I need good ideas for a work activity/event!?!
Answers: I would like some help with new ideas for a work related mentor program event. We usually do things like restaraunts, talent shows, game day, etc. We also have a small budget. Can you help?
I would go with trying to make it the biggest event ever. If it's truly a mentor program do a little work and get the community involvled. I did this before, but it ended up spactacular. The organization we worked for was a not for profit family type thing that we had students working in over the summer. Before I planned the event, it was generally pretty low key, but again with a little effort it became huge.
First, hit up all your local vendors via email, and then follow up. We had the majority of our food donated. A lot of the people in the organization made food for the event, but it wasn't really necessary. We had a talent show as well, the prize for the event was a spa treatment (a young woman won so she picked this) that was donated, we had a poker tournament, a bingo tournament, a twister tournament, pictionary tournament, and best dressed. I believe there were more, but I am not sure. We also had a raffles that were announced through the day and an auction. The money was donated to a young single mother that was having difficulties paying for college.
The key is to make it a full day event that you just don't invite your employees and volunteers to, but also the vendors that you are soliciting. Then assure them they will have ample advertising. We of course took business cards, but we also made up a program. We started at 10AM and a local Dunkin Donuts donated 5 dozen donuts and 5 boxes of Joe with all the fixings. In the program we just made note that we will be serving breakfast complimentary of Dunkin Donuts. At 10:30 we had some type of race (I think not sure of the exact times now) and we made not in the program of what type of race it was with the prize donated by whoever. When that was over we had a note saying from 11:00 - 12:00 for everyone to have fun playing on the jumpy jump donated by that company while, the names of the companies that donating food, were setting up for a fantastic lunch. You don't need to have any one company donate a whole bunch of stuff, we ended up getting a large sub tray from Subway, a few pizzas from a local shop, a large tray of ziti from another, salad from another, well you get the point. Everyone wasn't able to eat from every tray, but there was plenty of food for everyone. After that the talent show sponsored by whoever it was, then poker sponsored by whoever. You get the point. We were there until about 10:00 at night with activities. We planned one about every hour until about 8 at night, including dinner. Everybody didn't participate in every activity, but there was plenty of fun all day long. For dessert we asked people to enter a dessert contest, and of course it was sponsored by another company. We had 5 volunteer judges who picked the best dessert. The rest of the guests were able to enjoy them, without having to buy them. We were even able to get Elizabeth Arden to donate a perfume box. You would be surprised at what you can do.
I did this for two years and found a new job, but I still attend this event every year. It's fun for the whole family. The key is to make sure that you have plenty of printed event listings for everyone, make sure you have told all the companies that you are going to advertise all the help they have provided, and make sure you invite the owner/manager of the company.
We even allowed each company to create their own description of the food with their heading next to the dishes they created. For the auction we had quite a few restaurants that offered free meals, a variation from McDonald's to a very high end French restaurant and allowed them to present and thank the guests for their patronage. Seeing the faces made it quite an event.
Baseball games, picnics, day at the beach, visit a historical site. Night of bowling.
Wow, its funny you ask, I'm a program coordinator for retirees. what is your age population? ages 8-18 you could alot. Have volunteers come in and have discussion. for example, my populations issues are, foot care, living wills, insurance fraud. Look on the website to national awareness months. October is National Breast Cancer, check to see what the other months have, you would be surprised. Request literature for the age group. Write proposal to different places, dance theaters to have instructors or students volunteer their time.
