Grad Night 2002 Lessons Learned and Advice

Planning

• Decide on a venue as early as possible.
• Camelot Park in Livermore is our normal venue. Some people are concerned that it's so far away, but at night with no traffic, it's about a 30-40 minute bus ride. We tried Citybeach, which is in Santa Clara, but the seniors were not happy with it, so we went back to Camelot Park.
• The contact at Camelot Park has been Patrick Johnson. Here's the trick to calling him: Call 925-447-7275, then push 0 to bypass Phonemail and get to a real person. Ask for Patrick. His e-mail is [email protected].
• Reserve a date as soon as possible. Other schools may have the same idea.
• Get a contract as soon as possible and review it.
• Make sure the bus contract has the required riders to cover PTA liability. See 2001's. The bus company has been Royal Coach Tours. They can send a copy of the bus contract, in case you can't get it from Camelot Park (Camelot Park contracts with the bus company).
• We had the Grad Night meetings just before the PTSA meeting. The problem was that we sometimes still had unfinished business by the time the PTSA meeting started. Also, we needed to get funding items voted on, and by the time the PTSA meeting itself started, we sometimes did not have enough for a quorum, since many people went off to other meetings. To get around that, we had voting on funding issues at the start of the PTSA meeting before everyone could escape, but we had no time for discussion (which may be a good thing). The PTSA is going to try to amend the by-laws so we can vote on funding issues with less people, but we may not be successful in that.

Publicity

• Get publicity out early, often, and consistently.
• Get permission to set up posters. I had Mr. Heller initial the posters I put up to make them official.
• Fasten posters securely with tape on all edges. Many posters were torn down.
• Strategic locations for posters:
• Kiosk in Quad
• By restrooms
• Above water fountains
• Library entrance
• Main building entrance
• On wall by cafeteria near lines
• In main building near other posted notices.
• Grad Night ticket sale announcements should be announced on the daily bulletin. I E-mailed Mr. Heller (Mr. Roark next year) to get it on the PA. To get it on the Website, E-mail Ms. Katemopoulos.
• Grad Night articles should be put into the Lincoln Highlights newsletter. Margie Krasno did the newsletter this year.
• Don't forget the Lincoln Plus and Lincoln students who go to SJCC for classes. They are still Lincoln seniors and qualify to go, but they may not get the publicity through the normal routes.
• One untapped source of publicity: the Lincoln Lion Tales newspaper. This would be a good place to put ads and testimonials from seniors who went to Grad Night, especially the famous ones, like the performing arts or athletics students.
• We didn't send out a letter to senior parents. We should do that next year and include a Spanish translation.

Fundraising

• Solicit a donation from Lincoln Foundation. Write a letter early in the year. They may donate $500-$1000.
• Eggroll sales are a sure money-maker, but require someone to order the eggrolls, pick them up, and sell them at lunch. It requires people who can spend time at lunch a couple times a week over a period of several months.
• AP lunch is a big one-shot money-maker, but it requires a lot of time and planning.

Ticket Sales

• Final ticket sale count was just under 200. We had 200 wristbands. Only about 7 were unused. 200 is the minimum that we had to pay for.
• The tickets were $60 each this year. A $5000 deposit was due May 1. The balance ($7000) was due May 30. Technically, the check-in list was also due then. By that time, we had sold only about 60 tickets, some of which were scholarships, so we only had taken less than $3000. Luckily, we had lots of money in the PTSA coffers. Next year, we may not be so lucky. We have to get fundraising going so we have more money in reserve. We need to sell more tickets earlier.
• Ticket sales is a lot of work. People need to be free at lunchtime for a couple hours.
• Ticket sales start out slow. Selling tickets before the Prom is a hard sell, even with incentives.
• Students procrastinate. They will wait until the last possible minute.
• Parents often don't know what's going on until the last minute, when they say, "Why didn't anybody tell me."
• The yellow card that the students filled out was blank, so we had to rely on the students to put all the right information on it. The ticket sellers don't have time to check it. Camelot Park requires this information. Many students did not put their birthdate on it. I had to call them. One girl didn't want to give it to me. I was able to get some of the dates from the waiver sheets. We also had to supply their zip codes. We forgot to ask. Most people did not put it down. I had to look up almost 200 zip codes or guess at it from a Thomas Guide. Next year, we should find a way to pre-print these cards.
• Print and hand out an instruction sheet when they buy a ticket. See this year's.
• Next year, maybe we should have variable ticket prices, like they do with the Prom. We've done that before.

