I already feel nostalgic when I say that I’m writing as the former chair of Dinner at Davidson, a student-driven fundraiser for need-based financial aid. When you spend months planning an event and watching it come to life, the aftermath is golden. You’ve got great pictures, a nice dollar total and the warm, fuzzy feeling of a job well done.
Photo by Scott Cunningham.
Before the event, though, it probably didn’t feel so golden. Planning a large-scale campus program can make you feel like a character from A Series of Unfortunate Events. But unless your name is Violet Baudelaire, the errors and obstacles you inevitably deal with aren’t always the major crises you imagine them to be. Trust me, because I made every mistake in the book.
Mistake 1: There’s another big event the same night!
CRISIS … College campuses are busy places, and you can guarantee that your event won’t be the only thing on the calendar that day. Our date was a doozy: it coincided with Self-Selection, one of the biggest nights of the year for Greek life. Safe to say I did not take this news well.
…AVERTED: As disastrous as this news seemed, we were able to coordinate with the Patterson Court Council to create a schedule for the night that minimized overlap. We acknowledged that we cared about each other’s events and wanted to find solutions that would make both successful. The conflict actually helped us spread awareness about our efforts because having the events referenced in the same conversations gave us a platform to share the work we were doing with other students.
Lesson: Communicate effectively, support other campus initiatives and work together to maximize your audience.
Mistake 2: There’s a misprint on the invitations!
Photo by Emily Rapport.
CRISIS … Our committee spent hours composing handwritten notes to guests to add a personal element to our invitations. We had reached the final stack of invites when my heart almost stopped midway through writing my signature. Printed across the card was an invitation to an event on Feb. 7, 2013 … a date that had long since passed. Cue panic.
… AVERTED: We considered a reprint, but we didn’t want to spend money on more printing and forfeit the personal notes we’d written. So we gritted our teeth, turned the 2013s into 2014s with black ink and drew little smiley faces to acknowledge the mistake. Later, one invitee told me that he and his wife had shared a laugh over it.
Lesson: Don’t let little mistakes throw a wrench in your plans – and don’t take yourself too seriously.
Mistake 3: We don’t have enough volunteers, and people won’t know where to sit. Also, is the food going to be ready and –
No matter how much you prepare, the day of the event is going to feel like a crisis. I promise you, it’s not. Breathe. Make lists. Assemble a kick-ass team and be ready to be flexible. At the end of the day, your guests are there because they want the event to be a success, and they won’t notice the little mistakes that you will. Before long, your only crisis will be having to do your homework*.
A portion of the Dinner at Davidson planning committee. Photo by Herman.
* No, really, if you have any advice on how to solve this one, please share ASAP.