Things to Look Out for When Organising Gatherings

My bro was asking me yesterday how I manage to organise all my gatherings so well. I wonder why he asked that. Perhaps it was due to the fiasco of my grandma's birthday. In the end, my mum will be the only rep from my family as my dad has some singing to do at Boon Lay CC on Sat.

There are many things that you need to look out for when planning & organising gathering.

1. Check your schedule first after u decide on the date to ensure there are no clashes with other events.
2. Put out a list of the guests that u wish to invite. In this way, u won't miss out anyone. In a way, u can also avoid personality clashes or awakward moments should any of the guests dislike the pressence of the other person.
3. After deciding the date, try your best to give people advance notice of the gathering. Personally I think a minimum of 2 weeks advance notice is good enough, but I usually give about 1 to 1.5 months notice as some of my friends have super busy schedules due to the nature of their jobs and other commitments.
4. Decide what is to be done at the gathering after you get the minimum number of people
5. Consider what is the budget per person and the best place for the gathering.
6. Consider if booking needs to be done for the place if the crowd is bif
7. Get the guests to gather at a place where it is easily located on the day of the event. This is to prevent "road idiots" from getting lost if they were to make their way to the gathering place.
8. Send the guests reminders a week before, 3 days before & on the day itself on the day of the event as some people have short memory or are too busy to respond.
9. Always allow for sudden "no shows". That means people who promised to come and don't show up due to their various reasons. I usually don't invite such people anymore if they don't show up for a number of gatherings. This shows how the person values your relationship with him / her.

I think these 9 steps have usually worked for me for almost all the gatherings I have helped to organise or organised. I hope it is useful for you too.