Planning a Reunion in the QC
From large to small, reunions are a great way to stop and reconnect. Everyone is busy and life moves at a mile a minute so holding a reunion lets people come together and enjoy activities, gather at mealtime, and share stories. Reunions are for conversations, hearty laughter, quiet moments to remember, and time spent with each other.
Planning a reunion may seem daunting, but you do have help in your back pocket from Visit Quad Cities. Your local DMMO (destination management & marketing organization) or CVB (convention & visitors bureau) has a lot of resources and local expertise about the destination to help with ideas for activities, accommodations, and venues. Working with them can save you a lot of steps and phone calls…and their planning help is complimentary.
Start the Planning
- Decide the timing of the event.
- Is a long weekend ok? Is a week better for people traveling? Are you basing it around a QC event?
Put together a list of people to invite.
- Who will be coming from out of town?
- Draft a budget.
- Who can help with the organizing/planning? Who can help during the actual reunion?
If you don’t have one already, start a closed/private group on Facebook for easy communication.
- Don’t just use social media though. Getting something in the mail can be fun! And phone calls work well to encourage attendance.
Brainstorm about activities, places to visit, venues needed, and scheduling.
- You may want to start off with a silly mixer game to get everyone going and interacting.
Determine how people are going to register and contribute.
- Have someone else look over your invite for the basics—who, what, where, when—so you don’t forget something.
If you have a mix of ages coming, you can have different activities available for different age groups and then time/place for everyone to come back together. It’s ok if every minute of the reunion is not planned out. It gives you some flexibility as the planner, and everyone will appreciate some downtime. Visit Quad Cities can help you with booking activities for your reunion group and setting up the schedule.
Ideas for Reunions in the Quad Cities
- If you’d like to tour some hotels for a hotel block, Visit Quad Cities can help with that.
- Plan a “home base” for people to hang out when they want and stock it with board games, playing cards, little snacks, message board, photo booth with props, and photo albums or memorabilia people bring.
- Pick a couple museums to tour and get the group discount. There are so many in the QC covering a wide array of interests.
- Plan a bike ride on the riverfront bike path along the Mississippi River.
- Schedule a cooking class or chocolate tour at Chocolate Manor or Lagomarcino’s for your group.
- Go on a downtown walking tour using fun facts or just turn everyone loose to browse on their own.LeClaire is a popular spot for this.
- Not everyone grew up on farm so tour Cinnamon Ridge Farm to see the robotic dairy operations, and then see what’s growing at Miss Effie’s Flower Farm.
- Learn about local military history on the Rock Island Arsenal. There are several attractions on Arsenal Island to tour and visit.
- Make sure the local favorite QC foods are on the menu. You can also tour the Boetje’s Mustard production facility.
- Create a local scavenger hunt for everyone to explore Quad Cities landmarks as one group activity. Or make one just for the kids to look for items to check-off throughout the reunion for prizes at the end.
- Have a golf outing for some fun competition.The QC has courses for everyone’s ability.
- Get crafty and schedule a class at Crafted QC, Isabel Bloom, or Painting for a Purpose.
- Do you like music? Make time for a jam session, go to a live concert, or book a local musician for special entertainment.
- Plan an afternoon at one of the local parks for a cookout, games, and room for the kids to play.
- For the adults, blaze the QC Ale Trail and visit the local craft breweries.
- Get out on the water in a kayak or canoe, rent a pontoon boat, take a river cruise, or ride the Channel Cat Water Taxi.
Visit Quad Cities can also supply complimentary local information and brochures, along with plastic goodie bags for your welcome materials. We can also help with name badges at a minimal cost. Nametags with BIG lettering are really helpful if not everyone knows each other well.
To keep the memories after the reunion is over, you may want to give everyone a mini-journal to write in during the reunion, start an online blog for people to share thoughts/reflections/memories and give everyone a login (this could even be a shared Google doc or other cloud-based document), or start a Google photo album so everyone can share their photos in one place.
Happy Reunion Planning!