miscalculated by thousands of dollars you can give everyone free drink coupons! They’ll love you for it! What they won’t love is coming up short and having to pass the hat for more revenue on location!

So plan, plan, plan! Look for inexpensive events already happening that you might be able to tag along with for at least a portion of your reunion weekend. A few ideas:

• Happy Hours at a local bar – maybe a tent can be set up outside with a cash bar – the house is already giving away some free appetizers. Or maybe they have a private room you can use.
• Yearly BBQ day put on by the Rotary, Elks or Moose where you could join in with a tent and BYOB.
• Sidewalk Sale or Community Day where food vendors are already on location. Snap up the town hall for alumnae and you’ve got a party!

Celebrating your 10th?  See what class is celebrating their 15th or 20th in the same year and join forces!

Big or small, old or young, classmates love to hook up and given just a little guidance on where to meet – they create a party just by being there! Checkout www.Classmates.com to find those that have disappeared on you!

If you’ve attended fundraising events for any cause, you know one of the most common mistakes made is the over use of the microphone.

We all know we have to thank the very important sponsors, we have to announce anyone we are honoring, we have to let people know why they are there but just keep it brief. Fifteen minutes is a long time when you want to be chatting, eating, drinking or doing something other than listening! And, of course be sure you have a good microphone and speakers so your audience can hear you!

Depending on how you’re going to raise money beyond ticket sales and sponsorship – you need to be creative about staying off the microphone.

Silent Auction vs. Chinese Auction – I’ve explained the differences in earlier blogs but here’s the 101: if you are selling tickets for people to drop into containers in front of an item they could win – it’s a Chinese auction. When bid sheets are available for each item – for the purpose of one attendee out bidding another – it’s a Silent Auction.

If you have a special few items that previously or potentially will result in big bucks and you want to give them special attention, by all means – make an announcement! But, make it short, sweet and to the point!

Use your program to give visibility, use a slide show on a big screen, use a flyer or tent card on the table but always think of creative ways to GET OFF THE MIKE!

Now you have to deal with letting your guests know who’s won. Here’s where the pain level for your “customers” can set in if you’re not careful. No one wants to listen to you read number after number of lucky winners.

Here are a few ways to keep the chatter down and the fun up:

1. If everyone isn’t checking out at the same time, you have a little more latitude. You might be able to write all the winning numbers on a big bid board so they can see if they’ve won – and then have someone retrieve the winning item for them.
2. You could have a form with the auction items on them and then write down the winning numbers either by hand or on a laptop. Make copies and hand them out to each table. This only works if guests are seated, as in a luncheon or dinner, and of course if the schedule of events allows.
3. Read the numbers over a microphone. If you only have 20 to 30 items it’s not so bad – but you can’t hold guests attention for 20 or 30 minutes with this method.

Bottom line: They’ve paid to attend, they’ve bought extra raffle tickets – treat them as the guests they are. Think about everything you do, as if you were a paying attendee. If it would be fun and enjoyable for you, chances are it will be for your guests too!

If you or your group is really thinking about doing an event as a way to fundraise, the first thing you need to do is to start getting the right tools in your toolbox.

Database – If you don’t already have a database of supporters, attendees from previous events, committee connections, etc. start building one today! Make no mistake; your list of contacts will be invaluable when it’s time to send out a Save the Date Card, or invitations.

Homework – Have you looked into what else is being offered in your community on the date you are planning? Small towns won’t have as much clutter but major cities have events daily. Just make sure you aren’t up against the Super Bowl if you’re in a sports town or the local rodeo day if the whole town shows up for that!

Muscle – Can you attract a handful of volunteers to serve on a planning committee? You don’t want to exhaust them before the event, but be sure they will be there for the long haul.  They need to commit to monthly meetings for 6 or 7 months before the big day, with the possibility of bi-weekly meetings as the event draws near.

Then you need to think about the volunteers that will be needed to actually staff the event. Here you want to think about shifts so that everyone has equal time to work, eat and enjoy! Think about how your attendees will arrive and the flow of registration. Don’t switch out volunteers during a crunch! Make a shift change after the crunch! Whether that’s parking, registration, silent auction close-out – whatever the job, it will have a timecrunch so look at those as you make up a schedule.

Here’s a great article on planning a wine tasting from Eric Orange of  LocalWineEvents.com It’s got some great tools but certainly reinforces why you need to have some expert help! It’s a long list! Overwhelming if it’s your first go at it, manageable with a professional at the helm. This is also a great place to post any local fundraisers that meet the criteria!

Having just attended a fabulous workshop with Dick Bruso – “Being Heard Above the Noise” – I just have to pass on a really good exercise he shared.  This one really got me thinking and I hope it will do the same for you!

“What would you say if you had 45 minutes in front of 1 million people?”

