Things I learned from the 5th Anniversary Banquet...
 

Forgive my ramblings, but looking back on Saturday I realized I learned a lot of new things this time around. I tried a lot of new things that I hadn't done in previous banquets and I think overall this was the best one yet. But it provided a lot of lessons learned and opportunities for improvement.

Feel free to comment on any of the points below. Next year is going to be even better! :cool:

1. In order to get a record turnout, say you are shutting down the club. You can always go back on your word if a lot of people show up and you'll be applauded for it. :lol: Just kidding! :lol:

2. The Rock rocks! We didn't discover this place until Banquet #2, and then repeated it there for #3. For #4 we thought we'd change it up a bit, but The Rock atmosphere and people really seems to be where it's at. The location is pretty central for our Puget Sound area members, and expanding out on the bigger scale and considering BC, OR, EWA/ID members, it would still be "central". Only downfall may be if this event grew much bigger - we had 33 people and 35 seats. The room can actually hold 45 max, but that would have really filled the room and encroached on our display/game area.

2B. Better arrange the parking lot with the restaurant management. For the most part they left the lot open for us, but didn't really close it completely for us. If we return, after what they saw Saturday, it should be no problem having a large area completely roped off for us until we arrive. Most of the management and employees were coming in the room while I was setting up to gawk at all the cool cars outside. It was apparently the talk of the whole restaurant!

2C. Know your room. We had taken a year off from The Rock, and also last time we were there we did not have video projectors, stereos, or computers to hook up. If we repeat all of these things I will now be prepared in advance with all my cords and equipment custom prepped for the room - no one will have to step over any cords!

3. Video projectors are cool! When we had our 2nd Banquet at the Rock in 2005 I had showed a video. We had to use the small TV hanging up in the corner. It was fine but this year I wanted something bigger. I tried to think of a solution and sitting in a meeting at work using a projector I realized, hey good idea. I was getting ready to look into renting one when I realized by accident that Patrick had one. He agreed to bring it up and I can't thank him enough! It made the video and slideshow so much cooler and plus gave us a chance to play Jeopardy using something other than cardboard and index cards. :D Long story short, we will continue to do this one way or another in the future. :)

4. Be organized! In the past I have been more prepared and had everything set up by the time everyone came in. This year I put off too much until the day of and ran out of time. I hope everyone enjoyed the handouts, I felt kinda "dumb" throwing them across the tables while everyone was already seated.

5. Have a script, or at least a rough outline. Again in the past, I have been more organized. Whatever talks I gave, were scripted. Which felt a little strange and sounded like I was reading something, which I was. :D But I find that at least I should have all my points written down so I don't forget anything. I apologize if I didn't thank someone publicly for something.

6. Do all the presentation before people eat. We have always done the awards presentations, any videos, games, etc. after everyone is done eating. And we always run into some delay this way because everyone finishes at a different pace and starts to heed nature's call, need "fresh air", etc. I hate to leave anyone out of the proceedings, but it ends up being impossible to keep everyone in the room at once. I notice everyone is much more prone to stay put when they first come in from the parking lot and sit down. From now on I think we'll run our presentation first thing after coming in from the car show, or at least between when everyone's order is taken and the food arrives. Then by the time food comes, the rest of the evening is open to just eating, drinking, and socializing. And those that need to leave early can whenever they want. :)

7. People like cool videos. I'll do my best to make more. I've got a lot more footage from 5 years and after all, what I showed was supposed to just be the intro to a whole retrospective. But I also have the wheels turning on how to get more video this year. ;)

8. April is much better than Januar/February! Every other year this event has been in the dead of winter. Part of the idea was that it was a way for us to get together between the Fall Colors (October) and Spring Classic (May). Problem is, as we started to expand the event to include meeting at Earl's and the Car Show (and sometimes driving tours), the weather was a factor that time of year. Even for just coming to the dinner, people aren't as prone to drive out to something if it is crappy out. We were blessed with a fantastic day this year (and very lucky cause look what happend the next day). This week aside, odds are still better we'd get good weather waiting till April. And especially if we continue to combine this event with Earl's Maintenance Meet (which in the past has been a seperate event), we need to stick to the spring months. And I do like the idea of having this be Earl's big meet. That way "far away" people can come to both and not have to choose. I know having the 4:00 cut-off shortens the maintenance time a bit, but lately at these it has been more social anyways and less intense maintenance. That is best saved to one-on-one sessions when full attention can be given anyway.

That's all I can think of for now but feel free to comment on any of these or add your own observations.

I also have a general feedback post where you can post your comments on anything else you thought of Saturday...

I learned that a convoy is a much better way to go when the trip a 4hr drive...:p

I also learned that Mark apparently thinks he owns a 300zx or something...seriously -3000 points...hehe jk Mark...:D

If we wanted to, the car show could be in the field at my place after people wash their cars. That wouldn't allow people who are coming just for dinner to participate, but the larger area helps.

I have a projector as well which could be used if we need one.

I usually try to have members sign up for things that they want to do for maintenance like lights, o-rings, oil changes, and other stuff. I don't know if that would help, or if people like to just respond to what is needed and try to get it done. I usually have the needed parts if they didn't have them. If they get their parts, belts etc before hand, we can do the work there.

The number one thing that I have always found is that when we all get together, we have a great time. This great car has brought many great people together and you can't go wrong with that. :) Thanks for the great meet.

One last thing. I do like the awards. It give us a chance to recognize members for what they do best as well as have a laugh. The certificates that you have done in the past are just great. We don't really need fancy trophies, but something is nice to remember the meet by. The hand outs you did were great. :)

< taking notes > :D

I think I'd like to stick to the car show being right there wherever we have the banquet for a couple of reasons. It includes everyone, because no matter what, there are always going to be people that only have time to come out for a couple hours to the banquet and not drive up north. Also, it provides a nice excuse for everyone to be out there looking at the cars, park all together, and then the judging is fresh before the banquet begins. Good point on the larger area though. Although I don't think Saturday night was terrible, it was actually kinda cool that there were SVXes parked on top of each other. There were a few "other" cars that kinda messed up a nice line though. Like I said, if we do it at the same place next year we might have more pull now because we attracted so much attention (and brought in some good money for the night). Maybe we could secure that area of the parking lot to ensure no one else parks there?

Noted on the awards. To be honest, I kinda missed handing them out too.