As our celebration continues, I continue to reflect on the planning that has led up to our celebration.  I was thinking about things that we could have done better.   That is part of evaluating any major effort.  

Budget specifically for the celebration.

Somehow we thought when we did the yearly budget a year ago that the cost of our celebration would get absorbed here and there in the budget.  But as the year progressed and the celebration got closer, the committee could see that it was a big mistake not to ask for a specific budget line for the celebration itself.   Fortunately for the celebration, this was one of those years where we needed to do a mid-year budget revision; so even though we were cutting the budget total, the finance committee carved out a line item for the celebration in the revised budget.   Sooner or later, and especially in a tight budget year, subcommittees for promotion or dinner or remembrances, etc. are going to need money.  

Appoint not only sub-committee or area leaders, but recruit assistants too. 

We discovered as the celebration neared that our leadership cadre was too thin.   We were like a basketball team with only 5 players and no one to substitute when someone was injured or needed a rest.   One team leader couple was doing double duty in two areas.   While it was barely tolerable because the time frames of major involvement were staggered, it was definitely not ideal.   Another leader had family circumstances arise that required more attention.  Since that area had no assistant leader and very few team members, some work inevitably fell upon other sub-groups.   When leaders are overloaded, the whole project suffers and workers can get a sour taste from overwork.  Hindsight says we should have recruited assistant leaders so that each team had some back-up in case of emergency.     I think I could have been more helpful in recruiting additional sub-team members.  I left that to committee heads. 

Use social media to advertise

We decided as part of the build-up to the 50^th anniversary to put the pastor on Facebook and create a Facebook page for the church.  We did not realize when we did it that this medium would quickly become one of our best means of getting the word out about activities.   If we had started sooner, we would have had more time to build up our Facebook following for the church’s page.   Of course, we also created website pages for the 50^th and the pastor blogged about it as well.  However, we did not assign enough writers.  We created the internet vehicles but had trouble getting sufficient new content online to maximize our exposure.  Ideally we needed at least two volunteers specifically writing for the web and Facebook.  Then, I think we needed additional means to link Facebook, the webpages, and the pastor’s blog.  We were on the right track, but in hindsight, we could have been much more effective with a few changes.   

Recruit more photographers

We had assigned a photographer for a formal picture of guests, but we had not assigned photogrphers for informal pictures.  I wish we had.   When we asked later for pictures that had been taken at the celebration, there were not nearly as many as we expected.