'18 DMS Member Picnic Planning Thread

Hi.
This is where we are going to talk about the dms member picnic for next year. I think it went well for the quick turnaround of it all. I know some areas could have been better but all in all it went well.
Costs were covered with ticket sales and with contributions. Every committee got money added to the coffers with the generous silent auction.

Officially the polls could be open for a stupid amount of time. Let’s abstractly say this will be open for two weeks and we will take all data and squish it. So you have two weeks to ponder your votes.

Ok - let’s start collectively sketching this idea out so we can kinda sorta see where we’re headed
Pick a month that you feel would be best for the picnic. This year we were stuck in a bit of a time pinch and we grabbed one of the last logical spots possible. The city double booked the spot on accident - we would have the entire pavilion. I wasn’t even about to kick a party out when it was obvious that we could all fit and be happy together.

  • April
  • May
  • June
  • Explore months

0 voters

Did you feel the park was a good spot for us? The cost of rental was I believe $50 per hour. I purchased soap, drapes for the women restroom, toilet paper and small stuff to outfit it for the number of people coming. It was a very inexpensive option but it is dependent on weather.

  • Yes, let’s have it at that park again
  • No, let’s look at other options
  • I didn’t attend last years event

0 voters

What day/time is best for a picnic in your opinion?

  • Friday after work 6-8ish
  • Saturday Afternoon 11-3
  • Saturday Evening 5-7ish
  • Sunday Afternoon 11-3ish
  • Sunday Evening 5-7ish

0 voters

What did you think of the way we did the catering and food? We had people buy tickets at $5 (or was it $6) a person and we had a regal hookup from a members friend at Dickeys we bought pork and brisket, rolls, baked potatoes and relish trays from them and asked that members bring a side to share. It was obvious that we had a ton of very generous members who brought an abundance of food to share.

  • I enjoyed catering the meats and bringing a side
  • I would prefer paying nothing and having everyone bring something to share
  • No opinion

0 voters

We need help working on next years picnic - what would you be willing to do?[poll name=poll5 type=regular]

  • Work on talking with companies to get donations for the silent auction
  • Work on talking with members to get donations for the silent auction
  • Helping man/run the silent auction
  • Making/hanging posters
  • Helping man the name-tags and getting them out to members (I know how to organize this better)
  • Organizing food/the pavilion
  • Organizing activities for members
  • Cleanup
  • Setup
  • I just wanna have fun - don’t ring me into your rodeo woman
    [/poll]
3 Likes

@Team_Moderators could this be pinned till like July 29th or so? no biggie if you decide it’s not worthy.

If it isn’t double booked like last year, we’d have a BBQ Grill to do Hot Dogs or Burgers on, Cheap and easy.

2 Likes

@uglyknees Can we make it a longer event? 3 hours came and went so quickly. it felt like we showed up said hello to everyone, ate and then packed up to leave. The events never had any time to develop. Maybe we should push for a 5+ hour event. Your already giving up the middle of the day what is another few hours.

8 Likes

We really needed that pavilion. I’d hate to think about having to bring our own tables and chairs…

3 Likes

FWIW, here are some data to consider:

8 Likes

It did feel like it went by too quickly. I think a 5+ hour event would be great.

5 Likes

I’m with others- 5 hours would be better, 3 is too fast. We were enjoying a day and having fun together. “Start party, finish whenever” isn’t that on some of our Tee-shirts?

5 Likes

I think 5 is awesome. So forget the time stamps on the input but just shoot for a generalization ok.

2 Likes

We had such a great time at this, I would love for it to happen again. I love @Photomancer’s idea of grilling dogs and burgers too.

5 Likes

Grilling Dog grilling Burgers! Get it???

1 Like

Def agree needing the two pavilions! It seemed like in terms of the auction things that could be used to make things sold better?

Seating was an issue for sure. I’m pretty flexible but think it’s obvious that it should be on a weekend & longer.

4 Likes

The catered meats were good, but I’d gladly man a grill for a couple of hours instead. Providing burgers/sausage would be easy with the cost of the tickets, and a bring your own steak could be done for those that want a little bit more.

The variety of sides with everyone bringing them though is really hard to beat, but we could probably schedule that a little better with planning. I know we wound up with a lot of chips that didn’t get touched, and I know I’m to blame there as I brought quite a few bags.

I’ll also agree that we could make this run a bit longer as well, along with some more group activities, though I don’t have an idea for those.

2 Likes

Bring a dishes tend to often end up with too many chips and
deserts. I saw that in dog club and the SCA nature of the beast

One thing that can help is to tell folks to bring food for a certain lowish numbe
say 5 or 6 folks instead of trying to bring food for 25
But too much is always better than too little

1 Like

Alright guys it looks like we’re gaining some consensus on the poll. Keep the ideas and input coming.

I am new to the space and wasn’t able to attend this year but count me in helping for next year. Thanks!

2 Likes