Success Stories
If you think your website stands out, tell us about the reunion website tools and features you're using and the results they've helped you achieve. Who knows, we might feature your school reunion on our website!
For Corsicana's Class of 1997, it was an event to remember. The celebrations started with a Tigers football game at the high school stadium. The next day featured an organized family picnic and ended with the 10 year reunion official party at the local recreation centre. The committee seamlessly organized and communicated the details to classmates and felt they couldn't have been as successful without their reunion site.
Before the Reunion Website:
Once the reunion committee was formed, they considered making phone calls and sending out newsletters to inform classmates about the 10 year reunion. But Sara, who is on the reunion committee, felt a reunion website would ease the organizing and planning of the reunion. Since the committee also wanted a means to sell tickets to the event, it was decided that the reunion site was the best way to give their classmates all the pertinent information and sell tickets too.
After the launch:
"The website really helped us organize all the details", said Sara. She continues "It also gave us lots of info that we hadn't thought about before". The site fostered a sense of community and helped to rekindle old friendships. "Our classmates enjoyed seeing everyone who registered and finding out where they were in their life now". The reunion site also solved the committee's original goals. "It for sure kept us from having to make phone calls and from sending out newsletters- so that cut costs right away", mentioned Sara. She adds, "It was nice that if we had something to say, we could instantly send everyone a notice from the committee". Most importantly, the ultimate goal was met as the reunion committee couldn't be happier with attendance at all three events. Sara recalls, "[The site] for sure helped us keep everyone informed about the reunion - and that helped with attendance". Sounds like a successful class reunion. Go Tigers!
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At Marion Harding High's 25th reunion
Before their 25th Reunion, the Marion Harding High School Class of 1983 held two prior reunions, a 5 year in 1988 and a 10 year in 1993. The reunions were moderately successful in terms of attendance. There were attempts to organize subsequent reunions, but it was difficult to recruit a reunion committee, and contacting classmates was a major challenge. Upon deciding to hold a 25th reunion, the need for a feature-rich website was obvious for the committee, considering their poor track record and the challenge of contacting classmates.
Before the Reunion Website:
Krista Rowlands decided to head up the reunion committee with the main goal of getting the word out to as many classmates as possible and boosting attendance. Her first order of business was to find a website builder that would help her achieve this goal, but she also wanted the site to eliminate all mailing costs, allow classmates to RSVP online, and to permit the committee to sell tickets online. Krista found MyEvent after reading Creating Family Web Sites for Dummies by Janine C. Warner and felt she had found her solution. Krista explains, "Once I was on your site, I began looking through the demos and created a site using your 7-day free trial, and I was hooked!"
After the launch:
Krista found it was incredibly easy and intuitive to create her class reunion website. "I emailed the website link to several classmates with whom I had stayed in contact, and things just rolled from there". The website also operated as a recruitment tool for the committee, "I had people volunteer to be part of the committee and others offer their assistance in various capacities after viewing the site", said Krista
The professionalism of the website added a sense of credibility to the reunion. "We showed that the reunion was really going to happen after having two failed attempts at the 15 and 20 year reunions", said Krista. She added "The Classmates page with "then" and "now" photos, and the ability to post comments and bits of information about oneself, provided the spark we needed to encourage interest and attendance".
In addition to the original goals, the website was able to give Krista and her committee much more support than they expected. Krista explains "We created a "See Who's Comin" page so everyone knew who would be at the events and a Missing Classmates page to help find classmates who had not yet registered". The reunion committee also took an innovative approach to the custom forms tool and created a questionnaire for each classmate to complete, and then included the results in an electronic memory book. Comments of support and excitement for the impending reunion came pouring in. Krista shares a few: "I would like to be involved with the planning of our reunion". "The website looks terrific!" "Thank you for putting this together.....what a great avenue to get reacquainted with our classmates".
The committee is pleased they used a reunion website builder to plan, organize and communicate the reunion. Krista elaborates, "We are all convinced the website contributed to the success of our 25 year reunion. Our guess is that we had approximately 50% more people attend our 25 year reunion compared to the 10 year reunion and this is in large part due to the website".
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Shelbyville High School class of 1988 just celebrated their 20 year reunion. The reunion was exceptionally successful as the reunion committee remarked that attendance beat previous class reunion numbers. The committee said it was all due to the reunion website. Tiffany, one of the organizers elaborates, "It made EVERYONE feel like they were a part of the planning committee".
Before the Reunion Website:
Prior to creating the reunion website, organizers communicated to the class by email, but were having difficulty. "We were emailing WAY more often than we wanted. It was almost like spamming people to get classmates all the pertinent information".
The committee needed to find a way to effectively communicate with the class. They also knew they required a place for people to register, pay their fee and reminisce with each other. After finding out about MyEvent.com, the reunion committee made a unanimous decision, and purchased a MyEvent reunion website builder. "It had everything we were looking for", said Tiffany from the reunion committee. She continues, "An unexpected, but most welcome benefit was that people talked about it and linked their friends to it, and other classes have taken the website idea and are using it as well".
After the launch:
Tiffany is very happy with the results the website has generated, "I can 100% say our attendance success is due to the website".
"Now we can send out an email once a month and remind people to stop in and check out what’s going on, and there is no more spamming!" She was surprised that with this reduced level in communications that the attendance was so high. She explains, "We even had people from other graduating classes stopping by to say hello. The website really got the word out. We published the link in our local newspaper as well, so there was a lot of traffic".
All the classmates who attended the reunion complimented the site. "We actually did a poll and the overwhelming majority thought it was money very well spent and they checked it almost daily", said Tiffany. The site was so successful that classmates still login and check the blog to see what's new. The committee states "We are planning a class-wide 40th birthday party in 2010 and will be using the site to help make that happen!"
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