Last Day Celebration and Final Thoughts

The Last day event turned out to be quite a success. We believe everyone enjoyed the entirety of the event due to comments from the group and by the looks of how much fun they were having.

We did have a few positives in negatives from the event. I’ll start with the negatives. First, we started out kind of early—15 minutes. The events also took much less time than we expected. I guess I would rather allot too much time than not enough, although we should try better planning in the future to allot correct amount of time. Doing an event in half the time could cause other problems like major scheduling conflicts if this was a much bigger event. We also need to be open to last-minute changes. Since we were not able to get the paddleboards, we had to change the rules slightly for that particular event. We should also learn to keep up with protests. If there are multiple protests to a certain ruling or the way something is being done, we should listen and see if there may be something else we can work out. The last negative thing was that people were upset that the tiebreaker event only included one person from their team. They would rather it had been a team event.

Even with the negative, there were positives. First of all, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the Australian feel of the event. They liked the fact that they were connecting with Australian culture on a certain level and felt it was a good last celebration before leaving. Another positive is that everyone got involved. We had been worried from the beginning about objection to getting involved with the event. We were happy to find that everyone seemed excited and were looking forward to the event. The other positive thing was that everyone was able to cheer on their team. There seemed to be a lot of team comradeship with cheering for their team and telling each other they did a good job. This also kept everyone involved with what was going, which is another positive.

All in all, we believe the Last Day Celebration Event was a success! Events going on that night were also a success. We planned for just the right amount of food and made sure to greet and speak to all the guests who attended. Pam was extremely happy with the way the BBQ had turned out.

I have a few final thoughts on the class as a whole. All in all, I felt like I learned a lot from doing an event with just one other person, but I guess I felt a little unimportant. I understand there was only two of us and we all have busy lives, but I feel I would’ve learned more if we had met at least once a week, or at least had better communication. It got tiring to have to e-mail every week to just figure out a time to meet. I loved the laid-back style of the class, but this was maybe too laid back. I don’t know if I really understand how this class usually works, but I guess I was expecting a little more guidance.

Some things I like overall about the course is that I was able to really hone in on my organizational skills. With many things to take care of in a short amount of time, it was necessary to try to keep things as organized as possible or everything would get out of control. I also liked the theory part of the course a lot. That was really interesting to me. Having worked in the Recreation Department my whole college career, it was interesting to see what people in a higher position than me have to do and think about when a big event is coming up and even everyday due to the department’s popularity. It was good for me to be able to see the real managerial and planning side of this so that I may better understand what’s really important and what’s not. The information I learned in this class will definitely help me as I continue my career with the Recreation department this summer, especially if I’m asked to plan an event.

Thanks for an awesome semester!

Kimberly Lytle