Food

• Use last year's donors as a starting point, but don't be afraid to ask around. Look and see who is close to Lincoln. New places open and old places close.
• Noah's Bagels in Los Gatos was a last-minute addition. They donated 2 huge bags of bagels, which was great, but actually too much. I went there at 6:00, when they close. They gave us all their leftover bagels, since they can't re-use them the next day. We only needed 1 bag. They don't provide cream cheese, so that had to be bought separately. Someone said that Costco had small packets of cream cheese, but I couldn't find them, so I went to Safeway and bought tubs of cream cheese, along with plastic knives for spreading. I brought metal knives for cutting the bagels. They didn't touch the flavored cream cheeses. They only used the regular cream cheese.
• Starbucks coffee donated a large insulated container of pre-brewed coffee.
• Giorgio's makes great pizza. They originally donated a gift coupon for 1 pizza to be used as a fundraiser prize. However, when the manager found out that we wanted the pizza to feed the kids at Grad Night, she donated 5 pizzas instead.
• Round Table on Willow Glen donated 5 pizzas. They originally said they would give us insulated bags, but they wanted a refundable $20 deposit per bag. I passed on that.
• To keep the Una Mas burritos and pizzas warm, I wrapped them up with bubble wrap. However, one burrito wasn't found until late, so it was cold.
• Last year, Una Mas donated chips and salso. This year they didn't, so I bought them.
• Next year: need more pizzas. They loved the pizzas. Tell them to cut the pizzas thin. We had pizza cutters.
• Bruchetta wasn't a big hit.
• Too many cookies.
• I bought 1 tub of red vines (300) at Costco. I don't know how well they went.
• Carrots were popular last year, but not this year. Last year, we had ranch dip. This year, we didn't have dip. They didn't eat many vegetables. 1 tray should be sufficient. Bring dip.
• They really liked the eggrolls, but most didn't need the sauce. They grabbed the eggrolls and ran.
• We needed more water, but we wasted a lot of water in the bottles that were part-drunk. Next year, maybe we should use cups and water jugs.
• We had enough soda. The same amount should be OK for next year.
• 1 person needs to guard the food as it is unloaded onto the sidewalk.
• Remember to ask ahead to get the custodian to allow access to the area where the drinks are stored. The drinks are heavy. We recruited students' help to move them.

Chaperones

• The park requires a minimum of 3 chaperones per 100. It doesn't hurt to have more, and is recommended.
• 1 chaperone per bus is required.

Bus Loading

• Need card tables, flashlights, signs.
• Bring fully-charged cell phones to call parents.
• There should be at least 3 tables. 4 is better. 2 people per table are needed.
• We need a couple of people as floaters to sub in if people are late or have to leave early.
• Student lists need to be made up and separated by alphabet.
• Bus loading is sheer chaos for the first half hour, then it settles down. Then you get stragglers. Some may come late because of dinner. Some may have thought that they were supposed to be there when the buses leave. We need to make it clear that they need to be there earlier.
• About 25 kids were there at 9:15.
• No restrooms were open. Tell the kids to go before they come.
• The buses came exactly at 10:30. We were getting worried for awhile. 5 buses came, with a total capacity of 235.
• The buses left just before 11:00. We had to wait for one student, who showed up just as the buses were leaving.
• We loaded up the food into the bottom of the buses in their storage compartments. We filled one and half of another. The big problem is to keep things from sliding and falling on top of each other.
• If you park inside the school, remember that the gates close at 11:00.

Ronald Horii
Last Update: 6/16/02