Senior Banquet Report 2008
We had a Director of Events & several committee members to accomplish this event!
Place: Ritz Charles (Convention Center, Overland Park, KS)
Cost: $32 per person
Month: April
Guests: 75 attended (senior graduates & guests)
Budget: $250 (ended up needing more—see notes)
Theme: “Let Your Light So Shine” Matt. 5:16
Speaker: Bill Wilting, Desoto Youth Ministries
Music: Classical & Jazz CD’s (no lyrics/singing)—through Ritz sound system
Photographer: We used our own cameras & had a decorated photo corner
MC : William (Bill) High
Event Order:
Started 6:30 pm
Mingling, ice breaker games, & photo taking
Prizes given for games
Dinner served
Group game & drawings for prizes
Musical number – violin duet
Guest speaker
More mingling, photo taking
Ended about 9:45 pm
Invitations: Nice paper & envelopes, delivered at a planning mtg.
Decorations:
We supplied—(a lot was donated or brought from home): 2 archways (entrance, photo corner), 9 faux green trees & a few bushes, white lights for trees, 2008= banners (3), centerpieces (9), signs (2), blue/silver balloons (18), confetti, name tags, seating assignment place cards, centerpieces, plants, & artwork for sign-in table & table in front of speaker.
Ritz supplied – hanging supplies (tapes, pins), ladders, extension cords, table clothes, table centerpieces, beautiful table settings for 75, stage, speaker podium, prize table, punch bowl table, seating, & photo corner armchairs.
Prizes: (8) mostly donated from businesses, we also bought small flashlights
with “Let Your Light So Shine” printed on the side to give to each senior as a souvenir.
Dress Code:
Girls—Best Sunday dress or formal wear. Dresses need to be knee length or longer. All shoulders must be covered with a jacket or sweater. No low backs, low fronts, slits above the knee, or bare shoulders.
Boys—Two piece suit, or long-sleeved dress shirt with dress slacks or a tuxedo. Must wear a tie, dress shoes, and dress socks.
Senior Banquet Planning Notes:
The Ritz –It was a beautiful place to hold a banquet like this, it accommodated a lot of people nicely & was a great place to have a guest speaker & program. The atmosphere with the chandeliers and beautiful place settings was very elegant and formal. The management was pleasant and experienced to work with. BUT…everything was so expensive!! Anything we wanted to do or add ended up being really costly. The food was very expensive and they wanted $25/gal for punch. We dropped the soup from our meal order and they ended up throwing in the punch in its place. We figured out the cost but in the end were unpleasantly surprised to find that not only was a 20% gratuity a part of the bill (which we knew about), there was also state tax added to the entire bill which threw us over budget by about $150 dollars. After charging everyone $32 a plate for dinner, we didn’t feel we could ask for anymore from the guests, so the budget committee found us the extra needed funds.
Guest Speaker—This was hard to decide on for many reasons. Remember that you will need to throw in the cost of their dinner, plus their spouse’s meal if they come, plus a thank you gift for speaking, and maybe even some travel expenses. Also, trying to find availability and someone good for a senior crowd was a challenge. We like who we chose though and it all worked out just fine. Some of the speakers names we narrowed it down to are listed here for future banquet planning reference.
Jon McGraw, *Bill Wilting (2008) , Drew Hiss, Scott Lewis, David Frisbie, Jim Shelton, Pastor Bob Cave, *Jon Dunning (2007), Gary Spani, William High
Menu—the meal at the Ritz comes with 4 courses; soup, salad, main entrée, & dessert, with basic drinks (water, tea, coffee), punch is extra. You are allowed 3 entrée choices and 2 dessert choices from a very large selection menu list. This year we chose chicken parmesan, blackened Tilapia, & vegetable lasagna. Most of the guests chose the chicken dish. The food was very good, but not outstanding.
Planning—start planning early, hold meetings as a committee on a regular basis, delegate the responsibilities early on, do lots of follow-up, have someone very responsible in charge of collecting all the money, make sure the invitations include all the details of the event including the dress code, notify the guest speaker about 3 months in advance, graduation supplies become available to purchase around the second week in March, get as many things as you can donated, remember to include as much fun & wonderful memory making things as possible, some guests didn’t want a dance, but a lot of the seniors were disappointed that we didn’t have one, remember to send out thank you cards to all who helped, divide the graduate list and make personal calls to remind & to make sure all the info has been received, keep & turn in all receipts, keep track of your expenses, make announcements about the banquet at every monthly planning meeting, be clever & have fun!!