Every year, over 7M Filipinos graduate from high school and after a quarter of a century, they will have the opportunity to organize their alma mater’s Grand Alumni Homecoming (GAH). A GAH is a social gathering of the graduates from the time of inception to the most recent. Usually, the organizer is the batch that celebrates their silver jubilee year or 25 years after graduating from high school.
I would like to contribute to the future batches by sharing the process on how to organize a homecoming in my alma mater. Don Bosco Technical Institute is located in Soliman St., Brgy. Sto Cristo, Tarlac and has so far produced 65 batches. Here are 9 key steps that I hope will help guide the future batches who will organize a Grand Alumni Homecoming.
STEPS:
1 – BATCH REPRESENTATIVE.
The first step is to identify the Batch President or Representative. For proactive batches, they usually have a batch president or a batch representative. If none is identified by the batch, the alumni association usually helps out identify a batch (SPOC) single point of contact. The batch rep should ideally be the strongest link to the batch capable of making things happen.
Tip: Look for a batch rep who is nonpolar and has decent leadership experience.
2- ALUMNI ASSOCIATION.
When organizing a grand alumni homecoming, the alumni association is your best friend. They have the “working model” and all you have to do is plug in your variables and set your batch’s objective. They will be your consultants all through-out the preparation period. Important information includes: GAH batch attendees last 3 years, programme, school requirements for the project.
Tip: Tap into the rich grand alumni homecoming experience of the alumni association.
3- COMMITTEES.
The adage “no man is an island” is very much applicable to this step. The batch rep needs all the help that he can get hence delegation is key. Ideally, the committee heads should have acceptable leadership exposure, need not be prompted to do their responsibilities and committed. Note that I did not use time availability because in our batch, every committee member was BUSY but they were COMMITTED. The committees created include FINANCE, FOOD & DRINKS, PHYSICAL ARRANGEMENT, SECURITY, COMMPLAN & ENTERTAINMENT. Some of the committees can be combined but this set up is what worked for us.
Tip: The key words here are COMMITTED and RESPONSIBLE because it is assumed that everybody is busy at this point in their lives with their primary responsibilities and this is just an extra-curricular activity for most of us.
4- BUDGET.
Now that you have an idea what are the variables, you would need to compute for a target budget. The formula for the budget would be: BUDGET = commplan + entertainment (including entertainers, lights and sound) + food & drinks + security + school project. The priorities of every batch differ. There are batches that placed majority of their funds in entertainment but sacrificed a bit on the food, drinks and school project. There are batches that prioritized the school project and delivered a so-so homecoming. Then there are batches that just had enough money and delivered a little of everything. That’s where I would categorize our batch.
Tip: Have a plan A and a plan B. Plan A is the grandiose type of preparation, your aspiration. If plan A doesn’t happen, plan B should be readily be in place, just right to complete your obligations. In car analogy, Plan A is your BMW 3 series while plan B is the trusty Toyota Corolla, it gets you from point A to B with no frills.
5- FUND RAISING.
Now that you have a figure in mind, the next step is to raise the funds. Logically, you should look into your batchmates who are financially more blessed than the others. For those who are just right, just identify an amount that you think would be acceptable. Other sources of funds would be sponsorships like corporations, politicians and projects like bingo, raffle, movie premiere, fun runs, golf tournaments. Tap into the connections of your batchmates. For our batch, 30% of the funds came from sponsorships.
Tips: (1) Breakdown the budget into bit sized chunks and check if there are individuals, groups or companies who are willing to shoulder the requirement. Example: A female host is in the neighbourhood of P20K so one of your batchmates may want to sponsor this amount or one of your sponsors can shoulder the amount and in exchange they get media mileage and selling activities.
(2) This shout out to our batchmates helped: WAYS YOU CAN HELP: (a) batch contribution, (b) contribution in kind (c) sponsorship, connection to (d) legwork and (e) All of the above!
6- PRE-WORK.
Now here’s the tricky part. You have a master plan but your bank account shows that you just have a fraction of what you actually need. This is where prioritization will come into play. The non-negotiable expenses include: FOOD & DRINKS, PHYSICAL ARRANGEMENT, PARKING & SECURITY and COMMPLAN. You can scrimp on ENTERTAINMENT and delay delivery of the SCHOOL PROJECT but as the DB Tarlac Rector Fr. Jay said and I quote “I am happy that the tradition of having a SCHOOL PROJECT by the hosting batch is not broken.” It would help if you “package” certain expenses such as entertainer with transpo, with partner lights & sound and led screen so that you cut on cost.
Tip: Prioritize expenses, find ways to cut on cost and nominate a strict FINANCE committee head so that the funds are well managed. Assign an AUDIT committee so that there is transparency in fund management.
7- COMMPLAN.
When is the best time to announce and how? Capitalize on social media, it’s free and easy. Streamers are still useful. Still the best way to get your message across is through the age old word of mouth. The announcement should be made just in time. If the homecoming is in January, announcements should be out around November or December.
Tip: Capitalize on Social Media (Facebook, Youtube, Twitter) but don’t miss out on the traditional forms such as word-of-mouth and streamers. WOM advertising is still effective.
8- HOMECOMING DAY.
In this day and age, you would need an event organizer. An event organizer may be a batchmate, a network of a batchmate or a professional team. Leave the event organizing to the experts. Just to give you an idea, a typical event organizer charges 10% to 20% of the event cost. Our batch was blessed to have a batchmate whose experience and skill was in event organizing hence big savings and a chance to showcase his talents. Now if you are budget challenged and opt not to hire the services of an event organizer, dig in to your network and consult with the experts. NOTE: Homecoming Day deserves a whole new entry. Pls. see related article Gametime: Homecoming Day
Tip: Leave the event organizing to the experts.
9- POSTWORK.
So you’re on your last step. Before you breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate, please make sure you clean up the venue, complete account payables, make sure the school project is delivered and savor the memories eternally by posting pictures and videos in the internet.
Tip: Settle all your obligations. Post pictures and videos. They’ll be your lasting memories of the homecoming.
At the end of the day, expect to have detractors and supporters. These are part of everything that we do and we should surrender to the fact that we can’t please everyone. What’s more important is that you did your best and be contented that you were able to practice your skills (such as leadership, negotiation, presentation), dig deep into your network and more experience under your belt.
Lastly, remember what St. John Bosco said: Run, Jump, Make Noise, Just avoid sin!
Mr. Dylan S. Lacsamana works for a leading Telco in the Philippines for over 2 decades. He is the Head of Process Management, Information Management and Quality Management for Sales & Customer Care. He belongs to a family of Bosconians: his father, his son, uncles, cousins, nephews & in-laws. He may be reached at dslhummer2002@gmail.com or visit their batch website at www.dbtarlac89.com for more details.
