Reunion Committee Duties

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Reunions allow people to gather together to celebrate the past that has shaped their present. Reunions are a time to catch up with schoolmates you haven't seen in 10 or 20 years. Extended families get together to renew the bonds that make them families. Unfortunately, reunions don't just happen. As with weddings, there are lots of details that have to be ironed out before the day of the event. Having a committee where each member oversees one area of planning can help the event run smoothly.

The Committee

For a small, less formal reunion, a family one for example, a committee of three to four people is useful. One member can oversee contacting all those to be invited, one can find a location for the event and/or plan activities for the group, and one member can be in charge of the budget, collecting the money and paying event-related expenses. Having a fourth committee member that can design and update a website for the event is also helpful. The bigger and more formal the reunion, the more people will be needed on each committee to plan and run the event.

Invitation Committee

The invitation committee chairman and her team are responsible for getting the names, current addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of all those to be invited to the event. If the reunion is a yearly event, it would be wise to make and keep an updated list. The current chairman would be responsible for updating the list and giving it to the chairman who will head the committee the following year. This committee would be responsible for contacting all the invitees. Depending on how formal the event is, invitations could be delivered by phone, through e-mail or in writing. The committee would be responsible for keeping a running total of people planning to come and having that information available to the events committee and the finance committee.

Planning Committee

The planning committee would be responsible for finding a venue big enough to hold the reunion. This could be as simple are reserving a shelter in a local park on a specific date for a family reunion, or as complex as making the reservations at a hotel or convention center for a large reunion. The planning committee could be responsible for planning or organizing activities for the event, or there can be a separate activities committee that is under the oversight of the planning committee or is a separate committee altogether. The planning committee chairperson would work with the finance chairperson to ensure that planned events are within the reunion budget and the monies collected for those events go to pay for them.

Finance Committee

The finance committee would be responsible for collecting all the money from the attendees for the reunion and disbursing that money to pay for the cost of the event. The finance committee must keep an eye on the bottom line to ensure the other committees are not spending more money than budgeted. Depending on how large the event is, the chairman and one or two other members may need to set up a checking account at a local bank to deposit all money from ticket sales and event fees, and to pay all reunion-related bills. For large events, the committee may have to appoint different people to be in charge of deposits and signing checks for bills to avoid any possible financial impropriety on the part of the committee members. The finance committee chair would work closely with both the invitation committee and planning committee chairs to ensure the event runs smoothly and remains on budget.

Website Committee

The website committee would be responsible for designing and updating the event website. The committee would work with the other committee chairs to post what information they think the attendees will need. Some information the site could contain is chairman contact address, maps to all events, hotel information and a running list of who is coming or pictures from previous reunions.