Today I decided to open this new thread, because I am involved in major social events that require a lot of good organization, preparation and to cope with stress, so I thought I might highly benefit from sharing with you all, as sometimes I may also get stuck in my own narrow perspective.

Every year I participate in major fundraising for the special school my elder son has been attending to since 2000. I am absolutely not a professional in the field, and I have no network to begin with. I learnt to do my best - some families do more, some certainly do less to nothing, but I can't stay idle when I know how much my son has benefitted from attending this school.

Twice a year, we got to send about twenty invitations to a benefit dinner. I have always been very bad with this because I don't feel good at sending unsollicited mail! So I never felt very prepared when the invitations were coming, although through the year, I realized I could have easily established an easier address book simply dedicated to likely to be sympathetic recipients of my envelopes: noone is forced to do anything when they receive it, if they don't! and I, myself, often find that I am on a mailing from organizations that send me invitations to very costly benefit events, and I simply throw the invite away, because I can't really afford that level of donation.

So I probably cringe a little at the waste. But this is my problem.

I'd love to hear if some of you have similar experience, and how you deal with it, who would you chose to send these mailings, and what kind of follow up you would take upon.

Two years ago, I took my effort to another level, using social media and my blog to raise funds through small donations. It turned out to work much better for me, because I didn't feel like I was forcing in an area where I didn't belong (I am not playing in the Celebrity Apprentice field! that's for sure), and that I had developed a very nice and supportive network. Because of my blog, and my constant effort to raise awareness about autism, I had success beyond my dreams.

The next year, a fellow blogger (whom I have never met) who is a marathon runner, decided to raise money for me, by having everyone sponsor a km he would run... I was flabbergasted at the kindness and the level of support that this idea met. He did it again this year. All in all, this has been raising $2700 so far, with an average of $26 per donor! This year, I have offered a prize myself, and also offering the raffle ticket (once a year) for anyone who is on the North American continent (I don't think it would work for my European readers, because we don't want to have to ship prizes overseas!)

This works well for me, because I have been sorting my contacts easily, making it easy to keep their email address. I just realized that donating online doesn't guarantee that their postal address is accurate though, so it requires often back and forth communication. I have been thanking everyone for each donation (it's easier to do it immediately, and not wait until you have many, so that not to lose track of who is who). Small donors don't insist on having a mail for tax purposes, which also saves useless expenses to print and mail letters.

Now, the other big event I would like to talk to in this thread is not exactly the same, but has been linked in my mind today, as it involved sending invitations, and having a lot of trouble deciding who needed to be invited, and what are the "social graces" attached to this kind of contacting people and soliciting their presence or participation. My younger son is becoming bar-mitzvah, which in the Jewish tradition is a milestone, as the youngster is considered an adult, capable of leading a congregation in worshipping, and responsible for fulfilling all religious obligations as such (before that age, the parents are the only spiritual responsible, and religious school is just there to prepare the youngsters to their future missions).

Since my older son became bar-mitzvah previously, I could have learned about the whole passage, if I had had him enrolled in the same kind of education. However, his handicaps did not meet any program tailored to his needs, and he did not enroll in any formal education that traditionally lead to the ceremony that youngsters prepare and celebrate, at least in the US, with a lot of, how to say? over-the-top (in my humble opinion) hubrus.

Having a 7th Grader means receiving a lot of invitations to this social event. Some families are putting an incredible amount of money in the party, and also in the preparation of the event. I often wonder how the spiritual and religious message gets accross because of that.

So I have caught myself in becoming pretty judgemental about the whole stuff, and resisting as much as I can - it was very easy with my elder son, but it is really becoming a challenge with my younger, who is asking me questions, complaining also and bringing up topics that are highly emotional for me.

I'd like to share all about it here, but would first make sure that this is of any interest to you all, before I go further in details.

It is of interest to me, as I am contemplating having a graduation party for my DD, who will be finishing high school this June. Quite a different sort of thing, of course, with none of the more formal traditions that often accompany a religious/cultural event, but still, any social gathering will have a few things in common, wouldn't it? Whom to invite, how to decide who will not be included, preparing a menu and the food, etc. I haven't made any decisions yet, but, if I am doing something, I need to invite people by mid May.

