Spring has sprung in most places across the northern hemisphere and most of us are weary of the cabin fever. I hope that you've accomplished a great deal over the winter months with your genealogical research. It's time, though, to turn our attention to getting outside, cleaning up the yard and perhaps visiting the family cemeteries, making research trips, and ... planning those wonderful family reunions.

If you haven't started working on the reunion that's scheduled to be held over Memorial Day weekend, I have news for you: it's ONLY three weeks away! Even if your reunion isn't planned until later in the summer or early in the fall, time's a-wasting! The April 28 Ancestry Daily News included an excerpt from my book, Your Family Reunion: How to Plan It, Organize It, and Enjoy It, that discussed gathering family history at your reunion.

In "Along Those Lines..." this week, I'd like to offer some fast-track advice for getting your family reunion together and focus more on the planning phases.

Don't Try to Do It All Alone!
While you want your family reunion to be a successful, memorable occasion, there's absolutely no way you can do everything yourself. Your first order of business is to ask for help from other family members. Everyone has special talents and preferences. Try to enlist the people with matching skills to the tasks that need to be done. Let everyone know that you really need their help, that you appreciate their commitment, and that it is important that every task be completed on schedule.

Define the Scope of the Reunion
Decide what form you want the reunion to take before you do anything else. Will it be an afternoon cookout/picnic, a gathering in a park, a dinner at a restaurant, a group outing to a theme park, a weekend get-together at a hotel or resort, or what? How many people will you expect to attend? Will people stay at a hotel or at the homes of other relatives? How will food be handled? Will family members cook meals, or will the meals be dine-out affairs? If you eat in restaurants, will there be special prices arranged for children's and seniors' meals?

Select the Site
The location of the family reunion is important. It can determine the success or failure of the event. It should be convenient for most of the people to get to, and it should be someplace that people of all ages can find something enjoyable. It's probably too late to book a really terrific hotel for a weekend event, but you certainly can get some room rate deals for a group, even at this late date. Summer is a popular time for hotels to book weddings, receptions, and similar events, but call around and see what you can arrange.

Issue Invitations
Written invitations are wonderful if you have enough lead time to design and mail them. E-mail helps get the information out, but some people still do not use e-mail. If you're really in a time crunch, you can put together a fact sheet (where, when, cost, etc.) and give it to family members, along with a telephone contact list, and start making calls to invite people. People may need to check their family members' schedules and get back to you, and your “telephone team” may also have to make follow-up phone calls to determine the number of attendees.

Make Arrangements for Food
Hungry relatives can be grumpy animals. Trust me on this one! Make sure that you have made plans for all types of food arrangements. Remember that some people are on restricted medical diets for heart conditions, diabetes, and other ailments. In addition, some people are vegetarians. Many others also are adhering to special diets. Make sure that there are foods and beverages that everyone can enjoy while they adhere to their dietary regimens.

Family-prepared meals are the most flexible, as long as the menus are preplanned. Asking people to “bring something” can be risky, especially if nine people show up with potato salad, six arrive bringing chips and dip and salsa, and three people show up with green bean casseroles. The solution is to prepare a menu for each food event and ask people to sign up or commit to bringing a specific item or dish.

Kids have different tastes than adults. While you certainly want them to eat healthy foods, you should be prepared to accommodate their tastes too. Hamburgers can be made healthier by replacing the buns with pita wraps; low-sugar desserts can also be delicious.

If you're planning a banquet or family-style meal at a hotel or restaurant, work with the catering manager or chef in advance to let the facility know exactly what you want. They can accommodate most dietary requirements. However, make sure to reconfirm the meal requirements again a day or two before the event and visit the kitchen the day of the event to make sure everything is as promised.

Facilitating Communication
It's important to get people talking. Most people will find something in common to discuss. There will, however, be people who are shy, who don't know other people well, or who don't quite know how to get started. A successful reunion planner will try to facilitate communication with any of a number of techniques. Nametags are a great start, and so are mixer activities and games.

These all should be activities that persons of any age can do. Storytelling is a great way to put children and adults in contact with each other and to share family stories. A show-and-tell session using photos, old family clothing, and family keepsakes can spark an interest for people of all ages and stimulate reminiscences and discussions.

The point is to provide the opportunities for interaction and communications without going overboard with organizing every minute. Get things started and then step back. These things will begin to flow on their own.

Onsite Management of the Reunion
Your family members can become de facto members of your planning team during the reunion. Ask for volunteers to greet new arrivals, hand out nametags, set up the meal table, clear dinner plates, supervise the softball or badminton games, run last-minute errands, and help play with and watch the little ones.

Share the Genealogy
Family reunions are great places to learn more about the family. Help family members understand that the reunion itself is one more event that contributes to family history. Feel free to ask questions about names, vital events, dates, and personal recollections. In addition, take a stack of those unlabelled family pictures and ask for help identifying the people, the places, and the dates of those “mystery” photos.

Feel free to take a printed family tree, pedigree charts, family group sheets, and perhaps some photocopies (not originals) of important documents that people might find interesting. (My great-grandparents' marriage license is always an attention-getter.)

Ask for help filling in blanks and inquire about those missing documents, family bibles, and other items you've been searching for over the years. You just might make an important leap forward in your research!

Summary
Well, that's the “condensed” version of the list of to-do items for your reunion. If you want to know more and to get even more ideas, pick up a copy of my book, Your Family Reunion: How to Plan It, Organize It, and Enjoy It.

If you haven't started planning your family's next reunion, now is a great time to start. If you've never planned a reunion, you can have a great time and create a new chapter in your family's history--starting this year.

Happy Hunting!
George

George is president and a proud member of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors. Visit the ISFHWE website at www.rootsweb.com/~cgc/. Visit George's website, http://ahaseminars.com/atl, for information about speaking engagements.

George's new book, How to Do Everything with Your Genealogy, has been published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media and is the talk of the genealogy community. Order yours today at Amazon.com or another bookseller. ISBN 007223170X.

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