This little exercise forces you to distill your efforts, thoughts, purpose for living, work, energy, etc. down to one message. Take a minute right now before I tell you how I responded. I’ll wait………

For me – it came easily because it seems like everything I do or am involved with centers around one core message: It’s imperative that women living in freedom and abundance, assist those women locally and globally  who are not. Oppression has many faces.  It can be living behind a veil, or living in fear of  a partner or parent getting home. It lives in the office, the school, and the church. It comes in lots of forms,  in every corner of the world.

Madelaine Albright has a wonderful quote that was just repeated in the movie entitled “A Powerful Noise”,  a not to be missed movie about what some amazing women are doing worldwide to help other women in Bosnia, Africa and Asia. She says, “ There’s a special place in Hell for women who don’t help other women.”  This doesn’t mean this has to be your purpose for living, as it is mine,  but it does mean you have to do what you can, where you can, how you can  – for women less fortunate than yourself, and for women with causes you care about. When you impact a single mother for the better, you impact the entire family.

Nola Theiss, a former mayor of Sannibel island, and member of Zonta is now running a non-profit to help educate and inform communities about Human Trafficking and what that might look like in your community.  She’s a sought after expert and speaker on the subject and was really just a woman who couldn’t stand by and do nothing.  Awareness and Action are the Keys to eradicating this hidden crime.  She needs funding and support to continue the important work that has to be done,  so check her out at HumanTraffickingAwareness.org.

Whatever your mission, whatever your purpose, whatever speaks to your heart, think about your message and what you would say to engage others in your cause and passion.  I love the saying, “ We are all born angels with only one wing, but by locking arms we can fly! “ Here’s to your flight!

According to President Barack Obama, “What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly.” – Jan. 20, 2009.

As the needs in our cities expand and the services provided by non-profit organizations is greater than ever, corporate and personal budgets are being cut and sponsorships are drying up. How do we step up to the President’s charge and our own community needs in these challenging times? Well, we can either withdraw into a puddle or rise to the occasion.  We can choose to live in circumstance or choose to live in vision – I choose vision! So that’s what we’re going to focus on for the next couple months. It’s imperative that those of us that can step up – Do!

What can you do to make a difference for a cause you’re passionate about? Is there a way your organization can join forces with another service club to share muscle, dollars and passion to make a difference in your area? Do you have a great idea/theme/event you want to create but you’re not sure where to start? Just check out my blogs to get ideas from all over the country then make them your own!  The time to be creative is NOW!

Here’s a great idea to get those creative juices flowing:

How about a ladies night out? A party with a purpose!

Pajamas and Pearls

• Friday night at Susie Smith’s House
• Date: (what works for you?)
• Time: 6 to 11 PM
• Dress: Your favorite PJS and PEARLS of course!
• Donation: $25.00, $50 or $100 (depending on your friend’s budgets?)

Please join me for this grazing event of yummy appetizers, cocktails and games as we raise some money for the Domestic Violence Agency.  (Or whatever cause you’re passionate about)

You can do all the cooking yourself or get some friends to help you or hire a caterer! Any way you can afford to do it – just do it!  And after women have eaten and talked it’s time to play games. Everyone moans about games but everyone LOVES them!  Charades is a timeless crowd pleaser but a couple of my favorites that allow people to keep their seats are OUTBURST and SMARTASS.

Wanna think bigger? Have a group that wants to do some work? Turn this into a stay-over night at a hotel with a complete agenda of pampering, speakers, vendors etc. You can get some pretty good deals out there right now, too.  Speakers/Venues with open time from unexpected cancelations. Masseuses, nail techs needing to promote their, slower than usual, businesses.  Again, be creative and ALWAYS ask, “can you do better for us?”  If you decide to make this a really WOW offering however, I encourage you to pull in a professional meeting planner.  The potential is limitless!

Visit my blog often and “seize gladly” the opportunities that abound!

It’s that time of year when everyone is thinking, or at least HEARING about the Super Bowl!  With the current state of the Union and the embracing of change, maybe it’s time for a twist.   If you’re going to enjoy a Pig Fest – how about helping someone else in the process?  Consider turning your gathering into a fundraiser called the SOUPER Bowl instead.  Have a few of your foodie friends bring their favorite soups in a crock- pot. Have everyone bring their own bowl, and voila – you’ve got the makings of a real FUN Raiser! And no dishes to wash!

There are a number of worthy causes to tie your event to, local Food Pantries and Homeless Shelters are two that lend themselves to the theme but your current passion for a cause– whatever it is – is just fine, too. You can simply convert your usual Wings and Beer Fest  to a donation requested party and serve SOUPS, of course!   Check out our FREE DOWNLOAD with all the details! From a grassroots home event to a big venue production- we’re talking about it all!