Hello Blessmymess! I am so happy to see you join my thread! I was also thinking of your daughter lately, remembering when we were discussing issues about middle schooler, and now here she is graduating HS!! OMG, our children are growing and we have to go through so many stages as parents, an ever learning lesson in life, isn't it?

Anyway, I am glad that we can share some of the organizational tips together (and I know that you will allow me to also digress on the psychological points that always come to my mind when I discuss organization! :-)

Here is my Master's list of lists

• Guest Lists
• menu list
• music playlist
• To-do lists

One of the To-do-lists is already looking like this:

• What to take to service (would be to event for other events)
  - emergency sewing kit
  - stockings
  - tissues
  - speech A
  - speech B
  - talit (this is the Jewish prayer shawl that a new young adult will don for reading in the torah scroll. It is highly symbolic)
  - reading glasses
  -
  
• tbc
• tbc

I will post other useful lists as I go along with this thread.
Please feel free to step in!!

Regarding the guest lists

I counted that the invitations had to be sent between 8 to 6 weeks prior to event, and I personally asked for a RSVP by three weeks prior to event.

I was advised to prepare the guest lists immediately, so that it can be ready and amended as often as possible, - and not after the invitations had already been sent. That's a great advice (which I of course could not follow because of my procrastination tendencies, but that is another topic, isn't? what I learnt is that the minute you print your labels, you realize that you have forgotten to ask some people you know have moved for their new address, or you realize you don't have the address for such and such person although you see them very often and would have assumed you had their address at hand!).

I used an Excel type of file to prepare for the list of guests. I have entered not only addresses, but also phone number and email address. I don't think people keep invitations in a handy place all the time, so I will definitely email them back and forth (I also scanned my invite for those who would have lost it - I already lost one of the 5 invites I have received myself... it drove me nuts to try and relocate it... three days after I received it, it must have been misplaced in something I was working on the day I rsvped, but I can't remember what was opened on my desk that day!! so I'll have to ask the host for a new directions to go pick up my son after their party is over, I am glad it is one of my best friend, so that I am not too embarrassed to tell her I misplaced her invitation now).

In the excel file, I have room for

*the replies (yes, no or maybe),
*the number of the people from the family who are attending,
*and another entry for specifics (like special diet, although since my event will take place at our synagogue, we are already complying with the most compelling of the dietary requirements, like kosher and no-nuts policies).

But for any event with serving foods, you may want to take those different diets in consideration (like vegetarian).

*Special accomodation for out-of-town guests are another rubric
(I personally skipped that, by deciding in December that I was not inviting my family from abroad.
It was fully discussed with them at the time, but this is a biggy, to take into consideration long enough in advance because it involves hotels, driving, and possibly all week-end long events to plan on top of the actual event).

Whom to invite - whom to not invite

That issue has been big for me, and I'd be happy to discuss the specific with anyone here, because I have been mulling it over and over, and I am still often thinking that I am making a lot of "faux-pas" here!!

As I mentioned above, I took the decision alone about my own family. This is because it involved transcontinental and costly travel, the increased security measures are not making entering US easily (visas, special passports, screening, etc.) I guess this is really the extreme situations, and that very few GONers have to consider such. But even with non international travel, one having to invite their family members have to consider the traveling, since often families in America are scattered all over the continent, and airflight has become increasingly complicate as of lately (gotta love Very Highspeed Trains soon enough! that would make lives so much easier for lots of us).

This is the organizational aspect of long distance traveling.

But we have to bear in mind the other aspects of accomodating family members on the occasion of an event, with increased stress. Some family members can become very controling... or hard to control, or else.

- will they be helpful or critical?
- will they be independent once on site or will they need to be shlepped around as soon as they need to go somewhere?
- will they enjoy being there or will they resent it? (thinking of what they have had to give up instead to make the event)

We have to take this in consideration for close friends sometimes too!

In my list of guests, I had included a family from our congregation, that very unexpectedly and suddenly resigned from their position in the synagogue (he was the president of board, she was working in the office) two days before I was planning to mail my invitations. I had invited them because their middle son played a very nice role in watching my autistic boy who is the same age as their younger daughter, because I always had a very nice relationship with both parents and actually liked that family. But sensing that this unexpected and brutal resignation might have had a connection with the synagogue itself, I tried to figure out what to do.

I was right in my intuition: apparently something ugly has happened with her and the religious school director. I haven't yet heard about any specifics, but just from her wording to me (and her subsequent silence to my email of sympathy) I suspect that she has had very hard feelings towards the whole place, so I chose not to put them in any situation of having either to ignore my invitation or to decline it for the wrong reasons, and I didn't send them any invitation.

When initially drawing my guest lists, I was far from imagining that I had to go into politics for it to be right! :-)

One way we avoided some potentially sticky invitation issues when DH and I married was to have a very small, private ceremony, but send out announcements after. That has continued to work for us with other religious events; it allows friends or family members who might not be comfortable attending to still be aware and share warm thoughts, without any pressure to attend.

We have coordinated travel plans within the US for most of our family celebrations, right down to grouping 2-4 different events into one weekend to take advantage of one set of grandparents being able to travel over, and another grandmother timed her visit to coincide. Not easy, but sometimes do-able! In our case, we could answer those three questions above:

Yes, they would all be helpful with the ceremonies and celebrations.

Yes, they would be 99% independent on arrival, and any driving would be easily coordinated, as the geographic spread once in town was very small.

Yes, they'd be happy to be there, no resentments lingering. That's a BIG one!

I got an email from one of my sisters-in-law just yesterday, announcing their intention to visit our part of the nation in a few months. I thought she handled the travel aspect really well by saying that they had X amount of days at my parents, and would love to see everyone, so to maximize their visit, they invited everyone to come into my parent's town at some point during the X days. That leaves us all free to arrange our own visits (to coincide with those siblings we most like to spend time with), without demanding anything of anyone; she rounded out by saying that while they would love to see everyone, if circumstances make a trip impossible, please don't feel obligated, as they plan to move back to the state permanently next year, and will then have lots of time to visit everyone.

So, that's a little off-topic on event planning (sorry), but it left everyone feeling wanted and welcomed, but not pressured to attend, which was nice.

One thing we've found when planning special events was to streamline food prep as far as possible. It's a regional tradition to have most everything homemade; we've used crock-pots liberally, and also made selected purchases of certain dishes to cut down on the labor and cleanup for ourselves. Definitely, coordinating to meet any religious restrictions is a big, big thing!

(Hadassah, there are certain religious celebrations that seem to develop some BIG commercial expectations--we deal with that, too, so you're not alone. I'm far more in favor of smaller, simpler celebrations. I really struggle with the critical feelings, myself. I've not got that "compassion" thing down fully yet. )

RAMBLING POST AHEAD--like a "spoiler" alert! I am such a terrible "stream of consciousness" rambler. Hope SOMETHING makes sense!

Hello! I know from my son attending a few bar mitzvahs many years ago (before I was internet savvy at all & we didn't even own a computer) that they can become quite elaborate affairs (very close to what our daughter's wedding was like so I'll jot a few {HA HA; ME OF SUCH FEW WORDS} notes I found helpful from planning that). But I actually called the temple to find out what an appropriate gift would be for my son to give!

On your excel file, all the stuff is great about who RSVP-ed & how many in each party, but I don't know if this is a consideration (it was at my daughter's wedding) is CHILDREN. As it is a solemn affair & I assume crying babies would be distracting at a bar mitzvah, too, we hired a babysitter to be there on site for the ceremony & dinner/dance afterwards so that was noted on the invitation & I needed the know how many people would need the service, ages of children, etc. So that was more info. that was on the RSVP card sent back. I also put on the excel file what gift they sent & when my daughter & her husband sent the thank you notes.

We sent "Save the date" cards AS SOON AS WE HAD PICKED THE DATE & LOCATION (almost a YEAR before) w/all the info. about the wedding to out-of-state & country friends & relatives as making traveling plans takes a lot of planning IN ADVANCE & the actual 6-8 weeks before the wedding when you send the invitation is TOO LATE for them to make arrangements easily.

We had a BLOCK of rooms reserved at a hotel withing WALKING DISTANCE of the site where the ceremony & party afterwards were going to be held (same location) & they got a discount on the room when mentioning our last name, so all that info. was provided on the "Save the date" cards sent w/ph. # of hotel, cancellation & reservation info.

I had "gift baskets" (purchased at discount store) I put together in each room at the hotel w/a welcoming hand-written note (they HAD traveled far to come to the event) that contained a small bottle of wine, a couple bottles of water, hand-made chocolates in the shapes of race cars {friend made them & we live in Indianapolis of the Indy 500 car race; been once; that was enough for me!}, little crackers, biscuits, cookies & crunchy/salty mix of nuts & such & other little treats that I can't remember; it has been 8 years! Also, most importantly I had all the wedding info. provided again on card stock w/ph. #'s & literature about WHAT TO DO AROUND THE AREA (most within walking distance--HINT, HINT: We are too busy to entertain you all the time! We did not do that 4-day extravaganza some people do of white water rafting to balloon rides, etc. so the wedding ceremony was only one of the featured events! Go entertain yourselves, People, I'm busy! Except son took men to play golf & all out-of-town {state & country} people were invited to brunch the morning after the wedding at our house so had info. about that & who would be picking people up to bring them to our house so they would not have to rent cars unless they wanted to drive to see the Amish or something!).

In figuring out how to do everything, I made a timeline for when decisions had to be made, deposits sent in (for food or location or band or photographer or whomever & whatever!).

Also, set up appts. for haircuts, manicures or any other things like that. We got dressed at the site & took most photos before the actual wedding (A "No No", as husband-to-be saw bride in wedding dress before the actual wedding but it has lasted 8 yrs. so far so I guess we didn't "jinx" it, but didn't want people waiting for hours after ceremony before receiving line & party while photos were taken).

So first of all we had to figure out a BUDGET, then from there what kind of event (appetizers & punch at the celebratory party afterwards of full sit-down meal w/a bar or what we did which was kind of half & half--Sit down dinner, but w/stations of different kinds of food for people to serve themselves as daughter is vegetarian & enjoys many ethnic foods we concentrated on that, but did have a "meat" station & seafood. We also had only beer & wine as alcohol & waiters serving that, but also several "bar" stations so people could get up & get more or stand & mingle w/a drink in between courses).

Tables were numbered & had a seating chart done (used paper plates at home w/mother of groom w/everyone's name on a slip of paper & each paper plate numbered & represented a table that seated 8 people & then placed so & so at this table & tried to put people so & so would enjoy {tennis friends together; ex-spouses apart!} & that way we could keep rearranging until we thought we got it right & didn't have to keep writing down names & erasing; just move the slip of paper to another table {paper plate w/a # on it} when trying to figure out where to stick that awful aunt that HAS to come {on his side, of course, I have no awful aunts in MY family--just a wearisome brother}).

A table at dinner room had everyone's name & what their table # was. Each spot had the person's name on a place card so everyone knew where to sit. When everyone was seated, my husband did a short welcome & expressed his joy at everyone being able to celebrate the event & then told how the tables would be "dismissed" by their number by one of the waiters going over to the table to tell them it was time for them to get up & go to the different food stations to start serving themselves (salads & wine & water were already on the table; salad on a plate already at each seat so when people sat down they ate the salad first {different types of dressings at the table to choose from} before being dismissed to go get other courses; waiters took away salad plates when tables were up getting their next course & also had to keep taking away used plates as people went for 2nds or 3rds or whatever so they got a clean plate at each station) & to replenish the wine & drinks at each table.

Hope I'm explaining this right! It worked really well! People got to chatting over their salad & wine (or beer, soft drinks, etc.) & were already occupied & didn't feel like they had to "wait" long to be sent off to get other courses.

Also, for people you are NOT INVITING due to your travel concerns, you can send ANNOUNCEMENTS of the event w/a photo after the fact. The people can decide to send a card or gift to the couple, if they choose.

Some people nowadays do web sites dedicated to their events. I wouldn't do that myself (a little too self-glorifying) but many people do them & I do read them, but I also ENJOY those Christmas letters, too, people send telling us who is off probation or just had their 4th divorce!! Well, if my family members were honest, their Christmas letters might sound like that!--Suzy

See that Liz wrote many of my ideas much more concisely while I was laboring over my masterpiece!!

Have to deal w/the judgmental issues myself, as well. But I have a big post in my eye, I think. Is that the traditional saying about taking the post out of your eye before trying to remove the sliver out of someone else's? I am definitely mixing metaphors & probably religious texts badly here!!--Suzy

Suzy: Wow! I think you should become a professional wedding planner! I had all of 10 days to arrange my wedding! I think I'll tell DD to elope when it is her turn! LOL.